JavaScript: The Choice for Startups
It's true that some leaders in the industry consider Python the best language for new programmers to start with, but it turns out that JavaScript is the programming language that start-up companies are turning to in order to climb the tech ladder. At least, that is what some industry media outlets like IT World are reporting.
What could be driving JavaScript’s popularity with startups? In an article posted on Tech City News Rohan Maheswaran explains the newfound popularity and why JavaScript is likely to be a bigger part of the future:
An open language that comes installed on every modern browser that is equally adapted to build both client and server-side apps, JavaScript appears to be an immovable force. With the next generation of talented programmers expected to be treating JavaScript as their native language of choice its stock only seems likely to rise further.
Despite such high praise, JavaScript is somewhat of a dark horse when it comes to being the choice language for start ups. That is because it ranked tenth in the latest TIOBE Index and was only ranked as high as ninth during all of 2013. The TIOBE Index aggregates information from courses, skilled workers, and third-party vendors to rate the most popular programming languages.
The fact that JavaScript is becoming the go-to programming language for start-up companies in the industry leads us to believe that the TIOBE Index might look drastically different in a few years. But, JavaScript isn't the only language getting the nod from startups.
Other popular programming languages used by startups are Ruby, Python, and PHP in that order. Ruby on Rails was actually the top choice for the development of the interface between users and the back end, with HTML5 also enjoying notable use.
As Leo Polovets of Coding VC wrote in his blog, when it comes to hosting and infrastructure for start-up companies, there is a clear and dominant leader. That leader is Amazon Web Services. Polovets lends his posting to dividing the stats of start-up companies by their AngelList score. With that data, Polovets made an interesting observation: The better the company (in terms of AngelList rating), the more likely they were to use IaaS instead of PaaS and avoid building on top of Microsoft products like Azure, which is the tech giant’s cloud platform.
Why is it important to know what tools and languages startups are supporting? Because some of those startups will grow into mainstream industry players, and those same giants will dictate the market and the programming landscape.
