C++ Overtakes Java: Key Takeaways from the TIOBE December 2022 Rankings

TIOBE December 2022 Top 20 Programming Languages

TIOBE announced its December 2022 programming language ranking, with three main contenders for the year‑end title: Python, C and C++. Although Python and C have repeatedly won the award, C++ achieved a historic first by overtaking Java, which fell to fourth place, marking the first time since the index began in 2001 that Java is outside the top three. Kotlin and Julia are also closing in on the Top 20.

In the Top 20, C++ moved up to third place, while SQL rose one spot to eighth and Assembly language slipped to ninth; the remaining languages kept their positions.

Among ranks 11‑20, positions fluctuated: Scratch briefly rose from 23rd to 17th before dropping to 21st, Perl re‑entered the Top 20 at 18th, and Go and R swapped places.

Specific upward moves include R (12→11), Matlab (15→14), Swift (18→15) and Ruby (19→17). Declines were observed for Go (11→12), Delphi/Object Pascal (14→16) and Objective‑C (16→19). Classic Visual Basic and Rust remained at 13th and 20th respectively.

TOP 10 Programming Language TIOBE Index Trend (2002‑2022)

Ranks 21‑50

The languages ranked 21‑50 are listed in the original source; they show modest movements compared to the top tier.

Ranks 51‑100

Ranks 51‑100 are presented as a plain text list (alphabetically ordered) due to minimal value differences.

The TIOBE Programming Community Index measures the popularity of programming languages based on the number of skilled engineers, courses, and third‑party vendors worldwide, using search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu. The index does not assess language quality or code volume, but it can help developers gauge whether their skills stay current and assist decision‑making when choosing a language for new software projects.