Who's Number One?
Java, VB, or C++?
Three market research firms give widely divergent and contradictory answers.
by Jim Fawcette

Posted January 9, 2002

For years, the pecking order has been clear: Visual Basic was the most widely used language, Java the fastest growing, and C/C++ the most powerful, but relegated to a shrinking niche of highly skilled programmers.

While many people anticipated that the transition to .NET, improved Java IDEs, the move to XML Web services, and introduction of C# would scramble the language totem pole, recent introduction of three, contradictory market research reports surprised us at Fawcette Technical Publications, Inc. Every one of these reports picks a different leader:

• Visual Basic is still the dominant leader in number of programmers using that Microsoft language, according to the Gartner Group, although Java is expected to catch up in a few years.
• C and its derivatives are strong leaders, according to the International Data Group.
• Java is the leading programming language by a slim margin over C/C++ with VB a distant trailer, according to Evans Research.

Figure 1. Three Views

We first became aware of this controversy when we interviewed Patricia Sueltz, EVP of Software for Sun Microsystems. She quoted a study by Evans Research that showed Java as the most widely used programming language ("Evans North American Developer Survey, Volume 2, October 2001"). While Evans declined to comment on any portion of the study or its methodology, which was done for Sun, we did get more detail from Sun itself.

According to Sun, the Evans study shows that, "Now more than half of all developers (54.2%) use Java some portion of the time. … respondents expect their Java use to increase next year with 57.9% of respondents expecting to use Java at least some of the time next year. … [While for C/C++,] only a little over half of respondents, 51.1%, use C/C++ at all."

The picture for Microsoft Visual Basic is even dimmer with planned usage showing "… a slight decline … as only 47.9% expect to use it next year."