Categories
Community Languages

Size of Programming Language Communities in Q3 2021

Following our latest Developer Nation Survey, results are in and our State of the Developer Nation report 21st edition is now available! More than 19,000 developers from around the world participated and shed light on how they learn, the tools they use, how they are involved in emerging technologies, but also what would make them switch employers, among other topics.

As always, programming languages are a beloved subject of debate and one of the first topics we cover. The choice of language matters deeply to developers because they want to keep their skills up to date and marketable. It matters to toolmakers too, because they want to make sure they provide the most useful SDKs.

It can be hard to assess how widely used a programming language is. The indices available from players like Tiobe, Redmonk, Stack Overflow’s yearly survey, or GitHub’s Octoverse are great, but offer mostly relative comparisons between languages, providing no sense of the absolute size of each community. They may also be biased geographically or skewed towards certain fields of software development or open source developers.

The estimates we present here look at active software developers using each programming language; across the globe and across all kinds of programmers. They are based on two pieces of data:

  • First, our independent estimate of the global number of software developers, which we published for the first time in 2017. 

We estimate that, as of Q3 2021, there are 26.8 million active software developers in the world

  • Second, our large-scale, low-bias surveys which reach tens of thousands of developers every six months. In the surveys, we have consistently asked developers about their use of programming languages across ten areas of development, giving us rich and reliable information about who uses each language and in which context.

JavaScript’s popularity has skyrocketed

JavaScript is the most popular programming language community by a wide margin. Nearly 16.5M developers are using it globally. Notably, the JavaScript community has been growing in size consistently for the past several years. 4M developers joined the community in the last year – by far the highest growth in absolute terms across all languages – and upwards of 2.5M developers joined in the past six months alone. Even in software sectors where JavaScript is not among developers’ top choices, like data science or embedded development, about a fourth of developers use it in their projects.

Back in 2020 we suggested that learning Python would probably be a good idea. It still is. Since it surpassed Java in popularity at the beginning of 2020, Python has remained the second most widely adopted language behind JavaScript. Python now counts 11.3M users after adding 2.3M net new developers in the past 12 months. The rise of data science and machine learning (ML) is a clear factor in Python’s popularity. 

More than 70% of ML developers and data scientists report using Python

Java is the cornerstone of the Android app ecosystem as well as one of the most important general-purpose languages. Although it has been around for more than two decades now, its traction among developers keeps steadily growing. Since mid-2018, nearly 2.5M developers have joined the Java community, which now counts 9.6M developers.

Rust is rising fast

The group of major, well-established languages is completed with C/C++ (7.5M), PHP (7.3M), and C# (7.1M). Of these, PHP has grown the fastest in the past six months, with an influx of 1M net new developers between Q1 and Q3 2021. C and C++ are core languages in embedded and IoT projects for both on-device and application-level coding, whereas PHP is still the second most commonly used language in web applications after JavaScript. On the other hand, C# is traditionally popular within the desktop developer community, but it’s also the most broadly used language among AR/VR and game developers, largely due to the widespread adoption of the Unity game engine in these areas.

Rust has formed a very strong community of developers who care about performance, memory safety, and security. As a result, it grew faster than any other language in the last 24 months. Rust has nearly tripled in size from just 0.4M developers in Q3 2019 to 1.1M in Q3 2021. 

Rust is mostly used in embedded software projects but also in AR/VR development, most commonly for implementing the low-level core logic of AR/VR applications.

In previous editions of the State of the Developer Nation report, Kotlin has consistently been identified as a rising star among programming languages. Kotlin’s audience has doubled in size over the last three years – from 1.5M developers in Q2 2018 to nearly 3M in Q3 2021. This trend is largely attributed to Google’s decision to make Kotlin its preferred language for Android development. Kotlin is currently the third most popular language in mobile development, behind JavaScript and Java.

The more niche languages – Go, Ruby, Dart, and Lua – are still much smaller, with up to 2M active software developers each. Go and Ruby are important languages in backend development, but Go has grown slightly faster in the past year, both in absolute and percentage terms. Dart has also seen a significant uptick in its adoption in the last year. This has been fuelled predominantly by the increasing adoption of the Flutter framework in mobile development. Finally, Lua was the second fastest growing language community in the past two years, behind Rust, mainly attracting AR/VR and IoT developers looking for a scripting alternative to low-level languages such as C and C++.

You can read more about programming languages communities in the State of the Developer Nation report 21st edition.

