TIOBE Software has published its list of programming language popularity for January 2012 and awarded Objective-C the TIOBE Programming Language Award for 2011. The award is given for the language with the most growth in market share for the year. Objective-C’s growth is driven, of course, by the popularity of the iPhone and iPad and their App Store infrastructure.
There aren’t a lot of surprises. Java is in first place (but losing share) and C is second and gaining share. Surprisingly, Python lost a significant amount of share and dropped from 5th place last year to 8th this year. Lisp has positive growth and maintained its 13th place from last year.
I don’t take the list too seriously but it does, as TIOBE says, give programmers a view of what languages are “important” at the moment and an indication of whether or not their skills need updating. Other than that the list is interesting on its own terms. Who would have thought, for instance, that Objective Pascal is in 11th place ahead of Ruby in 12th?