Most Popular Programming Languages for Web Development
When entering the world of Web Development, it can be hard to choose what programming languages to start with. Well, if you’re listening to an online course or a Bootcamp, you’re using the same languages as your instructors do. But what happens after that? As you may already know, Web Developers change languages all the time, and they constantly learn new ones. Of course, all of this could depend on what’s popular right now. But choosing the correct programming language also means deciding what’s best for your type of work. Now let’s see why it is important to know the most popular programming languages.
There are many languages, and many of them have hundreds of frameworks and libraries. So, when you’re looking at it from afar, you’re not only choosing a language to code in. You’re also choosing its best features, libraries, and functionalities that are going to suit your business model best.
So, let’s take a look and see where you can start your Web Development career path.
JavaScript
It’s no secret—you can’t possibly become a Web Developer and not know JavaScript! This language is the most popular one among developers, capping in at 12.4 million users worldwide.
And why would it be so popular? Well, imagine you’re creating your fantastic new e-commerce website, adding colors, fun layouts, and every product looks so professional. And then, you try adding stuff to your cart and, surprise, surprise—you can’t. Well, that’s where JavaScript comes to save the day.
Alongside HTML and CSS, you need a tool to help you make your website function, and that’s what JavaScript simply does.
Its easy syntax makes it a friendly language that works across all devices and browsers. Just take a look at Google, YouTube, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter—they wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for JavaScript. These websites, and many others, are prime examples of how flexible the language is and what kind of breath-taking stuff you can do.
Now, we can’t talk JavaScript without mentioning its libraries, too. This is where the fun stuff comes in. It has numerous different libraries that you can use to do pretty much everything—React for UI, Anime.js for animations, Typiceface.js for fonts, Chart.js for data maps and charts, and oh, so much more! Considering all this it’s undoubted that JavaScript deserves a spot in our most popular programming languages list for web development.
PHP
PHP, known as Hypertext Preprocessor, is an open-source back-end scripting language used widely in web development. Like JavaScript, PHP is a relatively easy language and intuitive to use and is similar to the C programming language syntax. However, unlike many other languages, it doesn’t require a particular compiler, so every operating system can run it while enabling cross-platform compatibility.
But, what does it do? PHP is executed on the server of your website and is used to interact with its database. As you may already know, every website needs a database to store its users’ information, and you implement these databases with the help of, for example, MySQL, a database service. Then, you can use PHP to manage all the information, manipulate, change, add or remove it. You can also use it to encrypt data, making it a very reliable and secure server-side scripting language.
PHP doesn’t only support MySQL but also ODBC, SQLite, and other database systems you’d want to implement on the back-end of your website. Its frameworks include Laravel, Symfony, Codeigniter, Slim, Zend Framework, and others.
Python
With its rise in the past few years, used by around 8.2 million developers worldwide, Python is mind-blowingly easy to learn and use. Moreover, it takes the complicated stuff out of other programming languages and tries to replicate actual human speech, making it appealing to new developers.
Suppose you’re interested in starting back-end web development. In that case, Django is a popular framework written in Python that is very easy to learn and has tons of features to enrich your website or application.
And, much like JavaScript, there is also a variety of Python libraries like TensorFlow, NumPy, SciPy, OpenCV—that developers use for implementing powerful back-end features. Their versatility and features are the sole reason why Python is one of the most popular programming languages.
Ruby
Here we have yet another popular scripting language among web developers alike. Ruby is very commonly used, and people tend to pick it up because of its friendly and helpful community. Being a robust, object-oriented language much like the English one (similar to Python’s syntax), it’s no surprise that many people use it to implement back and front-end features on their platforms.
Ruby is general-purpose, much like Python, so its other applications and frameworks allow you to use it for pretty much anything your web projects need, like data analysis, prototyping, proof of concepts, etc.
Its most popular implementation is Ruby on Rails, a practical open-source framework used to build compelling web applications—like Airbnb, GitHub, Hulu, Goodreads, and many others!
Because Ruby and Ruby on Rails are open sources, there are a ton of free online courses you can watch to start with this powerful programming language and its frameworks. And, did we mention how friendly the community is?
Swift
If you’re looking into Apple Development specifically, Swift is a beautiful language to get start with. It’s a relatively new language, released in 2014, and it was built from the ground up entirely by Apple for their devices only. The thing that sets it apart from other Apple-oriented programming languages is that it has all of Apple’s resources, frameworks, and libraries for you to use to your heart’s content.
The language may be the most straightforward programming language out there. It borrows stuff from Objective-C (and others), but it takes the syntax to a whole other level. It also implements many modern programming methods, like drag-and-dropping elements, live changes, and its files are cross-compatible with Objective-C (another popular programming language used for Apple devices).
If you thought that was it, then you’re in for a surprise. With XCode, Apple’s very own Integrated Development Environment (IDE), you can write, test, and debug your code. But, also build and dispatch your project all within the app! How convenient is that?
Conclusion
We hope this article introduced you to the most popular programming languages and how many options you have out there as a Web Developer. And believe it or not, we didn’t even scratch the surface. So basically, you need to research what suits you best, and get to coding! You’d find it surprising what you can do with just a few weeks of learning a new programming language.