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These lesser-known programming languages are exploding in popularity, according to the 'Facebook for programmers'

These lesser-known programming languages are exploding in popularity, according to the 'Facebook for programmers'

#10: SQLPL. SQLPL stands for Structured Query Language Procedural Language, and it was developed by IBM. This language is used for database systems, similarly to the industry standard, SQL.

#9: Groovy. Groovy is a dynamic programming language for the Java platform. It’s known for its concise and simple syntax. It also feels familiar to many programmers, as it has features similar to Python, Ruby and Perl.

#8: Python. Python is a high-level language that’s popular in machine learning projects. It’s popular with programmers of all skill levels because it’s easy to read. In fact, not only is it fast-growing, it's already one of the top-3 most popular languages overall.

“Python is a legit phenomenon of it’s own,” Stephen O’Grady, industry analyst with RedMonk, said at the GitHub Universe conference this week. “A lot of it comes down to the fact that it’s an incredibly versatile language. It’s escaped the track of being just front end or back end."

#7: Go. Go is an open-source programming language designed by a group of Google engineers. It’s similar to C, but designed for large-scale systems. There are 1.5 times more contributors writing Go this year than last year.

#6: CMake. CMake is an open-source platform created by Kitware used to develop software. It has tools for building, testing and packaging software and can be used across different platforms.

#5: Rust. This language is similar to the older and widely used programming language C++, but it runs quickly and can safely execute multiple sequences at once. It has a focus on memory safety, meaning that it can protect from software bugs and security vulnerabilities when accessing memory.

#4: PowerShell. PowerShell allows user to quickly automate tasks that manage operating systems like Linux, macOS and Windows.

Users can manage their computers from the command line, where users can type commands for the computer to perform tasks like navigating, creating and deleting files, as well as running programs.

#3: TypeScript. This language is similar to JavaScript, but with more power.

Its syntax and semantics is similar to JavaScript, the most popular programming language in the world. That makes it popular with the JavaScript community, who often prefer it for building large-scale applications. In addition to making this list, TypeScript also made the top 10 most popular programming languages overall.

#2 HCL, which stands for HashiCorp Configuration Language.

This language was built by HashiCorp. It’s a human-friendly language used for DevOps, an engineering methodology designed to help developers turn out more code, faster.

The number of contributors writing in HCL has more than doubled since last year.

#1: Kotlin. Kotlin grew more than two and a half times this past year. It can be used to write Android apps faster. Kotlin is similar to Java, which is a major reason why it’s quickly growing, O’Grady says.

“It’s able to build off of and intermingle with a very large language community in Java. It’s an easy fit for Java developers,” O’Grady said at GitHub Universe.

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