When it comes to increasing the speed of the operations in the cloud or when it comes to IaC (Infrastructure as Code), DevOps plays an important role. DevOps was born due to the need for companies and enterprises to quicken their deployment time. It relies heavily on task automation.
Since we need DevOps not only for Infrastructure security but also for other aspects such as Data Science and so on, it is taking a lot less time to start things up with the side effect being that this may be far too complex. So, what is DevOps? Learn more about DevOps here.
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What is DevOps?
It is a set of practices with the sole goal being to improve and increase the speed of projects in companies. It encourages automation, speed, and efficiency of the work. DevOps consists of two words; Developers and Operations. In this strategy, the developers and operators collaborate to provide faster levels of code production and the highest amount of operation efficiency.
They follow a set of operations ingrained called the DevOps lifecycle.
Since DevOps is just a set of operations, do we need to learn any programming? The answer is yes, you need to learn some programming languages specifically to support the DevOps team. Instead of the code being built from different departments, the coding part is handled by a singular team with expert and innate knowledge of the project.
You can use any language for DevOps, but learning the most popular languages used in DevOps will always help you in the long run. Here are the top 10 programming languages to be used in DevOps.
How to Choose Programming Languages for DevOps?
There are certain criteria for a programming language to be used in DevOps. They are:
- Scalability: One of the most important aspects when choosing a programming language for DevOps is how easy to scale the language might be. If you can scale your applications quickly and efficiently, that is very good in the concept of DevOps.
- Execution Speed: Another important aspect of DevOps is its lightning-fast execution time. Any way or optimization strategies used to decrease the overall runtime of the program are encouraged. Many fast-processing languages such as Go, Ruby, SQL and so on.
Top 10 Programming Languages for DevOps
Depending on the department and type of software, the type of programming languages used in DevOps varies. Keeping that in mind, we’ve selected the top 10 languages in DevOps that you can learn.
1. C/C++
Created during the 1970s, C++ is one of the most popular languages used in software development to this day. C++ has one of the fastest computation times compared to most programming languages.
Advantages
But, compared to languages like Go or Ruby, C++ has slow computation time. It is saved by the fact that it is an old programming language and most of the software out there is compatible with C/C++. Despite its slow execution time, it is used in many projects such as game development, systems programming and so on.
2. Python
Created in 1989 by Guido van Rossum, Python is currently one of the most relevant languages in the current digital age. However, Python is a really heavy language and has slower execution times compared to C/C++, Go or Ruby due to it being an interpreted language built from C++.
Advantages
Due to its easy-to-understand syntax and its extensive machine-learning libraries, it’s used a lot in DevOps due to its straightforward syntax. It has multiple libraries from which it can import functionalities for front-end, client-server and back-end applications making it an attractive language to be used in DevOps.
3. Ruby
Ruby is a popular language created in 1995 and used to automate repetitive tasks. Its simple syntax and high scalability with different OS such as Android and IoS systems make it one of the most preferable DevOps languages due to its flexibility.
Advantages
In fact, developers rank Ruby as their top programming application due to its high compilation speed and compatibility. Many popular applications are developed by Ruby such as ManagelQ which is a Ruby on Rails app.
4. JavaScript
Similar to Python, JavaScript is a multi-purpose programming language for different applications such as UI (React.js), server-side support (Angular.js, Express.js) and backend (Node.js). Typescript is often used to compile lines as you code so that you can considerably reduce the number of bugs before the first iteration.
Advantages
Its multi-functional support makes it one of the most popular languages in DevOps currently. This multifunctionality also bleeds in the fact that its versatility comes along with high computation speeds. You can build interactive 3-D modelled charts and also code in various functionalities using ‘npm’ (Node Package Manager).
5. PHP
Short for Hypertext Preprocessor, PHP is a general-purpose programming language generally used to build websites with good UX. PHP is also used to automate various aspects of your DevOps tasks not limited to monitoring, workflow automation and so on. Not only that, but PHP also possesses various built-in frameworks specifically for DevOps such as Laravel, PHP CodeSniffer, Composer, PHPUnit and so much more.
Advantages
It is also very compatible with other programming languages such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML), JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), HTML (HyperText Markup Language), CSS and so on to create dynamic applications and even better UI (User Interface). Due to its general purpose and the language being open-source and free, it is used for payment pipelines, widgets and social media channels.
6. Java
Java is one of the oldest coding languages. It is mainly used to develop native applications. Compared to other languages, it has less scalability and compatibility issues. Java is one of the most popular languages for developing apps on Android phones. Due to its object-oriented syntax, it can run fast despite it being an old language.
Advantages
Due to its class-based syntax, you can run specific classes in case you want less computational complexity. Combine that with its highly object-oriented syntax and it wins the hearts of many developers using it in DevOps. Its recent plugins also make it easy to scale applications made using Java. Java is mainly used in app development along with other languages such as Flutter.
7. Go (Golang)
Made by Google, Go or Golang is one of the newest programming languages to appear in 2009. This was around the same timeframe when the concept of DevOps was making its rounds. Due to this, both of them had similar growths making Go one of the best choices for developers in DevOps.
Advantages
True to the DevOps mantra, Go is built for creating robust applications and maintaining a high speed in program execution. This makes Go one of the best languages to use to build a microservices application in Jenkins, Kubernetes or Docker. Due to its compatibility with the cloud, there is little to no need to build dependencies for your program if you are using Go.
8. SQL
When it comes to database storage in the back end, few languages are faster in RDBMS (Relational DataBase Management System) languages than SQL. It is one of the most widely used data management languages to this day. With specific queries, you can view the whole table or relations between and so on. You can define relational schemas and so much more.
Advantages
When it comes to dealing with structured data SQL (Strutured Query Language) is in a completely different ballpark. Hence, it is used in DevOps a lot. It is very compatible with different database systems such as Oracle Database systems, MySQL, Microsoft SQL servers and so on.
9. Bash
Bash is a Unix Shell used for command-line scripting. It is very compatible with thousands of Linux OS around the world. Not only that, Git (part of GitHub) also has a bash command line where you can develop systems and test them with command line scripting.
Advantages
Not only is it compatible with the Linux OS, but it is also usable in both Windows OS and MacOS, making it a versatile DevOps language that you can use to your advantage. Due to it running in the command line, it can run very fast with minimal programming execution times.
10. Perl
Perl is a programming language generally used in cross-platform applications. Due to its applications being easily scalable, Perl is used heavily in a lot of DevOps languages. Perl was developed with the plan of developing an easy syntax in mind. Due to this, it has a syntax similar to C and Python. Due to its efficient language architecture, a lot can be done with fewer lines of code compared to the other languages listed here.
Advantages
Even though it is mainly used in web development, it has networks that make it compatible with uses such as system administration, software framework and so on. Perl was originally designed to make text processing easier and faster, extracting useful information and so on, it became indispensable in the world of DevOps with many acronyms given to its name.
However, the most common acronym used by most people is “Practical Extraction and Reporting Language”.
Conclusion
With the rapid digitization of the world after the industrial age, innovations will come and go faster than ever before. But one of the things that may remain constant through time is the importance of DevOps. Not only that but programming for the sake of DevOps will remain relevant for quite a while. DevOps and IaC have the highest scope and demand. In the end, it is up to you, to go through this blog and make informed decisions of what languages you want to learn that might fit your tech stack.
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