By seeing the advancement in technologies in the past few years it is clearly visible that the most important skill to learn today is to know how to write a computer program. In this modern era, computers have captured every industry be it calculating your foot-steps using a smart watch or using a digital speedometer on your bike to calculate the distance you have covered so far.
As we all know that several new programming languages and frameworks are popping up each year that are suited for different purposes such as (web development, mobile development, and desktop development, etc) it becomes very difficult for a developer to choose the best programming language to learn amongst them in order to up your coding journey. To overcome these circumstances and help you make the right choice we are writing this article with facts and features so that you can decide which programming language to learn next for decent growth in your career.
Top 5 Programming Languages for 2022
1. Javascript
In this modern era where computers are used so much, it is impossible to say that there is a developer not using javascript in some way to solve a complex business problem in an easy way. Javascript is also known as the language of the web as it is one of the core technology of the worldwide web.
Whether you want to build an interactive frontend application or a complex server-side application or a desktop app it can all be done with the help of Javascript. Most of the startups in today’s era are using the javascript ecosystem like React and NodeJS to build their web apps. If you want to get a job in one of your favourite startups then you should consider learning javascript as it is most widely used in startups a lot to build scalable web apps without much hassle.
Difficulty level: Easy
Job Prospects: Excellent as it is used in both early-aged and unicorn startups.
Pros
- It makes the web interface more richer and scalable.
- You can easily run javascript on the client-side immediately using your favorite web browser as it doesn’t require any compilation.
- It is regularly updated via the ECMA script specification.
- Easy to learn and implement things on the go.
- It is backed by plenty of resources and large community support.
- Can be used for building a diverse range of applications.
- It is highly versatile and works well with other programming languages.
Cons
- It supports only single inheritance.
- It can be interpreted differently with different web browsers.
- As we all know that javascript runs on the user’s machine so many people choose to disable javascript due to the fear of being exploited by a malicious script.
2. Python
Python is one of the most commonly used and easy-to-learn programming languages in the world. It is a very fast, easy to deploy, and easy-to-use programming language which can be used to build highly scalable web apps. Most of the applications which we use in our day-to-day life like Youtube, Instagram, Netflix, and Spotify are built using python.
If you are a beginner in the world of programming then python can be a great starting point for you as it is very easy to learn. A lot of the well-known startups in today’s era use python as their primary backend stack so this opens a lot of opportunities for full-stack python developers.
If you want to get into Data Science and AI industry then it is very certain that you have to learn python. Python can also be used in other fields like web development, machine learning, and web scraping.
Difficulty: Easy to learn and use. Can be used in different fields of work.
Job Prospects: High volumes of job openings with a handsome average package for well-qualified python developers.
Pros
- It can be easily learned and used on the go without much hassle.
- It comes with extensive library support.
- More focussed and driven towards code readability.
- Open-source with very large community support throughout the whole world.
- It can be used to scale even very complex web applications
- Easy to build prototypes and test out your ideas faster.
Cons
- It is not suitable for mobile app development and mobile computing.
- The database access layer of python is very underdeveloped and immature.
- Python is very slow in terms of speed as compared to other programming languages like C++, Java, etc as it is interpreted.
3. Java
Java is one of the most widely used programming languages in large organizations and it has stayed in the IT industry for a very long time. If you are looking to work as a software developer for a very large organization then you should learn java as the first programming language. Java is generally used to build enterprise-level web applications as it is very well known for its stability in large organizations.
It is also used widely in android app development in the industry. In today’s era where there are billions of users using Android devices, it becomes a need for every business to develop an android app. This is also a reason why Java developers have so much demand in the industry. Google has also backed android developers by creating an Android App Development framework- Android Studio which helps android developers to develop android apps on the go without much hassle.
Difficulty: In terms of learning java it has a very steep learning curve as it is very huge. Probably we can range it in between easy to moderate in terms of grasping and learning the concepts of Java.
Job Prospects: It has very excellent job opportunities in large organizations.
Pros
- Backed up with a huge collection of open source libraries.
- An ideal solution for distributed computing.
- Follows the OOPS concepts for code usability and readability.
- Known for supporting muti-threading
- Platform independent due to JVM(Java Virtual Machine).
- Highly secure and compatible due to the exclusion of explicit pointer and the inclusion of the security manager.
- Allocation of memory and garbage collection is automatically done in it.
Cons
- It is slower in terms of speed and performance as compared to natively compiled languages like C and C++.
- Memory management in java is quite expensive.
- Java has very verbose codes and it becomes very difficult for a beginner to understand long and complex sentences while learning to code in java.
4. Flutter
It is an open-source SDK(Software Development Kit) developed by Google that can be used for building beautiful cross-platform applications for both android and ios, Desktop apps for (Linux, Mac, Windows) and webapps using a single codebase.
Flutter is well known for using dart as an object-oriented programming language that includes a rich library, garbage collection, strong typing, generics, and async-awaits. Dart is very similar to Java and also contains a lot of features from other programming languages.
Difficulty: Easy to medium based upon the resources available to learn.
Job Prospects: It has very little demand in large organizations as it is yet not so mature to be tried in production. But some of the small startups are trying out flutter very aggressively as it is backed by google.
Pros
- It is a cross-platform framework that helps its developers to write the code once for multiple platforms.
- Flutter has a very unique feature known as hot reload which helps its developers to see the changes made to the code instantly on their screen without much hassle.
- It is backed up by a powerful community of developers who work continuously to make flutter better each day.
- Flutter offers a lot of custom widgets to help the developers in their creation process.
- It requires very less testing as the flutter app is built on a single code base so we need to test only a single flutter app for multiple platforms.
Cons
- The apps made with flutter have a very massive file size.
- There are very few resources to get started with the dart as it is very new and you have to build everything from scratch.
- It lacks password managers support.
5. PHP
It is one of the most popular backend programming languages in the world. Though from the past few years PHP has been facing tough competition from Python and Javascript, but the market still demands a lot of high-quality PHP developers. Those developers who want to join a well-renowned organization can consider learning PHP as their backend stack.
If you are planning to learn PHP this year then it would be very beneficial for you if you learn a framework like Codeigniter or Laravel so that you can be industry ready.
Difficulty: Very Easy to learn and build backend applications.
Job Prospects: A large number of organizations are looking to hire PHP developers as most of the PHP developers who were working in it previously are now moving towards Javascript and Python.
Pros
- It supports both functional and object-oriented programming.
- It contains a lot of frameworks to make a developer’s task easier while developing the backend of a website.
- Backed up by large community support and a huge ecosystem.
- It contains a lot of open-source tools for testing and deploying applications.
- Easy to get started while building web applications.
Cons
- The applications developed with PHP are slower as compared to other programming languages.
- PHP lacks in providing a good level of security to applications developed using it.
- Error handling in PHP is quite poor.
Conclusion
These are some of the top 5 programming languages for 2022 which will have a good demand in 2022 based upon their features. However, it is highly advisable that you should choose a programming language for your career based on your past experiences and not on somebody else’s point of view.
Hopefully, by reading this article I am sure that you have got your answer on which programming to choose next for a decent growth in your career. However, always keep in mind that a programming language is just a way to communicate your thoughts to the computer so always focus on developing your problem-solving abilities so that you can use a programming language in an effective way.
