Although Python finished second behind JavaScript is the June edition of the RedMonk Programming Language Rankings, is nonetheless considered the report’s big winner, because it took sole possession of the number two ranking after tying with Java in January. The RedMonk rankings are published every six months.
This is the first time a language besides Java or JavaScript has occupied the second spot alone since the rankings began in 2012, and it’s the first time Java has ranked lower than first or second. By way of explanation, RedMonk said Python is the glue for thousands of small projects and the basis for countless personal scripts, including a few that retrieve data for RedMonk’s rankings. The company noted that Python also has found niches in areas such as data science.
RedMonk said Java has never faced more competition for developer time and attention than it does now. While Java will be an enterprise mainstay for years to come, the firm said that Java’s prominent position is no longer guaranteed. (Java recently slipped to number two in the Tiobe language rankings as well, behind C, after more than five years at the top.)
The RedMonk language rankings are extracted from analyses of GitHub and Stack Overflow. For GitHub, RedMonk queries languages based on pull requests, leveraging GitHub Archive. For Stack Overflow, discussions on languages are assessed.
Also in the June rankings, Rust reached the top 20 for the first time, ranking 20th. It placed 48th five years ago. Kotlin, ranked 19th in the June report, was ranked 68th five years ago.
The top 20 in the June 2020 RedMonk rankings were as follows:
1. JavaScript
2. Python
3. Java
4. PHP
5. C++ and C# (tie)
7. Ruby and CSS (tie)
9. TypeScript
10. C
11. Swift and Objective-C (tie)
13. R
14. Scala
15. Go and Shell (tie)
17. PowerShell
18. Perl
19. Kotlin
20. Rust