Source: mybroadband.co.za
JavaScript remains the most popular programming language in the world, according to Amazon’s State of the Developer Nation Survey for 2019.
The language has more than 12 million users worldwide and is one of the fastest-growing programming languages globally – growing by 3 million developers between Q4 2017 and Q4 2019.
Amazon estimates that there are more than 20.4 million active software developers in the world, more than half of which are using JavaScript.
“Not only do new developers see it as an attractive entry-level language, but also existing developers are adding it to their skillset,” Amazon said.
“As a result, JavaScript is now used by more than half of developers working on web applications, cloud services, or extensions for third-party ecosystems.”
Two other languages that have seen steady growth are Python and Java.
Python added 2.2 million new developers in 2018 and surpassed Java in terms of popularity. Despite this growth slowing in 2019, Python remains the second-most widely-used programming language overall.
Popular applications
The survey found that JavaScript was most popular in web, cloud, and third-party ecosystem applications, and least popular in IoT app and gaming development.
Python was the most popular programming language for IoT applications and the least popular in gaming and mobile development.
Java, the third-most-popular language in the world, was most popular among mobile and cloud developers and was one of the least popular languages for web applications.
Programming languages which were popular for AR and VR applications included C#, Visual tools, Swift, and Rust.
C# was also most popular among video game developers for platforms other than mobile.
“The fastest-growing language community in percentage terms is Kotlin,” Amazon noted. “It nearly doubled in size in the past two years, from 1.1 million developers in Q4 2017 to 2 million in Q4 2019.”
“Given that Google has made Kotlin its preferred language for Android development, we can only expect this growth to continue, and Kotlin becoming a core language in mobile development.”
Open-source contributions
The survey also found that 3 out of 5 developers contribute to open-source software.
“Developers are most motivated to contribute to open-source projects to improve coding skills (29%) and a belief in the benefits of open source (26%),” Amazon said.
“What’s more, 22% of developers contribute to open-source software because it’s fun or to solve an issue with an existing open-source software project such as fixing a bug or creating a new feature.”
The graph below details the most popular programming languages in the world according to Amazon’s State of the Developer Nation Survey for Q4 2019.