The C programming language edged out C#, Python, and Swift with the largest increase in measured popularity year over year Credit: Thinkstock The stalwart C programming language has upset trendy Python to snag “language of the year” honors for 2019 in the Tiobe Index of language popularity. Python had been expected to take the designation for 2019 just as it it did for 2018. But C won, thanks to a 2.4 percentage-points increase in its overall rating year over year. Runners-up were C# (2.1 percent), Python (1.4 percent), and Swift (0.6 percent). Driving C’s resurgence is its use in programming for small devices in the Internet of Things. Also, C is easy to learn and a C compiler is available for every processor, Tiobe said. Tiobe’s ratings are based on a formula assessing searches of programming languages on popular search engines such as Google, Bing, and Wikipedia. Overall, for the month of January, Tiobe’s top 10 programming languages were as follows: Java, with a rating of 16.896 percent C, 15.773 percent Python, 9.704 percent C++, 5.574 percent C#, 5.349 percent Visual Basic .NET, 5.287 percent JavaScript, 2.451 percent PHP, 2.405 percent Swift, 1.795 percent SQL, 1.504 percent The rival PyPL (Popularity of Programming Language) Index, which is based on an analysis of how often language tutorials are searched on in Google, listed the following languages in its top 10 for January 2020: Python, 29.72 percent Java, 19.03 percent JavaScript, 8.2 percent C#, 7.28 percent PHP, 6.09 percent C/C++, 5.91 percent R, 3.72 percent Objective-C, 2.47 percent Swift, 2.36 percent Matlab, 1.79 percent C LanguageC#PythonSwiftProgramming LanguagesSoftware Development