Categories
Community

Developer Psychographics: Curious & Creative Problem-Solvers

Did you know that more developers are team players than loners? If you are like us, you probably love these kinds of facts. You can find more of these in our State of Developer Nation Report (SoN). This edition includes a chapter on Developer Psychographics.

The SoN report comes as a result of our Developer Economics surveys. These are answered annually by tens of thousands of developers, from all over the world. Therefore, these are some of the most reliable reports globally when it comes to developer trends.

The developer community is one of the most developing (see what I did there?) communities in the world. Changes are constant and sometimes, unpredictable. That is why our surveys are as inclusive and all-around as they can be, so that we don’t miss a single thing and we are always up to date.

Developer Psychographics: How do developers describe themselves?

This differs depending on their technology sector, their age and more. For instance, most developers see themselves as Logical persons. However, those working on game development see themselves mainly as Gamers (obviously).

developers

Younger developers mainly see themselves as Gamers. On the other hand, those over 35 years old are more likely to self identify as Readers. In addition, “Gamers” are the least popular term amongst developers aged 45-54 years old.

developers

During the Developer Economics Q2 2019 Survey, we offered respondents over 20 words to create a word sketch that would best describe themselves. Participants could use up to five words and also provide their own descriptions in a text field. We received over 300 responses which ranged from “analytical” to “zoned out”.

It would seem that we are amongst some Curious, Enthusiastic, Friendly, Geeks, and the occasional Innovative, Lazy Leaders Developers.

A few developers pondered if we were asking these questions in an effort to set up a dating site (we are not!). Speaking of love,  however, we found a few developers who love dancing, love the future, love puzzles and music.

Finally, we discovered that a lizard person had answered the survey.

This will surely help our research in years to come!

developers

If you enjoyed this post, you can read the first part of our Developer Psychographics here: How developers see themselves . We also created a webinar on this topic, which is now available on YouTube. Check it out: Developer Personas and Psychographics.

The full State of the Developer Nation report, 17th Edition, with more interesting facts like these ones, is available here.

Join our community for more

Our next report will be out soon, including all the latest trends of the developer world. Why not sign up in our community and receive it right in your inbox?

Our Developer Economics newsletters are fortnightly, include useful developer resources and news, always start with dev humor and are 100% spam free.

Till our next survey! 

Categories
Business

Data scientists need to make sense of the big picture, rather than the big data

The web echoes with cries for help with learning data science. “How do I get started?”. “Which are the must-know algorithms?”. “Can someone point me to best resources for deep learning?”. In response, a bustling ecosystem has sprung to life around learning resources of all shapes and sizes. Are the skills to unlock the deepest secrets of deep learning what emerging data scientists truly need though? Our research has consistently shown that only a minority of data scientists are in need of highly performing predictive models, while most would benefit from learning how to decide whether to build an algorithm or not and how to make sense of it, rather than how to actually build one.  

Categories
Business

Infographic: What are developers up to in the State of the Developer Nation 15th Edition?

Did you get a free copy of our latest State of the Developer Nation 15 edition? If you haven’t yet, you should! It highlights the most interesting findings from our Developer Economics survey which ran this summer in May-June this and reached over 20,500+ devs in 167 countries.

What’s new in the State of the Developer Nation 15 edition?


We asked developers, among other things, what kind of skills they’d like to learn or improve in 2019. We compared developer interest in twelve different skill sets, spanning from data science and machine learning to business/marketing skills to cloud-native development, DevOps, and hardware-level coding. The results were somewhat surprising. Data science and machine learning will be the most highly sought after skills in the next year – 45% of developers want to gain expertise in these fields. 33% of developers want to learn UI design, 25% cloud-native development. Other common tech skills, such as learning a new programming language, rank lower.

When it comes to programming language communities, JavaScript still reigns as the most popular language, with over 10M users globally. Python has reached 7M active developers and is climbing up the ranks.  62% of machine learning developers and data scientists now use Python.

Big data has been hyped for several years. In addition, a race has begun to design processors capable of crunching large sets of often unstructured data and to produce real-time predictions. The question is, to how many in the rapidly growing Data Science and Machine Learning (ML) community are large datasets and real-time predictions relevant? Scroll down to find all the highlights in the infographic!

Don’t forget to share the infographic & download the full report!

The Developer Economics 17th Edition is now LIVE. Take the survey and shape tomorrow’s trends.

State of the Developer Nation 15 edition, developer economics, developer survey, slashdata, developer research, infographic

Liked it? Take the survey and share with us your ideas for the future of development.

Categories
Community

The State of the Developer Nation Survey – Winners

Welcome to the full rundown of the State of the Developer Nation Survey (November-December 2016) prize draw winners. Below you’ll find a table comprised of both the email addresses and countries of all the people that won (the emails are obfuscated for security reasons).

