JavaScript

2016 is the year of JavaScript. It has never been as popular as it is today, for both front- and backend tasks. It is actually the most commonly used programming language on earth. But why is that?

One of the main reasons must be that JavaScript is the go to language for the web. Mainly, because there aren't any alternatives. Sure, there are languages like TypeScript, Dart and Elm, but those are just compilers that end up with JavaScript.

Since everything is moving to the cloud it makes sense that the focus of developers is on JavaScript. It works everywhere. In the browser, on the phone and even on servers, which makes it so appealing. Developers have to learn only one language to develop anything they want. For web applications this is powerful, because both the client and the server speak the same language. They can even share certain bits of code, which makes development a breeze.

An example for this is a framework called Meteor. It makes it possible to write full-stack JavaScript applications, but without the borders between server and client. This approach is called isomorphic Javascript.