As 2011 approaches, eWEEK takes a look at the top 18 programming languages for developers going into the new year. This list is filled with the tried and true. In some instances, some observers might view a few of the picks as the "tired and through." However, despite their age, the workhorse languages such as C and C++ continue to remain at the top end of the software development landscape in terms of language use and job potential (despite growing more slowly and even decreasing, according to some sources). Moreover, this list is not intended to highlight the hot, hip new languages on the horizon, but to focus on where programmers can go to look for work. To compile this list, eWEEK checked out the TIOBE Index, which sorts out developer language popularity, Regular Geek as well as job sites such as Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com. Java has dominated the programming jobs rankings for the last several years and remains dominant going into 2011. According to Simply Hired, since April 2009, Java jobs increased 52 percent, Perl jobs increased 33 percent, C# jobs increased 52 percent, Objective C jobs increased 60 percent (however, a search for "Objective-C" showed a 207 percent increase in jobs), Visual Basic jobs increased 112 percent, JavaScript jobs increased 76 percent, Ruby jobs increased 78 percent, Python jobs increased 69 percent, C jobs increased 11 percent and PHP jobs increased 58 percent. Yet, Simply Hired shows a decrease of 13 percent in terms of jobs for the C++ language. – …