Top 3 Programming Languages in 2021

Photo by Chris Ried on Unsplash

Here i am gonna talk about the top 3 programming languages to learn in 2021. Whether you are an absolute beginner, wanting to learn programming for the first time or you are an experienced developer looking for a new job opportunities, hope this article finds you well.

I picked these languages based on Google Trends and the results on various surveys and studies. These are the most popular programming languages that offer you the best job opportunities.

Analytics from Google Trends

Of course, merely knowing a programming language does not land you to a job. You need to know a lot of other stuff too. But i’ll talk about this in another article. So, let’s jump right in and talk about the top 3 programming languages to learn in 2021.

#Python

Python is one of the most liked programming languages.

Source from Indeed

According to Indeed, the average salary of a Python developer in the US is about $118,000 a year. And here is the result of Stackoverflow’s developer survey in 2019.

StackOverflow’s developer survey in 2019

As you can see, Python ranks as the most wanted programming language of the year.

Here a few reasons why Python is the most popular language in the world:

1. Beginner friendly. Python is very beginner friendly and is particularly easy to learn for people who want to become engineers. A lot of accountance, engineers as scientists use Python in their day to day work.
2. Best suited for machine learning & AI. Python is extremely popular for machine learning, AI projects and research. Anywone who wants to get into machine learning and AI, should definitely learn Python. Professional software engineers also use Python to build Web, Mobile and Desktop applications.
3. Popular for building backends. Python and a framework called Django are very popular among backend developers.
4. Simple and free of clutter. And on top of all this, Python is very simple and free of clutter.

Here is a snippet of a Python code that asks to enter a number and then tells if the number is even or odd.

num = int(input("Enter a number: "))
if (num % 2) == 0:
    print(f"{num} is Even")
else: 
    print(f"{num} is Odd")

As you can see, this syntax looks way more different from other programming languages. There are no curly braces and no private or public modifiers. Is extremely simple and free of clutter. This is one of the reasons why developers love Python.

Here is the bottom line, if you are an absolute beginner or if you want to get into machine learning and AI, Pyhton is the best language to learn right now.

#Java

The second language on the top 3 programming languages list is Java.

Now you might say, REALLY? Isn’t Java forgotten? What about Kotlin?
- No my friend, Kotlin is a new programming language with a small community and is often used for a new developer. There are tens of thousands of projects already built with Java and these projects are not being migrated to Kotlin.

I always used to say when companies look for a Vuejs or React developers, they should look for experienced JS developers and give them some time on Vuejs or React documentation.

Here some quick research i did on Indeed.

Source from Indeed

So, as you can see there are currently over 29,000 jobs with Java deveopers in the US. And just over 1,000 jobs as a Kotlin developer.

According to Indeed the average salary for Java developer is $105,000 per year.

Here a few reasons why Java is one of the most popular languages:

1. Used in enterprise application development. Is used by plenty of tech complanies around the world to build large scale applications. Huge companies like Uber, Twitter and many other use Java in their tech-stack. And this means that finding a job as a Java developer is not so hard.
2. Used in Android development. Java is also used in developing native Android apps. If you are interested in becoming a mobile developer focusing on building native Android apps, then learning Java makes a lot of sense.
3. Huge community. Also, Java has been a popular programming language for almost two decades and there is a huge support community. When you start to learning Java you will encounter tons of ressources, forums, tutorials and books to help you along the way.

Even if you don’t want to become a Java developer, simply knowing Java and understanding its syntax will beneficial because there are tons of great books on Software engineering that are based on Java. Most books about data structure, algorithms, design patterns, automated testing and software architecture are based on Java.

Java in programming world is like English in our world.

Remember the Python code that i showed you earlier. Let’s see what this code looks like in Java:

package com.codeformedium;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        var scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.println("Enter a number: ");
        int num = scanner.nextInt();
        if (num % 2 == 0)
            System.out.println(num + " is even");
        else
            System.out.println(num + " is odd");
    }
}

Obviously the code is more verbose, is longer. That’s why learning Java could be slightly difficult for people who have never programmed before.

Here is the bottom line, if you are serious about software development, building enterprise applications… Java is the best language to learn.

#JavaScript

The next top language to learn in 2021 is JavaScript

For the 7th year in a row, JavaScript has ranked as the most popular programming language in a survey conducted by Stack Overflow.

Source from Stack Overflow

According to Indeed, the average salary for JavScript developer in the US is $114,000 per year.

Here a few reasons on why to learn JavaScript in 2021:

1. Versatile. Just like Python and Java, JavaScript is also a versatile language, which means you can use it to build various types of web, mobile and desktop applications.
2. Popular in web and mobile app development. But JavaScript really shines in web and mobile application development. For example, using JavaScript and React Native you can build cross-platform mobile apps. So, instead of building a separate App for iOS and Android and maintaining two different codebases, you write your application once in JavaScript and build it for different platforms. You will have a single codebase to maintain. That’s why a lot of companies these days prefer to build apps this way because of the reduced cost. (However i don’t recommend this for large scale and enterprise applications or if you want to leverage the full power of a platform like iOS or Android. For this you should build apps using the native language and frameworks with that platform. For iOS, that is Swift and for Android, that is Java. But i’ll talk about this in another article)
3. Huge community. JavaScript also has a huge community and whenever you stuck, there are plenty of people out there who could help you.

And here is the bottom line… If you want to become a web developer and if you want to build cross-platform mobile apps, you should learn JavaScript.

#Recap

A quick recap. The top 3 programming languages to learn in 2021 are Python, Java and JavaScript.

Python is best suited for machine learning and AI

Java is best suited for building enterprise applications

JavaScript is the language of choice for building web & cross-platform mobile apps

I hope this helps you for a general overview on what are the currently most used or most loved programming languages. Thank you for reading.