I was curious what the most common programming languages were on the profiles of software developers in the Boston area. The above chart is based on searching for "software developer" within 50 miles of Boston using a keyword for each language. It comes as no surprise that Java is the most common, since the language is nearing the drinking age in Massachusetts, and you'd have to be living in the Sumner Tunnel the past two decades to have not used it in some capacity. I will confess JavaScript came as a bit of a surprise, although GitHub data supports this. PHP is a little surprising to me too, making me wonder if I should stop calling it the COBOL of the web.
But the biggest surprise of all is that if recruiting was a programming language, it would rank 3 on our list, with 2,947 professionals claiming it on their profiles.