In winning the designation for 2020, Python jumped 2.01 percentage points last year in the Tiobe Index of language popularity, edging out C++, which increased 1.99 percentage points.

Software firm Tiobe's December 2020 programming language rankings place C as the most popular language, followed by Java, Python, C++, C#, Visual Basic, JavaScript, PHP, R, and SQL.

Python remains the top choice for its simplicity and versatility across fields.Languages like Java, JavaScript, and C++ ...

Python's eclipse of Java would not be good news for Oracle, which paid $7.4bn for Sun Microsystems in 2009 and cited Java as the "most important software Oracle has ever acquired".

This is how C++ and Java came to supplant Pascal, a popular language for teaching programming in the 1980s. Python possesses a mix of qualities that makes it a good candidate for universities.