From Github’s Octoverse Report to the monthly TIOBE Index, there are many ways to stay up to date on the rankings of programming languages. But for the uninitiated, the sheer volume of languages can be overwhelming.
Three years ago, I did a Web Development 101 series for the Upwork Blog that was a big hit among aspiring developers and entrepreneurs looking to break into the industry. But times change—especially when it comes to technology. As 2017 draws to a close and we start to look toward the new year, now is the perfect time to survey the web development landscape for the top web development languages to learn in 2018.
Instead of just ranking languages as many lists do, here’s a look at some of the most popular languages and some context on the role they play in web development, so you can decide which web development languages should make the top of your personal list.
Front-end vs. back-end
Before we dive into the list it’s important to briefly touch upon a few concepts that are fundamental in developing an understanding of web development. The web development process can be broken up into two parts: The front-end and the back-end.
On the front-end (or client-side), you have everything a user sees and interacts with on a webpage. On the back-end (or server-side) you have the server and the database technology that houses the data of your website. Together they make up the websites we all know and love.
WEB FUNDAMENTALS
When it comes to web fundamentals it doesn’t get more basic than HTML and CSS—both can be found on the client-side of nearly all web pages on the internet.
HTML
HTML is the standard markup language of the web. A markup language is simply a system for annotating a text document with a special syntax that determines how it should be presented—like an editor “marking up” an author’s manuscript with revision instructions in blue pencil.
HTML markup describes the structure of a webpage to the browser using tags, which you’ll immediately recognize as the text between the <angle-brackets>. These tags tell the browser how to present page elements like titles, headings, text, and links that are included in the HTML document.
CSS
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a style-sheet language. It gives developers greater control over things like the color, fonts, layout, and overall design of a webpage. By separating presentation (CSS) from structure (HTML) into style sheets, designs can be shared across multiple pages or tailored to different environments.
Together, these two languages are all you need to provide the structure and style of a static website, where web pages have fixed content, zero scripting, and hyperlinks are the sole form of interactivity. These days dynamic sites are where it’s at. More advanced client-side and server-side scripting languages provide a whole new range of features allowing for more interactive websites that can be tailored to each new visitor.
CLIENT-SIDE SCRIPTING
Client-side scripting—HTML and CSS included—is any code that runs in the browser a person is using to view a website. The browser temporarily downloads the source code it needs to display a webpage from a web server, then processes it independently from that server. As long as the browser remains open, the user will be able to view the static page even if they lose their Internet connection. If the site must respond to user events that require external data, like search queries, the client will need to make a request to the server over the Internet.
JavaScript
JavaScript is currently the de facto client-side scripting language for bringing interactivity to the world of web development—sliders, pop-up screens, drop-down menus, animations, games. Alongside HTML and CSS, it’s one of the big three core technologies behind the front-end of a website. JavaScript running on the client-side is why some sites can remain interactive even after dropping your Internet connection.
The greater JavaScript umbrella covers a wide range of libraries and frameworks that make a front-end developer’s life a lot easier. Here’s a quick list of scripting languages, which is by no means comprehensive:
That list could easily grow well beyond the practical scope of an entry-level article, and we haven’t even touched on server-side Javascript yet.
SERVER-SIDE SCRIPTING
A website is really just a collection of files that describe the images, text, formatting, graphics, and logic that come together to provide a complete user experience. Server-side scripting simply refers to the code that runs behind the scenes on the server that hosts those files and is responsible for everything from effective database management to the APIs that structure the data exchange that makes a website tick.
Java
Initially released by Sun Microsystems in the 90s, Java has a huge following as a general-purpose programming language. Today Java is well known as the default language for building Android apps, but it also has a long history as a server-side technology. Java Servlets, JSP (Java Server Pages), and Web Objects are examples of server-side solutions that use Java.
