The TIOBE index for October is out and C has overtaken  to regain the coveted second place in the ranking. What is it about C that makes it so special and can it continue to be as important a language as we enter the era of AI-assisted coding?

Since my deep dive into the very early days of the TIOBE Index which revealed a remarkable degree of staticitity,  see Languages That Stand The Test Of Time, I've waited eagerly to see what each successive month would bring.

Last month the headline news was that Perl had re-entered the Top 10, giving Nikos Vaggalis a chance to enthuse about his favorite language in Perl Rebounds In TIOBE Index - Why?

This time it is C in the limelight as, after reaching it's all-time low of #4 in March 2025 it has resumed it's traditional place in the ranks, that is within the top two, overtaking both C++ and Java. 

As Paul Jansen explains in his report on this month's edition of the index: 

Ever since Python started to dominate the TIOBE index as of the end of 2023, runners up C, C++ and Java were involved in a heavy fight for second place. For more than a year now, the differences in TIOBE's rankings between these 3 languages are less than 1%. At some time, C took the lead, then C++ took over, and now C is back while Java always remained at close distance of the other two. This month, C is back at position 2, boosted by the adoption of its C23 version. 

As this table of the average position of languages over 5 year-periods shows, C started out at in pole position in 1985. This can easily be explained by the fact that at the time it was already well established having originated between 1969 and 1972, well before the invention of Python in 1991 and Java in 1995.  C was briefly displaced as the top language by C++ between 1995 and 2000.

It was in 2001 that Paul Jansen started to present a chart of the Top 10 of the TIOBE index on a monthly basis and. until the most recent 5-year period when Python saw a rapid rise and established its dominance, Java and C took it in turns to be in #1 and #2 with pretty close ratings, with C++ in #3. You can see how these three languages competed in this extract from the most recent chart:

In his look at the July TIOBE index, the month in which Python achieved a its highest ever rating to date, 26.98% which exceeded the record share enjoyed by Java, 26.49%, Mike James wrote:

When it comes to languages it's a two-tier world - Python and C. They rule and the rest are the noise, mostly driven by legacy and niche applications.

In that article he gives a brief account of why it is that Python dominates - i.e by being a general-purpose language that, with the availability of a huge number of libraries, makes it highly productive, easy for beginners and with features that make it unique and give it a depth of appeal.

The article also includes the explanation of why it is that C should be its nearest competitor - by keeping close to the hardware, C provides the speed of execution that Python sometimes lacks.

How will C fare in the era of AI? I asked Harry Fairhead for his opinion and found him pretty confident that C will have a big role to play. Reminding me that most operating systems, compilers, and core system components are written in C or C++ he told me that this foundational role is unlikely to change, and AI assistants will help developers maintain and evolve this massive, critical codebase.

In his area of expertise, embedded systems, as in the fields of robotics and automotive/aerospace systems,  C's ability to provide direct hardware control remains a necessity and AI tools are already helping to streamline this embedded C development by suggesting optimized, power-efficient algorithms.

More Information

TIOBE Index

Related Articles

Languages That Stand The Test Of Time

TIOBE - Two To Rule Them All

C Is Number One Language Again  

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