C++ is the Programming Language of the Year 2022

C++ has been awarded the Programming Language of the Year 2022 title by Tiobe, a leading Quality Assurance service provider. C++ won the award because it has the fastest growth among the top 20 languages. We at Qt welcome this selection as it confirms our long-term commitment to C++ as the underlying programming language for the Qt framework and development platform. 

Tiobe, who shares a passion for high-quality software with Qt, is providing quality assurance services. Tiobe tests 1 billion lines of software code for its customers, such as Phillips, Bosch, ST, Huawei, and ABB, each day. Tiobe has been awarded a Programming Language of the Year title since 2003.

A coding language great for desktop and embedded software development 

So, why is C++ more popular than any other coding language? Tiobe says, "The reason for C++'s popularity is its excellent performance while being a high-level object-oriented language. Because of this, it is possible to develop fast and vast software systems (over millions of lines of code) in C++ without necessarily ending up in a maintenance nightmare.” In addition, Tiobe refers to meaningful new features announced in C++11 and C++20 as a reason for the growth in popularity. We at Qt believe that other factors, such as an increased focus on energy-efficiency computing and Web Assembly (WASM) support for software programmed in C++, drive the renewed growth of popularity.

But is a quick win in popularity enough to motivate enterprises and developers to add C++ to their programming language portfolio? While it is fantastic to see C++ regaining popularity dramatically in 2022, the fact it has been outperforming many other languages for two decades is more important.

Choosing a programming language for software design and development is a long-term investment

Enterprises developing a digital product need to stick with the programming choice for decades because the lifecycle of such a product is easily five years and more. Software developers who invest in learning a new coding language consider the return on investment rather in years than months. Hence, it’s good to see that C++ ranked in the top 4 programming languages according to the Tiobe Programming Community index in the last 20 years. According to the Hall of Fame, C++ was actually the first ever Programming Language of the Year in 2003.

According to Tiobe: “The TIOBE Programming Community index is an indicator of the popularity of programming languages. The index is updated once a month. The ratings are based on the number of skilled engineers worldwide, courses, and third-party vendors. Popular search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube, and Baidu are used to calculate the ratings. It is important to note that the TIOBE index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.” 

C++ and Python were in the top 3 of the Tiobe index in 2022 - Python is the leader of the chart. The Qt framework also supports Python, which has been in the top ten for many years, increasing the diversity and making it a multiplatform development software of choice. 

The future will tell what this change in popularity will mean for the overall performance of C++.  Tiobe estimates the comeback in popularity and the additional capabilities “…will probably lift C++ further in the TIOBE index for the next few years”. We at Qt believe so too.

If you are interested in creating high-performance apps with C++ and the Qt framework, then check out our web pages with more information.