[webmaven]

> The tiobe index lists Java and C in those spots.

That list is ranking languages by current popularity, though, rather than 'importance'.

I'd define 'importance' as more along the lines of "amount of havoc created if all software written using that language were broken/deleted at once".

[govg]

Wouldn't languages like COBOL rank pretty highly because a lot of legacy banking systems are written in that?

[webmaven]

Yes, but frankly, C would still cause more havoc because even if the mainframes somehow continued to run, they would still be effectively inaccessible over any network.