Every aspect of our social life is increasingly dependent on science and technology. From factory production and commercial trade to social interaction, software developers can be found in almost every industry. Computer programming has quickly become one of the most lucrative careers, and the average salary for computer programmers keeps hitting new highs, currently approaching nearly $100,000 in the United States.
If you are considering learning to program, the first question you want to understand is which language you should learn. Answering this question is not easy; there are many things to consider, such as what kind of work you plan to do with programming and where you want to develop your career. Today we have prepared a bunch of data and other information for you that can help you make a decision. Here, we are not trying to answer which programming languages are better or worse; we are simply using the data we collected and the opinions of different people to objectively reflect the differences between various languages.
Programming languages are often used for:
The question you should answer first is: what kind of programming work do you plan to do? Do you want to create beautiful websites or design mobile games for iOS and Android? Do you want to develop client-side applications for individual users or work on large enterprise software development? Financial and enterprise systems need to implement many complex functions and a high degree of organization, which requires learning C# and Java. Websites and software related to media and design, on the other hand, require dynamic, versatile, and functional lightweight programming languages, such as Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, and Objective-C.
What is the salary situation for programming languages?
Although a few software developers can earn salaries that are 5.5 times higher than the average for their peers, we still have to mention the overall differences in salary among people working with different programming languages. Below we have compiled a set of annual average salaries for developers working with different types of programming languages in France, Germany, the UK, and the US.
Job market statistics for programming languages
A high salary is certainly important, but remember that the prerequisite for getting such a generous salary is having someone employ you. There are many technologies that pay well, but they are highly specialized, involve a narrow field, and very few people know them. For example, Fortran is not very popular, and only a few people are willing to touch it, but you will find that this language, which has been around for decades, is indeed well paid. On the other hand, when you choose to learn the most in-demand language on the market, you will find that there are always dozens of competitors applying for the same position as you. Below we have collected job statistics from different places.
Popularity of programming languages
When talking about the popularity of programming languages, the number of job openings is not the only criterion for measuring it. Let's look at rankings of "the most popular programming languages" under different criteria.
1. What is the TIOBE index?
The TIOBE programming index is a ranking of programming language popularity, based on statistics of search query volumes on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Baidu, Wikipedia, and YouTube. TIOBE only considers Turing-complete languages, so some popular languages like HTML and SQL are not ranked.
2. The survey is provided by Lynda.com, a company that offers thousands of video courses on software, creative, and business skills.
3. RedMonk takes a different approach, determining language popularity by measuring the frequency of project creation on GitHub and question asking on Stack Overflow.
In conclusion:
There is no such thing as a "good" or "bad" language; the best language is the one that suits you best and that you truly love. Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life!
Source: http://www.techug.com/best-programming-language