C++ Defies White House Warning, Rises to Second Place in Tiobe Index

C++ rises to second place in the Tiobe index, despite a White House warning against its use due to memory safety concerns. Meanwhile, C drops to third place, and Go and Rust continue to rise in popularity.

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C++ Rises to Second Place in Tiobe Index

The Tiobe Programming Community Index for June has revealed a surprising shift in the popularity of programming languages. Despite a recent White House advisory warning against the use of C++ and C due to memory safety concerns, C++ has climbed to second place, trailing only Python. Meanwhile, C has dropped to third place, its lowest ranking ever in the index.

The Rise of C++

According to Paul Jansen, CEO of Tiobe Software, the main strengths of C++ are its performance and scalability. However, he also notes that its downside is its complexity, which can make code harder to understand and maintain. This is due to the many different idioms that have been introduced over the years without deprecation, making it challenging to navigate.

Despite the White House warning, C++ remains a popular choice among developers, particularly in embedded systems, game development, and financial trading software. In fact, C++ designer Bjarne Stroustrup has emphasized the efforts of the C++ standards committee to make C++ safer.

Other Highlights from the Tiobe Index

The Go language has snagged seventh place for the first time, while Rust has climbed to 17th place, an all-time high. Fortran has managed to hold on to its top 10 position.

The Tiobe index ranks language popularity based on the number of skilled engineers worldwide, courses, and third-party vendors associated with each language. The index uses search engines like Google and Bing, as well as websites like Amazon and Wikipedia, to assess the popularity of each language.