The basic concept is simple: we periodically compare the
performance of programming languages relative to one another
on GitHub and Stack Overflow. The idea is not to offer a
statistically valid representation of current usage, but rather to
correlate language discussion (Stack Overflow) and usage
(GitHub) in an effort to extract insights into potential future
adoption trends.

With the exception of GitHub’s decision to no longer provide
language rankings on its Explore page – they are now calculated
from the GitHub archive – the rankings are performed in the
same manner, meaning that we can compare rankings from run
to run, and year to year, with confidence.

Historically, the correlation between how a language ranks on
GitHub versus its ranking on Stack Overflow has been strong,
but this had been weakening in recent years. From its highs of
.78, the correlation was down to .73 during our last run – the
lowest recorded. For this run, however, the correlation between
the properties is once again robust. For this quarter’s ranking,
the correlation between the properties was .77, just shy of its all
time mark. Given the recent variation, however, it will be
interesting to observe whether or not this number continues to
bounce.

Before we continue, please keep in mind the usual caveats.

*To be included in this analysis, a language must be
observable within both GitHub and Stack Overflow.

*No claims are made here that these rankings are
representative of general usage more broadly. They are
nothing more or less than an examination of the
correlation between two populations we believe to be
predictive of future use, hence their value.

*There are many potential communities that could be
surveyed for this analysis. GitHub and Stack Overflow
are used here first because of their size and second
because of their public exposure of the data necessary
for the analysis. We encourage, however, interested
parties to perform their own analyses using other
sources.

*All numerical rankings should be taken with a grain of
salt. We rank by numbers here strictly for the sake of
interest. In general, the numerical ranking is
substantially less relevant than the language’s tier or
grouping. In many cases, one spot on the list is not
distinguishable from the next. The separation between
language tiers on the plot, however, is generally
representative of substantial differences in relative
popularity.

*GitHub language rankings are based on raw lines of
code, which means that repositories written in a given
language that include a greater amount of code in a
second language (e.g. JavaScript) will be read as the
latter rather than the former.

*In addition, the further down the rankings one goes, the
less data available to rank languages by. Beyond the
top tiers of languages, depending on the snapshot, the
amount of data to assess is minute, and the actual
placement of languages becomes less reliable the
further down the list one proceeds.

Note that this is actually a list of the Top
21 languages, not Top 20, because of said ties.

1 JavaScript
2 Java
3 PHP
4 Python
5 C#
5 C++
5 Ruby
8 CSS
9 C
10 Objective-C
11 Shell
12 Perl
13 R
14 Scala
15 Go
15 Haskell
17 Swift
18 Matlab
19 Clojure
19 Groovy
19 Visual Basic

JavaScript’s continued strength is impressive, as is Java’s
steady, robust performance. The long time presence of these
two languages in particular atop our rankings is no coincidence;
instead it reflects an increasing willingness to employ a best-
tool-for-the-job approach, even within the most conservative of
enterprises. In many cases, Java and JavaScript are leveraged
side-by-side in the same application, depending on its particular
needs.

Just as JavaScript and Java’s positions have remained
unchanged, the rest of the Top 10 has remained similarly static.
This has become the expectation rather than a surprise.

Read more.........
http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2016/02/19/language-rankings-1-16/?utm_source=javascriptweekly&utm_medium=email