I love Python, so I'm pleased with this - it's now ranked #2 in the world! Thanks to Wired for this article :: Python is one of the world’s most popular programming languages. In fact, it’s more so than ever. Python climbed from third place to tie for second in the latest ranking of programming language popularity published by the analyst firm RedMonk. It’s the first time that a language other than JavaScript, which remains number one in the firm’s ratings, or Java, the other runner-up, has entered the top two since RedMonk started compiling its rankings in 2012.

That milestone is all the more significant given a sometimes rocky transition from the second version of Python, which the language's developers stopped supporting this year, to the third version.

RedMonk usually doesn't make much of small rankings changes, cofounder Stephen O'Grady writes in the report, but it's rare to see any sort of movement in the top tier of programming languages, which consists of well-established languages. JavaScript is the primary way developers run code inside web browsers and is also increasingly used for other purposes, ranging from mobile and desktop app development to programming drones. Java, meanwhile, is the standard language for writing Android apps and is a corporate software development mainstay.

Python's continued success wasn't a given. The long transition from Python 2 to Python 3 in particular could have shunted developers elsewhere. Python 3 was first released in 2008, and the team initially planned to stop supporting Python 2 in 2015, meaning there would be no further bug fixes and security updates from the official project. But they extended that deadline to 2020 when it became clear that many developers would need more time to update their code to the newer version.

During that time, developers could have opted to switch to a newer programming language, like Mozilla's Rust, Google's Go, or JetBrains' Kotlin. Meanwhile, newer programmers could have opted to learn the more widely used JavaScript, or been turned off by confusion over what tutorials, code samples, and open source code libraries would work with each version of Python. But if Python lost any developers due to the transition, it appears to have more than made up for them in new converts.

O'Grady cites Python's versatility as one reason for its ongoing popularity. Companies like Google, Dropbox, and Instagram all rely heavily on Python, as do countless smaller ventures. It also has a home in academia as the preferred data-crunching language of many scientists and mathematicians.