There are thousands of programming languages that are used to serve multiple purposes. Among them, Python stands out, among others, a fact that means it would be useful for more and more people to become familiar with it. Therefore, in the question “Why should I learn Python?” there is a series of arguments that demonstrate the usefulness of Python but also the reason why it is now the most popular programming language. Let's look more closely at some things about this language that may not be known.
Python is one of the most popular programming languages in the world. According to the latest ranking by analyst firm RedMonk, which tracks the popularity of programming languages, Python has climbed from third to second place. It's the first time a language other than JavaScript ( which remains at number one in the company's rankings) or Java has entered the top two spots since RedMonk began compiling its rankings in 2012.
According to the company's co-founder, Stephen O'Grady, RedMonk is not used to making small changes to the rankings, while changes are rarely seen at the top of the programming language list, where languages that have become established are found. JavaScript is the language that developers use to execute code in web browsers, and it is also increasingly used for other purposes, such as developing mobile and desktop applications and programs for drones. In addition, Java is the language most commonly used to write Android applications, and it is a basic infrastructure for software development.
However, Python's ever-growing success was not a given. The long transition period from Python 2 to Python 3, in particular, could have pushed developers in another direction. Python 3 was first released in 2008 and the team had initially planned to stop supporting Python 2 in 2015. This meant that no further bug fixes and security updates would be made. However, the team eventually extended the original deadline to 2020, when it became clear that many developers needed more time to update their code to the newer version.
During this transition period, developers could have chosen to move to a newer programming language, such as Mozilla's Rust , Google Go , or JetBrains' Kotlin . Meanwhile, younger developers could have chosen to learn more about the widely used JavaScript or even quit altogether due to the potential confusion that would arise regarding the educational tools, code samples, and open source libraries that would work with each version of Python. But even if Python lost some developers due to the transition, it now seems to be making up for it.
O'Grady says Python's growing popularity is largely due to its versatility, the ease with which it can be adapted to a variety of functions and activities. Companies like Google and apps like Dropbox and Instagram rely heavily on Python, as do countless smaller businesses. It's also the language of choice and most used by many scientists and mathematicians in academia for data crunching.
It's worth noting that RedMonk ranks programming languages based on two criteria: 1) the number of questions asked for each language on StackOverflow and 2) the number of projects based on each language hosted on Microsoft 's GitHub service .
According to a StackOverflow survey, Python is the third most popular programming language, not counting HTML, behind JavaScript and the search database language SQL. The survey also found that Python was the second-most popular language among respondents, after Rust. Meanwhile, the Tiobe index, which measures the number of search engine results for specific languages, shows that Python has been growing in popularity in recent years, and now ranks third in the index, behind Java and C.
However, there was some movement in RedMonk's ranking of the top 20 programming languages. O'Grady noted the rise of Dart, a language developed by Google, which jumped nine places, from 33rd to 24th, in the past 18 months.
Dart is a language used to write software that runs inside web browsers. Dart code is translated into JavaScript, which is supported by almost all modern browsers. O'Grady notes that the fact that it is a popular programming language is likely due to its use inGoogle's open-source programming framework Flutter, which was released in December 2018.
