Developer Survey Report: JavaScript and Python Still Dominate, Rust Continues to Soar 4X

Recently, developer survey and analysis company SlashData released a report titled "The State of the 22nd Developer Nation".

The report presents data from a survey of more than 20,000 developers from 166 countries from December 2021 to February 2022. The survey results show that JavaScript is the most popular language for the tenth time in a row, with nearly 17.5 million developers using the popular web scripting language.

JavaScript and Python dominate

Survey data shows that both JavaScript and Python maintain their staying power when it comes to developer preference. Among them, JavaScript continues to hold the top position of the most popular programming language, with 17.5 million developers and users using the language.

As the second most popular language after JavaScript, Python surpassed Java in popularity two years ago, with 15.7 million developers using the language. In the past six months alone, Python has added 3.3 million new development users.

Rust developer users jump nearly 4x

In recent years, the popularity of the Rust language has also been rising. The survey data shows that from the Q1 quarter of 2020 to the Q1 quarter of 2022, the number of Rust language developer users has soared from 600,000 to 2.2 million.

As for the areas where the use of the Rust language is growing rapidly, the report says that Rust is mainly used in IoT projects, but also in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) development.

In this regard, Rebecca Rumbul, executive director of the Rust Foundation, said: "Rust's security and memory safety allow people to create with confidence." "The community with maintainers and contributors is inclusive and supportive. As the demand for Rust developers continues to increase, Rust also hopes to be a good choice for improving the professional prospects of developers."

Java continues to document growth, PHP has minimal increments

In the survey results, Java, which is the focus of attention, continues to experience strong and steady growth. Nearly 5 million developers have joined the Java community since the beginning of 2021.

PHP had the least growth over the past six months, with a net addition of 600,000 new developers from Q3 2021 to Q1 2022. But PHP is the second most common language in web applications after JavaScript.

Go language dominates back-end development, Kotlin relies on Android development to grow rapidly

Go and Ruby are known to be important languages in back-end development, but the survey data shows that Go has grown more than twice as fast as Ruby in the past year. Of these, the Go community now has 3.3 million developers.

The Kotlin community has grown from 2.4 million developers in Q1 2021 to 5 million in Q1 2022. This is largely due to Google making Kotlin the language of choice for Android development.

46% of developers use low-code/no-code tools

The survey data also shows that 46% of developers use low-code or no-code tools for some of their jobs.

Experienced developers, especially those with 10+ years of experience, are least likely to use these (low-code or no-code) tools. However, 19% of developers in North America use low-code or no-code tools for more than half of their coding jobs, nearly double the global average of 10%.

Reference link: https://www.slashdata.co/free-resources/state-of-the-developer-nation-22nd-edition
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3661248/developer-survey-javascript-and-python-reign-but-rust-is-rising.html