Winners have already been notified by email – if you recognise the email fragment as yours and we haven’t contacted you, please drop us an email at survey@visionmobile.com.

Please note that the list only includes prize-draw winners and not runner-ups. If the prize draw winners do not claim their prizes within the timeframe mentioned in the respective e-mail they received, then runner-ups will be asked to claim them instead.

General Prize Draw Winners

Prize Draw Winners Country Prize
han**sa*op**@outlook.com India a Surface Pro 3!
ch**r**ha*mi29@yahoo.fr Tunisia a Surface Pro 3!
ma**@be*****wman.net United States an Oculus Rift Headset!
def**ct@si**rap.net United States an Apple Watch!
Jc*eal*1@gmail.com United States a Pixel Phone!
geza.**nk*+*****y@gmail.com Hungary $300 Digital Ocean credit!
g**o*n*sha**h@gmail.com India a BlackBerry DTEK50!
d*nc*nn*la**@gmail.com Zimbabwe a Meccano Meccanoid G15 K5!
i*i*.k**@p**om***ersolu***ns.co.uk United Kingdom a Unity Plus one year subscription!
datt*tri***0@yahoo.com India a FrontEnd Masters Yearly license!
gu**arah*l12*@hotmail.com India a Data Science: Data to Insights MIT
course!
4*16*0*3*@qq.com China a Windows IoT RP2 Kit!
Hall**@gmail.com United States a Windows IoT RP2 Kit!
j**aidg**arha***i@gmail.com Pakistan an Intel Joule 570X dev kit!
m*er*er33@gmail.com United States a Windows IoT RP2 Kit!
kiy**e**e**loper_su**e*@gmail.com United States an Annual SitePoint Premium
membership!
kajal***h**ha@gmail.com India an Annual SitePoint Premium
membership!
c*dr***gue*i*@hotmail.com France an Annual SitePoint Premium
membership!
b**g*a*i.*ed*@gmail.com Morocco a FrontEnd Masters Yearly license!
i*ons*@gmail.com Slovakia a FrontEnd Masters Yearly license!
js***er@fa***ail.com United States a Windows IoT RP2 Kit!
g****fo*k**@ge***netics.com United Kingdom a Machine Learning Mastery ebook
super bundle!
a*ra*he*9*@gmail.com Bulgaria a Udemy course(s) up to $80 USD.
Please visit Udemy and choose the course or courses up to that value and
complete the “comments section” in the form.
cserb***@gmail.com Romania a Udemy course(s) up to $80 USD.
Please visit Udemy and choose the course or courses up to that value and
complete the “comments section” in the form.
G*n**G**es@gmail.com Ukraine a Udemy course(s) up to $80 USD.
Please visit Udemy and choose the course or courses up to that value and
complete the “comments section” in the form.
m*x***vi*t*@yahoo.com United States a Udemy course(s) up to $80 USD.
Please visit Udemy and choose the course or courses up to that value and
complete the “comments section” in the form.
ka***tc@gmail.com Ukraine a Udemy course(s) up to $80 USD.
Please visit Udemy and choose the course or courses up to that value and
complete the “comments section” in the form.
lc**4*u**wa*92@gmail.com India a Raspberry PI 3 & PI-Blox Lego
compatible case
a*j**dk*r*@gmail.com India a Raspberry PI 3 & PI-Blox Lego
compatible case
m**ko.****la@gmail.com Denmark a Raspberry PI 3 & PI-Blox Lego
compatible case
car*@s***ers.com United States a Raspberry PI 3 & PI-Blox Lego
compatible case
ejc***@gmail.com United States a Raspberry PI 3 & PI-Blox Lego
compatible case
k*ar***to@gmail.com Ukraine a Raspberry PI 3 & PI-Blox Lego
compatible case
aa**ty*Y*0*9@gmail.com India a Raspberry PI 3 & PI-Blox Lego
compatible case
C***b*t*@hotmail.com Netherlands a Raspberry PI 3 & PI-Blox Lego
compatible case
94**9024*@qq.com China a Raspberry PI 3 & PI-Blox Lego
compatible case
jaspe*.*a***mal*e@gmail.com Belgium a Raspberry PI 3 & PI-Blox Lego
compatible case
m*s***das*3*.**@gmail.com United States an Es6.Io Beginners Course Master
Package or alternatively, you can select the ReactForBeginners.com Master
Package. Please let us know the one you prefer in the “comments
section” in the form.
biola***@gmail.com Nigeria a Cloudacademy Professional three months subscription!
e****ara*@gmail.com United States a Codeplace Professional 12 months
subscription!
k*rt***.ve*k**.*@hotmail.com United States a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
d*ve*o**r*con**ic*.com@ve***ir.com United Kingdom a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
b*tbe**@gmail.com Vietnam a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
m*gye*o*i@gmail.com Ghana a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
l*iam**d@ld***ond.com United States a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
kri**ja**j@gmail.com Iceland a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
ciud***nob*rr***@gmail.com Spain a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
ledu**o*n*9*t*@gmail.com Vietnam a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
frui*y**uon***@gmail.com Australia a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
ant**@cs.b**.hu Hungary a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
c***l*s**al**ce@hotmail.co.uk United Kingdom a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
er*c**a***ne@v*-cr**is.com France a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
21*357***@qq.com China a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
d*r*kh**@gmail.com Vietnam a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
c*lsufo*****@hotmail.com United Kingdom a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
a*e*k***as@gmail.com Greece a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
dphdp*d@gmail.com Hungary a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
maxim*h***z*no*@gmail.com Bulgaria a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
m**e@en***m.com United States a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
b*o**ar*@*a.ru Russia a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
e*ic.a*ex****aris*@gmail.com Argentina a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
jon***0**@gmail.com United States a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
jac*m**ns**@googlemail.com United Kingdom a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
develo*ere********@de***rk.us United States a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
e**s*y**va@gmail.com Russia a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
abd**_b**it**@hotmail.co.id Indonesia a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
e*a****a*i*g@gmail.com Mexico a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
cai*an***i**h@gmail.com India a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
eli*ra***o**t*@gmail.com Israel a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
dip*s*u*le.**anlu**@hotmail.it Italy a Dev Sticker (up to medium size)
from https://devstickers.com/. Please choose the sticker you’d like and let us
know your choice (url and size required) in the “comments section”
in the form.
f**lin*@gmail.com United States an Iot Evolution Expo – Iot
Certification Series Pass. The conference is 7 – 10 February 2017 in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida, USA. Please do let us know if you’re able to attend.
There is a comment box in the form.
ba*t*o*0*@gmail.com Vietnam an AnDevCon Conference Pass. The
conference is July 17-19, Washington DC, USA (https://www.andevcon.com/).
1*5*1*26*5@qq.com China an InterDrone Conference Pass. The
conference is September 6-8, Las Vegas, USA (https://www.interdrone.com/).
e**ard***er*d*a@gmail.com Mexico an Scaling Organizations,
Microservices, And Containers – Online Conference Pass
(https://www.oreilly.com/live-training/online-conference-scaling.html). We’re
currently awaiting confirmation of the new date for this conference.

