Hello World Open is an international coding competition where teams develop an AI for a race car in various programming languages. 2345 teams have already signed up to Hello World Open. What do the choices made by the competitors tell about the global trends in software development? Let’s see.

Java is the number one

Probably the most common language used globally at work has been chosen by 499 teams so far. Java has clearly risen on the list, compared to the Hello World Open 2012, Finnish Coding Championships. Back then Java used to be the choice of only 9 % of the teams.



”Java refuses to die”, says Juha, a member of the Hello World Open tech team.



The popularity of Java managed to surprise the other members of the team too.



”Well, it’s a kind of an old but reliable dinosaur, but the new Java 8 might bring some changes”, Mikko adds.

Python comes second

The number two on the list is Python, chosen by 479 teams.



”It’s probably the first language taught in universities”, Teemu explains, although he himself tells that he prefers to code with Ruby.



Mikko says that one reason might be Python’s popularity among such trends as datamining, NumPy and artificial intelligence research. Python was a number two in the year 2012 as well with 27.5%.

Ruby’s popularity drops

On the contrary, Ruby seems to have lost its popularity among the majority. It used to be number one in Hello World Open 2012 (with 28.4%), but is now set far away from the lead.



”As a programming language, Ruby was really popular around the year 2012”, Mikko says.



Now it seems like Ruby’s ran out of fashion.

Haskell the underdog

Surprisingly, Haskell has climbed near Ruby on the list. Although seen as quite of an academic language, the tech team thinks there’s still something special about Haskell.



”It’s got a lot of unique features”, Juha describes. ”And a nice emphasis on functional programming”, he adds.

What we can’t compare are the new languages like C, C++ and C# / Mono which we didn’t have the last time. More surprises coming up! This is your chance to defend your favourite language’s honor :)

Sign up ends on tuesday at 1 pm GMT+3.