R rises to #12 in Redmonk language rankings

In the latest Redmonk language rankings, R has risen to the #12 position, up from #14 in the June 2017 rankings. (Python remains steady in the #3 position.) The Redmonk rankings are based on activity in StackOverflow (as a proxy for user engagement) and Github (as a proxy for developer engagement). Here's the chart from January 2018 of Github popularity ranking versus StackOverflow popularity ranking.

Here's what Redmonk analyst Stephen O'Grady had to say about Powershell, R and Typescript. (R isn't a Microsoft property, but Microsoft is a founding member of the R Consortium and incorporates R into several products including Microsoft ML Server, SQL Server and Power BI.)

Powershell (+1) / R (+2) / TypeScript (+3): Of all of the vendors represented on this list, Microsoft has by a fair margin the most to crow about. Its ops-oriented language Powershell continues its steady rise, and R had a bounceback from earlier slight declines. TypeScript, meanwhile, pulled off a contextually impressive three spot jump from #17 to #14. Given that growth in the top twenty comes at a premium, hitting the ranking that a widespread language like R enjoyed in our last rankings is an impressive achievement. From a macro perspective, it’s also worth noting that Microsoft is seeing growth across three distinct categories in operations, analytics/data science and application development. More on this later, but it’s a strong indication that Microsoft’s multi-language approach to the broader market is paying dividends.

You can find the complete top 20 rankings and analysis of the other languages in the list by following the link below.

Tecosystems: The RedMonk Programming Language Rankings: January 2018