Programming Language Popularity Increases for R, Julia, and Rust (but Not Go) (techrepublic.com) 17
TechRepublic reports:
The TIOBE Index is a monthly indicator of programming-language popularity based on factors including skilled engineers, courses, and third-party vendors. The October 2026 rankings show a largely stable top 10, with R overtaking SQL and Julia returning to the top 20 for the first time in three years. [SQL has risen to #9 from #10 in October of 2025 — back when R ranked only #13.]
Python remains No. 1, followed by C, C++, Java, C#, and JavaScript, while Rust holds its No. 10 position. [A year ago Rust ranked only #16.] Outside the top 10, Julia climbs from No. 21 to No. 18, and TIOBE introduces Mandarin Chinese search terms into its methodology to broaden the index's geographic representation.
Dropping out of the top ten is Go, which fell from #8 in October of 2025 to #11. And Delphi/Object Pascal has plummeted from #9 to #19.
TIOBE CEO Paul Jansen argues that Julia's growing popularity "is largely driven by the demand for modern programming languages that combine high performance with ease of learning, particularly for numerical computing." Python offers an accessible, high-level approach to numerical computing, but performance can become a bottleneck. C++, on the other hand, delivers excellent performance but comes with a steeper learning curve and a lower level of abstraction. Julia aims to bridge this gap by combining the best of both worlds...
Apart from Julia, two other languages are knocking on the door of the TIOBE top 20: Dart and OCaml. Dart jumps from #41 to #27 this month. Thanks to its popular UI toolkit Flutter, Dart has been hovering around the edge of the top 20 for quite some time. OCaml, on the other hand, might come as a surprise. It jumps from #38 to #26 this month, driven in part by its growing use in real-time trading systems and parsing technology.
Python remains No. 1, followed by C, C++, Java, C#, and JavaScript, while Rust holds its No. 10 position. [A year ago Rust ranked only #16.] Outside the top 10, Julia climbs from No. 21 to No. 18, and TIOBE introduces Mandarin Chinese search terms into its methodology to broaden the index's geographic representation.
Dropping out of the top ten is Go, which fell from #8 in October of 2025 to #11. And Delphi/Object Pascal has plummeted from #9 to #19.
TIOBE CEO Paul Jansen argues that Julia's growing popularity "is largely driven by the demand for modern programming languages that combine high performance with ease of learning, particularly for numerical computing." Python offers an accessible, high-level approach to numerical computing, but performance can become a bottleneck. C++, on the other hand, delivers excellent performance but comes with a steeper learning curve and a lower level of abstraction. Julia aims to bridge this gap by combining the best of both worlds...
Apart from Julia, two other languages are knocking on the door of the TIOBE top 20: Dart and OCaml. Dart jumps from #41 to #27 this month. Thanks to its popular UI toolkit Flutter, Dart has been hovering around the edge of the top 20 for quite some time. OCaml, on the other hand, might come as a surprise. It jumps from #38 to #26 this month, driven in part by its growing use in real-time trading systems and parsing technology.
Rust good match for AI code generation (Score:5, Interesting)
With more and more software development being turned over to AI coding agents, in many respects the language itself no longer matters. However I'm not surprised Rust is growing in popularity, driven by AI code generation. And it's a good match for that. While a lot of human developers find Rust difficult to learn and work with, AI agents have no such difficulties and the Rust compiler guarantees help mitigate some of the problems from mediocre, generated code.
I've seen quite a few projects introduced lately that all use AI code generation and Rust. And frankly that's probably the only way I'm going to use Rust myself.
Re: Rust good match for AI code generation (Score:1)
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AI agents don't make choices. If they're using a language, it's either because they've been specifically asked to (by an end user) or because it's referred to a lot in the relevant training data (because of its noisy boosters).
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Obviously. But the agents will suggest an appropriate language if asked. I suspect Rust is being recommended more and more.
And agents regularly do make arbitrary decisions if you don't explicitly tell them what to do. For example I know someone working on a large project and the agent chose python and some Tk-based UI library without being asked.
And like I said, it doesn't matter if I know Rust or not anymore. I can simply choose it (because it's popular, or because it is "safe") and the agent will go to
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Sure they can choose a programming language for you. When I don't specify a programming language for my AI it invariably presents me with a Python solution.
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can't wait until we have all AI move to malbolge.
No problem with RUST, GO is an abomination (Score:1)
I have no issues with Rust. I find working in it personally is relatively easy, I am not sure why the assertion "human developers find Rust difficult to learn". Perhaps for developers with experience only with hand-holding managed languages it is. As a systems level language, it has the proper amount of added machinery to its output. Namely none. I am of the camp that thinks that there should not be a differentiation between systems and user languages, and that most "user" languages need to just go awa
Re: Rust good match for AI code generation (Score:1)
What is the benefit of AI using Rust? The value of Rust over C is that it prevents programming that has overlooked security. AI can use a language like C without overlooking security and then Rust has no benefit.
Hey, a TIOBE post! (Score:2)
Hadn't actually noticed one here for a few months. I thought maybe they'd died or something... but no such luck.
TIOBE is measuring a world that no longer exists (Score:5, Insightful)
TIOBE is based on counts of web search hits using the query "[language name] programming".
This methodology (that was questionable even when humans turned to web content created by other humans to seek help about programming languages) is now absolutely useless when humans use AI coding agents for programming.
The interactions that used to appear publicly in sites like Stack Overflow (new monthly questions posted down 98% from its peak) now belong in private chats between developers and their AIs, out of reach from web search indexers and thus invisible to TIOBE.
What TIOBE sees is mostly the fossilized landscape of two years ago. The rest is noise.
Re: TIOBE is measuring a world that no longer exis (Score:4, Insightful)
Fair point.
Go still sucks though.
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The fact that both subby and the editor (Score:2)
Why is R on this list? (Score:1)
Although R is technically a general purpose programming language, no-one uses for any other purpose but data analysis, including (Shiny) dashboards. Don't get me wrong, I love R and use it almost every day. But none of the other languages are for a singular purpose, except SQL.
OTOH, the fact that it's on the list is pretty amazing, given the point I've just made. As an R user, I've always felt that I was in a tiny minority, looked down upon by others. I wonder, are SPSS and SAS, Stata, Minitab etc. on this
Isn't English the top programming language today? (Score:2)
All around everywhere I have been hearing how everyone is vibe coding their software for the last year or so. Or at least trying to use AI to write code while they try to manage what is going on. Wouldn't that make English or some other human language the top programming language today?
Dart! (Score:3)
I don't know how to code in Dart, but I've put a lot of sloppy dart code on github recently.
That's because while I've been coding for decades, I hate coding GUI libraries and I've not done much GUI as a result. The libraries are constantly changing and what you learned last year is out of date and you have to learn the next fashion statement library.
But AIs don't hate GUI code, so I've been making a bunch of GUI programs I wouldn't otherwise make.
Flutter is a quite good cross platform GUI library and you program it in Dart and the programs compile to MacOs, IOS, Android, Windows, Linux and Web. This works better than any other cross platform system I've used over the years. The on-ramp is short because Claude knows how to code for it.
So a load of command line and TUI programs of mine have sprouted out into full GUIs coded by AI. GUI programming seems to be mostly boilerplate and functions with tens of parameters, which AI is quite capable at.
The making core crypto and analysis algorithms that are my day to day thing is for now the domain of humans. AI has never seen it before and so it doesn't know how to do it.