Most Popular Programming Languages…

10 most popular programming languages for January 2023 with brief description of each:

See the KEY below for a description of AR/VR and IoT…

• JavaScript – Is used primarily with Web Development, Cloud Computing, Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality. JavaScript is the one language you will see most often embedded with other programming languages! This is why it currently holds the top spot at over 12 million developers. It is the language that makes a website interactive and interesting. No matter which language you learn, eventually you will be writing at least minimal droplets of this code if Web Developing!

• Python – Is primarily used for creating applications and websites, automating repetitive tasks, analyzing/displaying data, and Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality. Python is considered one of the easier programming languages, and used by non-programmers, such as accountants, data analysts, financiers and scientists. If you could pick only one language to learn, I would strongly suggest this one as a starter!

• Java – A popular Mobile and Cloud software, Java is another language for data, web development, application development, and Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality. This is a general-purpose programming language, and uses an object-oriented architecture.

• C++ – Is a cross-platform language that can be used to create high-performance applications. It is an extension to the C language and gives programmers a high level of control over system resources and memory. C/C++ can be found in today’s operating systems, Graphical User Interfaces, Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality and embedded systems. It is an object-oriented programming language which gives a clear structure to programs and allows code to be reused. It is portable and can be used to develop applications that can be adapted to multiple platforms. This is a very powerful language, and if you only knew this one language, you would be capable of doing almost anything!

• PHP – PHP is an open-source server-side scripting language that many programmers use for web development. It is also a general-purpose language that you can use to make projects, including Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). It is used to script websites that are dynamic and interactive. You’ll find it in various types of web applications, from e-commerce websites to CRM’s (customer relationship management) systems. If you want to create and work with Websites, this is the programming language for you! In order to use it for websites, you will need to know HTML and CSS too, but these languages are very easy to learn…

• C# – Is pronounced “C-Sharp”. It is an object-oriented programming language created by Microsoft that runs on the .NET Framework. It has roots from the C family, and the language is close to other popular languages like C++ and Java. Some of the more popular uses are Mobile, Desktop, Web, Web services, Web sites, Games, Database applications, and Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality.

• Visual Dev Tools – Visual programming is a sort of programming language that allows users to illustrate processes. A visual programming language enables developers to explain the process in words that are understandable to humans, as opposed to a traditional text-based computer language that forces the developer to think like a machine. With a visual programming tool, the developer sketches out the application’s flow to generate a to-do list. Displays, user interactions, as well as what happens to the information at each stage are all described in the flowchart. After that, the tool converts it to software. Kodu, Blockly and executable UML are popular examples of visual programming languages.

• Swift – According to APPLE; Swift is a robust and intuitive programming language created by Apple for building apps for iOS, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. It’s designed to give developers more freedom than ever. Swift is easy to use and open source, so anyone with an idea can create something incredible. I know nothing about this language, but after doing some digging, it is not just for Apple apps or products.

• Kotlin – Kotlin is a programming language that is compatible with Java and other languages. One of its primary features is productive programming—it provides many ways to reuse code between multiple platforms. Kotlin’s clean language design and powerful features offer an accessible user experience. To be honest with you, it looks a lot like PHP to me! Again, this is a new language to me, but I’m putting it in this article because it is one of the most used…

• Go – Also called Golang or Go language, is an open source programming language used for general purpose. Go was developed by Google engineers to create dependable and efficient software. Most similarly modeled after C, Go is statically typed and explicit. And finally, another language I have no knowledge of, but is in the top 10.

Conclusion:

The bottom line is: If you have never programmed before, I strongly suggest you learn Python as your first language! Python is a very stable language, and if comprehended, you will benefit by understanding what programming is all about. There are many useful tasks you can write a program for in Python, and these programs are stand-alone, meaning you will not need to know anything else to use them.

While JavaScript is easily the most popular on the list above, and supported by all major browsers, you will need to know HTML and CSS too, because JavaScript is fully integrated with those languages. Granted, HTML and CSS are very simple, but now we are talking about learning (3) languages, not one!

BTW, when I say simple, it just means compared to all other programming languages! Regardless of what language you start in, you will be thoroughly confused at first, then eventually come around and will all start to make sense. BASIC was truly simple, but guess what — you will not use BASIC as a programming language these days to do anything meaningful or worth while; it is outdated!

Michael Wright

In addition, you will need to understand how browsers work, so here is another learning curve! Now let’s talk about PHP! If you are going to use JavaScript to code websites, you will inevitably run into PHP code along the way, as PHP is also one of the most used programming languages (see our list above). Now we are talking about (4) programming languages plus the familiarity of working with browsers. Believe me, PHP might not be the most difficult language to learn, but it is comparable to Python.

There are advocates out there who will say, “JavaScript is not just a scripting language, you can do other things with it too!” That’s true, but JavaScript runs on 99% of the websites out there, so it is mainly used as an engine to fuel website interaction, as I stated above (in conjunction with HTML and CSS and many times PHP), and not for the other reasons the advocates will convince you!

