R language rises with Covid-19 research

The statistical computing language moves up in Tiobe index of language popularity, as Rust and Kotlin also gain

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8 July 2020

Covid-19, previously cited as a possible factor in boosting the popularity of the C programming language, could also be increasing the use of the R language for statistical computing.

R rose to eighth place this month in the Tiobe index of language popularity, its highest position ever, compared to ninth place last month and 20th a year ago. In trying to explain the jump for R, Tiobe cited the possibility of a spike in statistical computing and data mining associated with the search for a vaccine for the Covid-19 virus.

The rise of R follows the rise of C, which supplanted Java at the top the index in May, after Java had led the index for more than five years. Tiobe theorised that C’s use in medical devices in the wake of COVID-19 was the reason for the boost in popularity. In the case of R, Tiobe surmised that more universities and research institutes are embracing R and Python for statistical analyses rather than commercial packages such as SAS, Strata, and SPSS.

Other movers of note in this month’s index include the Rust language, up to 18^th from 20^th last month; Kotlin, up three spots to 27^th; and Delphi/Object Pascal, down to 30^th place from 22^nd in June.

C led the index for the third straight month. The Tiobe Index is based on a formula that assesses searches related to languages in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Wikipedia.

The top 10 programming languages in the Tiobe Index for July 2020:

C, 16.45%
Java, 15.1%
Python, 9.09%
C++, 6.21%
C#, 5.25%
Visual Basic, 5.23%
JavaScript, 2.48%
R, 2.41%
PHP, 1.9%
Swift, 1.43%

The alternative Pypl Popularity of Programming Language index, which assesses popularity based on searches of language tutorials in Google, listed the following languages in its top 10 for July 2020: