How many programming languages are there?

Programming language (English) is a formal language for defining computer programs. It is a standardized communication skill used to send instructions to computers. A computer language that allows programmers to precisely define the data that a computer needs to use and the actions that should be taken in different situations.

The earliest programming language came into being before the invention of computer, which was used to control jacquard loom and play the piano automatically. Thousands of different programming languages have been invented in the computer field, and new programming languages are born every year. Many programming languages need instructions to explain the calculation process, while some programming languages belong to declarative programming, which explains the required results and does not explain how to calculate.

There are more than 1000 programming languages, most of which are used in the field of computing. There are great differences in accuracy and completeness between programming languages and natural languages used by human beings.

According to the TIOBE index, as of April 20021year, the top 50 most popular languages are as follows:

List of 202 1 April programming languages

The most popular programming languages in recent 18 years are as follows:

The most popular programming language in 2003 -202 1

How to measure the use of various programming languages;

It is difficult to compare which programming language is used the most, and the word "usage" is difficult to define. One programming language may take more time to develop, another programming language may produce longer code, and a third programming language may run in CPU for a longer time. Some languages are very popular in some fields, for example, COBOL is still quite commonly used in the company's data center, mostly running on large computers, Fortran is often used in scientific and engineering applications, C language is often used in embedded device applications and operating systems, and Perl is often used in system management and text processing. JavaScript is used for web pages and so on.

There are many ways to measure the usage of programming languages, and different methods have their own errors:

Count the number of times each programming language is mentioned in job advertisements.

Count the number of books that teach or describe each programming language sold.

It accounts for the code length still used by various programming languages, but it may underestimate some programming languages that are not easy to find through public search.

Use search engines to count the number of times different programming languages are found.