In the last post I reviewed the trends for traditional languages like C# and Java. Today, we return to a list I call “web and scripting languages” because I do not have a better name. This list currently includes Ruby, Python, PHP, JavaScript, Groovy and Erlang. If you think I should be including another language, please let me know in the comments.

First, let’s look at the trends from Indeed.com:

JavaScript demand remains fairly high, but it has hit a plateau over the past year. PHP, Python and Ruby show similar growth trends, though they seem more stable in the past few months. Groovy definitely shows a positive trend, but overall demand does not come near Ruby, its nearest competitor. Erlang is also showing some growth, but continues to trail all other languages in this review.

Now onto the short-term trends from SimplyHired.com:

SimplyHired shows a decline for JavaScript over the past three months. PHP has been fairly steady over the past year. Python has kept pace with PHP with a slight decline in the past two months. Ruby seems to be the only language showing a positive trend lately as it looks to surpass Python. Groovy showed an increase in June but seems to have decreased a bit as well, and it continues to lag behind. Erlang barely registers any demand, so seeing a trend is near impossible.

Lastly, we have the relative trends for job growth from Indeed.com. This compares percentage growth as opposed to percentage of all postings:

Groovy and Erlang are showing tremendous growth, but it is simpler to show high percentage growth when overall demand is so low. More impressive is the sustained growth of Ruby. Ruby is fairly mature and already has solid demand, so growing at 2500% for the past 18 months is really good. Python has a solid positive growth trend, showing around 600% growth for the past 18 months. PHP and Javascript do not show huge relative growth, but both have been in high demand for a long time so 250% growth is still very solid.

All of the trends have flattened this year, which is consistent with the traditional languages. Many people I have talked to, hiring managers, job hunters and recruiters, all seem to say that demand is high for everything. However, the trends to not point to huge growth like we have seen in the past. I continue to watch how HTML5 is progressing, and I keep hearing about mixed trends. It could be that HTML5 is having the same stable trend that these languages are having. Overall, the trends do not get me excited, but I am wondering if there is so much demand that programmers cannot fill the positions quick enough. That would be one reason for stable trends like these, but I cannot say for sure without a significant amount of research.

Related articles

• Traditional Programming Language Job Trends – August 2012 (regulargeek.com)
• PHP v Ruby v Python – The Language Crunch (i-programmer.info)
• Announcing Python (codecademy.com)