What's the next programming language you want to learn?

Choose from the top 10 programming languages in 2018. Or add yours to the comments.
228 readers like this.
2885 votes tallied
Python
37% (1068 votes)
C++
6% (185 votes)
Java
5% (152 votes)
C
3% (86 votes)
C#
4% (124 votes)
PHP
2% (49 votes)
R
5% (138 votes)
JavaScript
9% (251 votes)
Go
25% (709 votes)
Assembly
4% (123 votes)

What's the next programming language you want to learn?

In July, IEEE Spectrum released their fifth annual interactive ranking of the top programming languages. They have a pretty cool and complex process for ranking 47 chosen programming languages because saying which really is the most popular is complicated. As they put it: "Different programmers have different needs and domains of interest."

The report is decent attempt, and we agree that Python is hot right now. R and Go are others we hear developers, sysadmins, and engineers talk a lot about. And, you'd be remiss to leave off the tried and trues that start with Cs and Js.

We want to know: Which language will you learn next? And why did you choose that one? 

Maybe it seems like everyone else is learning it and you should too. Maybe your boss hinted at the need to learn it. Or, maybe it's all you... you've got that side project or hobby that needs tending to with just the right language to build that cool thing.

Tags
Programming
Poll
Jen Wike Huger
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Jen leads a team of community managers for the Digital Communities team at Red Hat. She lives in Raleigh with her husband and daughters, June and Jewel.
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14 Comments

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Matt | October 26, 2018
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I want to learn Rust, but I have no real use for it other than tinkering around at home. Might pick up Ruby again since we are using Chef more at work now.

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Carson | October 26, 2018
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I also want to learn Rust. And Swift. These languages seem to have interesting advantages.

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Ricardo J. Barberis | October 28, 2018
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Rust, Swift and Go seem like nice targets for a new language to learn, certainly 3 of the most hyped lately.

I'm more inclined to learn Rust in the near future.

And I'd also like to dab in Lua some time, maybe at work we could use it with PowerDNS.

Cheers!

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James Gibson | October 26, 2018
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Python because it's used in machine learning so that should pay pretty well and provide some job security.

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Kaushal Modi | October 26, 2018
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Nim language (https://nim-lang.org)! It's one of the faster growing language communities. Great language (crudely speaking: a statically typed language that compiles to C, C++, JS, and looks like Python, but is very portable). Great language, and great community!

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Cameron Watson | October 26, 2018
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Racket + Rust for me

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bzitzow | October 26, 2018
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Elixir:

Expressiveness of Ruby
First class toolchain
First class documentation
Speed of Java
Scaling & Concurrency power of erlang virtual machine

Web Applications
Distributed Systems
Embedded Software

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Egalize | October 29, 2018
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Please include LISP in the list

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Tirthajyoti Sarkar | October 29, 2018
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Depending on the goal of the programmer (whether (s)he wants to build app for mobile, server, web, or embedded), the popularity changes a lot. The IEEE Spectrum article has a nice breakup by that.

Thanks for creating this poll here Jen!

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James | October 30, 2018
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Well, none of the ones on the list ;)

The next one for me will be more of a math-y / functional language like OCaml or Haskell.

At some point I want to learn a stack based language like Forth, mainly just to understand how such languages are put together.

I would also like to spend time to investigate using guile and/or e-lisp to solve 'scripting' problems.

So much to learn, so little time. ;)

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Carlos Negron | October 30, 2018
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I currently use the too level languages so I've had my eye on go for a while. I just wish google would settle on one language for their platforms. For example, android dev went from java, to kottlin, now flutter with d driving underneath.

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Chris Moller | October 30, 2018
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D. C on steroids. I've been saying for years that C++ adds a lot of complexity to get not a whole lot of useful additional function. D fixes that.

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Manjaro Man | October 30, 2018
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Elixir and Kotlin are on my list.

Elixir for web development (with Phoenix)
Kotlin for Android development

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Chris Hermansen | October 30, 2018
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Julia is next on my list of languages to learn. I've fiddled with it enough to know that I like it better than Python or R for doing math-y data-y stuff, as a programming language.

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