Set your sights on the world’s fastest growing programming language

1. Set your sights on the world’s fastest growing programming language We all are fascinated about the world of computers and more so the type of programming language that we use to run our systems and applications. During the earlier days of programming or even till recently, COBOL was ruling the roost and we all know about the famous Y2K problem that has swept the world, eventually leading to the sudden spurt in the demand for COBOL programmers. However, the popularity of this language has faded and it was slowly replaced with other programming languages such as C, C++, Java, Visual C++, etc. However, with the advent of mobile technologies and Data Analytics, the importance of conventional programming languages is slowly taking a back seat in terms of the number of students or professionals opting for such languages. So, the next interesting question that comes to our mind is which is the fastest growing language among all the languages in the current digital age? Is Java still ruling the roost or is it the .Net platform? Though Java might still be a dominating language in the software field, however, according to the analysis by the developer hub Stack Overflow, Python has emerged as the most popular programming language across the globe. More so, Python is now ranked fourth in TIOBE index (an index that ranks the popularity of the

2. programming languages) for the first time. The index calculates the results, based on the findings from top search engines. Why is this craze for Python? Because of the current boom in machine learning, the popularity of Python has increased several notches and now you find several developers learning Python. Apart from that, the high-level applicability of this language in big data analytics, ranging from web, and desktop apps to system operations has only fuelled this demand further. Similar to Perl, Python is used as a script language for builds and glue software. However, it has also slowly penetrated into other domains, particularly in large embedded systems. According to TIOBE, Python has also become quite popular in the teaching profession with majority of the introductory programming courses in US universities having this as a subject. The advantages of Python are many. One of the core reasons for its rising popularity is its code, which is relatively easy to read and comprehend, while supporting multiple programming models. Apart from that, it supports a wide range of software libraries that can easily be placed into the code and at the same time, offering flexibility to scale to major applications. You can find a lot of high-quality tutorials and also self-learning videos to get a strong foundation in this programming language. Of course, any popular programming language also comes with its own downsides. A major disadvantage of Python is its sluggish performance. Apart from that, it is incompatible with mobile development and poses severe constraints in managing the database access. However, despite its shortcomings, it is still a popular language, holding a promising future. So, now is the time to take a leap to learn this popular language for embarking a fruitful IT career.