As a subset of the C programming language, Java often scores highly on raw speed benchmark tests. This might be why highly trafficked websites like Alibaba, Linkedin, and Chase use Java. The other reason is that Java is a mature programming language that has a long history of use in applications across the software development spectrum. There is a wealth of documentation, libraries, and frameworks aimed at industry-level applications, including security, e-commerce, and transaction architectures.
Server-side Javascript
JavaScript on both the front and back-end? What is there not to love? Server-side JavaScript is nothing new, but it did receive a huge renaissance back in 2009 when Node.js showed the world the power of combining Google’s V8 JavaScript engine, an event loop, and a low-level I/O API. The result was a flexible, easy-to-run, high-performance web server that anyone with knowledge of the already-ubiquitous JavaScript language could pick-up and use.
Python
If you’re looking for an open-source, interpreted language that places an emphasis on highly readable code, Python is the general purpose programming language for you. Python has a large standard library loaded with pre-coded functions for every occasion—which allows programmers to do more with fewer lines of code.
Python’s easy-to-learn code has earned it the affection of many within the scientific community, where it can be used to process large datasets. On the back-end, the Django framework excels at rapid prototyping and development, making it a favorite among startups like Pinterest and Instagram.
Ruby
Ruby is similar to Python, in that it’s an interpreted language that places an emphasis on programmer productivity with a short and simple syntax. But while Python espouses a “one right way to program” philosophy, Ruby embraces programmer flexibility: There’s more than one way to do the same thing, and some ways may be faster than others. The language you choose is a matter of preference.
Ruby on Rails is the open-source framework that made Ruby the back-end powerhouse that it is today. It’s an open-source MVC framework that focuses on “convention over configuration” allowing developers to quickly bootstrap projects based on proven best practices. This allowed the original Twitter to spring to life in 2006, although they’ve since migrated to Blender and Java to fit the unique needs of their app. Websites like Hulu, Basecamp, Shopify, and Groupon all still use Ruby to this day.
C#
Microsoft’s answer to Java, C# is a programming language hybrid of C and C++ used to develop software for their .NET platform — a framework for building and running applications and XML web services. If you’re building websites or apps for the Microsoft ecosystem, C# is the way to go. MSN, Salesforce, and of course Microsoft’s own website are all examples of major sites that use C# and ASP.NET as part of their back-end builds.
PHP
According to a 2017 W3Tech market report, PHP is used by 82.9 percent of websites as part of their back-end technology stacks. Initially released in 1995, PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language that makes it perfect for web templating and content management systems. If you’ve ever built a website using site builders like WordPress or Joomla, you’ve already relied on the power of PHP. PHP is a proven server-side technology and can be found in the back-end stacks of sites like Facebook, Baidu, and Wikipedia.
Go
Google’s Go or GoLang was designed and released in 2009 to solve problems unique to managing the codebase of one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world. It’s been on the rise in recent years, climbing to number 9 on Github’s 2017 Octoverse Report. The goal was to create a language tailored towards scalability that combines the clean concise code of higher-level programming languages like Ruby/Python with the performance and efficiency of lower-level programming languages like C/C++. Besides Google, Adobe, BBC, and IBM are among the major websites that are powered by Go.
Swift
Since its initial release in 2014, Swift’s soared in popularity in record time (peaking at #10 on the TIOBE Index in March 2017). Swift is a general-purpose programming language with an elegantly simple syntax that is inherently type safe. While Swift is most well known for building native apps for Apple devices, it can also be used as a server-side technology with frameworks like Perfect or Vapor. Like Go, Swift was designed to be both performant and fun to use. If its swift rise in popularity is any indication, Swift is definitely a language you’ll want to look out for in 2018.
Pick the best web development language for your needs
This list is by no means comprehensive, but the languages highlighted here are among the most popular languages currently dominating the web development rankings today.
The important thing to take away from this list is that there is no single best programming language. Instead, select the languages that best fit the features and functionality you want to master for yourself.
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