According to the Online Historical Encyclopaedia of Programming Languages, people have created about 8,945 coding languages. According to Stack Overflow Developer survey, there are around 42 popular programming languages:

https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#most-popular-technologies-language-prof

As a fresh IT graduate, which programming languages shall you learn?

As a public listed tech company owner with more than 15 years of software development experience, I would suggest you to pay attention to these 12 programming languages:

1. Javascript/Typescript: Javascript is getting more powerful nowadays, you can use it to build mobile app using React Native, use it to build web app using React and use it to build backend application using NodeJS, you can even use Electron JS to build cross platform desktop app. It’s nothing more wonderful than using the same programming languages for both frontend and backend. With Typescript, it adds tactic typing with optional type annotation, making Javascript a more suitable language for large scale application development.

Stackoverflow popularity: 67.9%

Jobstreet vacancies: 1,037

2. Python: Python is a popular programming language in AI/machine learning thanks to the vast libraries available, you can also use Python Django for full stack application development. It is also suitable for tool development.

Stackoverflow popularity: 43.51%

Jobstreet vacancies: 1,386

3. Java: The most popular enterprise grade software development language, with Java Spring Framework, you can use it to build powerful applications. It’s widely used in corporates, including banking, corporates and a commonly used CMS by government, Liferay is also built upon Java.

Stackoverflow popularity: 33.4%

Jobstreet vacancies: 1,584 (note that I am using string search in Jobstreet, maybe it also includes some Javascript jobs) 

4. C#: Another most popular enterprise grade software development language, with .NET Framework, you can use it to build powerful applications as well. It’s widely used in large scale corporates, even the world most famous website for programmers, Stackoverflow is also built using ASP.NET MVC using C#. You can also use C# to build Unity3D applications for AR/VR and Xamarin to build mobile apps.

Stackoverflow popularity: 29.72%

Jobstreet vacancies: 1,122

5. C/C++: C is the mother of all programming languages, where C++ adds object oriented programming capabilities. It’s best suited for embedded systems where performance is a major concern with optimised memory management. For example, Facebook (Meta) uses C++ heavily for their backend systems

Stackoverflow popularity: 20.17%

Jobstreet vacancies: 527

6. PHP: PHP is a very popular programming language for startups and SME, the world’s most popular CMS, WordPress and e-commerce, Magento are also built upon PHP. 

Stackoverflow popularity: 21.42%

Jobstreet vacancies: 1,403

7. Go: Go is useful for carrying out programming for scalable servers and large software systems. It is used by Google, Netflix, Paypal, Twitch, Uber and other big tech companies to emphasize high traffic systems.

Stackoverflow popularity: 11.83%

Jobstreet vacancies: 21

8. Kotlin: Kotlin is the native programming language to build Android applications. It is used by over 60% of professional Android developers that helps boost productivity, developer satisfaction, and code safety.

Stackoverflow popularity: 9.92% 

Jobstreet vacancies: 96

9. Rust: Rust is multi-paradigm, high-level, general-purpose programming language that emphasizes performance, type safety, and concurrency. It is used by AWS, Facebook and other big corporations. You can also use Rust to create smart contract for some Blockchain, such as Polkadot.

Stackoverflow popularity: 8.8%

Jobstreet vacancies: 13

10. Ruby: Ruby can be used as a scripting language, and Ruby On Rails is a full stack framework that supports MVC architecture for web applications development.

Stackoverflow popularity:  6.72%

Jobstreet vacancies: 39

11. Dart: Dart is the programming language for mobile development framework, Flutter. It’s one of the best cross platform development tools that allows developers to build iOS and Android mobile apps with a single code base and the performance is near native programming.

Stackoverflow popularity: 6.67%

Jobstreet vacancies: 28

12. Solidity: Solidity is the most famous programming language used for Blockchain Smart Contract programming, you can use it on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) powered Blockchain, such as Ethereum, TRON, Quorum and more.

Stackoverflow popularity: 1.52%

Jobstreet vacancies: 5

A few important trends to observe:

1. Note that I didn’t include SQL, bash/shell/powershell which are query/scripting languages that you shall know regardless of which programming language that you are using
2. It’s interesting to observe that Solidity’s demand is dropped significantly due to crypto winter
3. Go and Rust are popular in Stackoverflow, but it is relatively less popular in Malaysia if you look into the job opportunities
4. For application development, top 3 programming languages in Malaysia are Java, PHP and C#

We in Agmo are expanding aggressively after our IPO, feel free to drop your resume to [email protected] if you are looking for a job.