Story by
Nate Swanner
Former Reporter, TNWTNW's former West Coast writer in the PNW (Portland, Oregon). Nate loves amplifying developers, and codes in Swift when he's not writing. If TNW's former West Coast writer in the PNW (Portland, Oregon). Nate loves amplifying developers, and codes in Swift when he's not writing. If you need to get in touch, Twitter is your best bet.
It was bound to happen anyway, but Swift is supplanting Objective C as the de facto language for iOS development a lot faster than anyone expected.
In TIOBE’s latest index — which measures the popularity of programming languages — Objective C saw a sharp decline year-over-year. October 2014 saw Objective C as the third most popular language.
This year, it’s #14 on the list. Just behind it is Swift, which went from #19 to #15 in the same timeframe.
Swift’s rise isn’t the story — Objective C’s decline is. TIOBE reports it’s slumped 8.68 percent, the largest swing (positive or negative) of any language on the list.
That decline wasn’t a two-way street between Swift and Objective C, either. While Objective C fell hard, Swift only gained 0.52 percent on the chart. Other languages, like chart-topping Java, seem to have picked up some momentum as Objective C trailed off.
Over time, we should expect Swift to capture a prominent place on the list, especially as it goes open source.
➤ TIOBE Index for October 2015 [TIOBE via Slashdot]