===
Panel Prize Draw Winners

Email Prize Country
c**ao*9@gmail.com Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch Laptop United States
al*o**gu*i****z@gmail.com Lego Mindstorm
EV3
Philippines
byr**l***5@gmail.com Lego Mindstorm
EV3
Dominican Republic
ch****36@gmail.com Asus Zenpad S
8.0 tablet
Vietnam
r**ercom@gmail.com Asus Zenpad S
8.0 tablet
Ukraine
s*t**a*.**y@gmail.com FICO T-Shirt India
vbal*g**@hotmail.com FICO T-Shirt United States
fis***ofm*n**@yahoo.com FICO T-Shirt United States
fa*i*b***e*ir@outlook.com FICO T-Shirt Turkey
m*ott*n@gmail.com FICO T-Shirt United States
pil*z**@gmail.com FICO T-Shirt Netherlands
a*g*l*.anol**@gmail.com FICO T-Shirt Canada
raf**lfa****o@gmail.com FICO T-Shirt Brazil
d**ek@fri***eworld.com FICO T-Shirt Australia
h***gtua**t2@gmail.com FICO T-Shirt Vietnam
t*n.*ab***j@gmail.com FICO T-Shirt Slovenia
p****1@nyu.edu FICO T-Shirt United States
ne*us*8@inbox.com FICO T-Shirt United States
rei*e.***sey@gmail.com FICO T-Shirt United Kingdom
ku*t**@gmail.com FICO T-Shirt United States
k**.*od*a*@gmail.com FICO T-Shirt Canada
j****nche*ey@outlook.com FICO T-Shirt United States
an***am1*9**4@aol.com FICO T-Shirt United States
m*ts.**n**od*d**2@googlemail.com FICO T-Shirt Japan
ep**@pro***mou.eu FICO T-Shirt Cyprus