The GOOD NEWS! I am not suggesting not learning multiple programming languages, but rather you stick your big toe in one language first, then if you are happy and excited with programming, learn more.

My first exposure to programming was looking at a BASIC program written on a long folding sheet of printer paper, trying to figure out what a coworker was doing. Reading the lines of code, I realized it wasn’t complicated, so asked him to show me how to write a program. He instead gave me a readout of a non-working program (had several BUGS in it), and I quickly found the issues. I was so excited that I decided to try my hand at something useful, and wrote my first simple program — I was hooked!

BASIC stands for “Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.” Originally designed as an interactive mainframe time-sharing language in 1963; widely used on PCs everywhere.

BASIC Originators: John Kemeney and Thomas Kurtz

Here is a quick history brought on by my revelation of Programming:

Wrote the program mentioned above in BASIC…

Immediately purchased a scientific calculator that uses only (1,004) program steps. Wrote a program to show what a computer’s output should be (if working correctly). It was successful, and I became more interested in what I could do next. Believe me, it’s not easy to write a program with so few steps, but it made me learn to be very efficient, and write very tight code!

Continued to write simple programs using Basic, like time-tracking employee hours and vacation.

After reading a book on C/C++ and learning (but not yet applying what I knew), I started to become disappointed in the language because I wanted more control over the PC! I immediately started to look into other programming languages. Because we already had a software engineer who was fluent in C/C++, I decided it might be more useful to learn something totally different. We also had a hardware engineer who was learning C/C++, and he came to me one day asking why his program would not work. I immediately identified the issue, and realized at that moment programming was in my blood!

Because I wanted the ability to completely control a computer, I learned Assembly Language using a program called TASM (Turbo Assembler), and within (5) weeks started to write simple programs that controlled our computers. I was hooked on this, so wrote additional programs to do other useful tasks, such as automatically editing files that we used to do by hand (for several hours vs 2-3 seconds using my program). Then I wrote a program to keep track of tasks that others were doing, and this required collecting data from the user, and so on. I continued to hone my skills with Assembly Language.

Turbo Assembler is assembly language software developed and published by Borland in 1989. It runs on and produces code for 16- or 32-bit x86 MS-DOS and compatible on Microsoft Windows. It can be used with Borland’s other language products: Turbo Pascal, Turbo Basic, Turbo C, and Turbo C++. The Turbo Assembler package is bundled with Turbo Linker and is interoperable with Turbo Debugger.

Borland Software Corporation

Later, I took up another occupation, and wrote programs in scripting languages such as MS-Dos and Shell Scripts program for Windows. Then I started dabbling in macros using Visual Basic, and eventually wrote a full-blown program in VBA, Visual Basic for Applications which is the programming that controls all the Microsoft Office applications, such as Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Access. Normally you would just write quick macros using this language, but I created a full-blown application I called AutoMan (Automation Management) and it was used to help me manage all operations and personnel.

What Is VBA? Visual Basic for Applications is a human-readable and editable programming code that generates when a macro is recorded and then ran. It is widely-used with other Microsoft Office applications such as MS-Word, MS-Excel, MS-PowerPoint, MS-Outlook, and MS-Access plus others.

Microsoft Corporation

After leaving that occupation, I then decided to start my own business building websites and selling all things related, such as Domains, Web Hosting, Email, SSL Certificates and everything else that goes with a website. In order to pull this off, I had to learn PHP, HTML, CSS, MySQL, and dabbled in JavaScript and AJAX, which is a part of JavaScript. To put it simply, once you truly learn to program, and I mean really understand what you are doing, learning another language comes natural.

AJAX = Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. AJAX is not a programming language. AJAX just uses a combination of: A browser built-in XMLHttpRequest object (to request data from a web server), and JavaScript and HTML DOM (to display or use the data). AJAX is a misleading name. AJAX applications might use XML to transport data, but it is equally common to transport data as plain text or JSON text. AJAX allows web pages to be updated asynchronously by exchanging data with a web server behind the scenes. This means that it is possible to update parts of a web page, without reloading entire page.

https://www.w3schools.com/xml/ajax_intro.asp

Here lately, I decided to learn Python, and must say it is a great language! If I had to start all over again however, I would chose Python first, and then move on to all the other languages. The goal for me is to be a Full Stack Web Developer. A Full Stack Web Developer is a person who can develop both client-side and server-side software. In addition to mastering HTML and CSS, a programmer must be capable of : Programming a browser (like using JavaScript, jQuery, Angular, or Vue) Program a server (like using PHP, ASP, Python, or Node) Program a database (like using SQL, SQLite, MySQL or MongoDB). I don’t consider myself a Full Stack Web Developer, as I am not proficient enough in all the languages necessary, such as JavaScript. But that doesn’t stop me from learning daily, and honing the next-step skills. When I am finished with Python, I will go back to JavaScript and become proficient.

“Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.”

Martin Fowler

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