Despite the rapid growth of other languages, JavaScript continues to hold its ground as the most popular language, boasting a staggering 25.2 million active developers, according to the Developer Nation survey.
The latest Developer Nation survey by SlashData reveals that the Rust community has grown from two million users in early 2022 to four million in early 2024, with a 33 per cent increase in the last year alone.
The first quarter report of 2024 reveals that Rust's popularity is not just due to its growing community but also due to its reputation as a memory-safe language that delivers excellent performance. This, coupled with increasing cybersecurity concerns, could potentially lead to an even larger increase in its user base.
JavaScript's leading position seems secure for the foreseeable future. Its developer base has grown by four million in the past year, matching the overall global developer population growth rate.
JavaScript's popularity is sustained by its broad application in all types of development projects. At least a quarter of developers in every project type use it. JavaScript is even widely used in areas not typically associated with it, like on-device coding for IoT projects.
Python has made significant strides, surpassing Java as the second most popular language, thanks to the surge in interest in machine learning and AI. As of the first quarter of 2024, Python boasts 18.2 million developers, slightly ahead of Java's 17.7 million.
Over the past year, Python has gained more than 2.1 million new developers, while Java's growth was limited to 1.2 million. C++ follows Java with a community of 11.4 million developers, with C# and PHP close behind. The smallest communities are seen in languages like Objective-C, Ruby, and Lua. Meanwhile, the Go language has seen a 10% increase in its developer base over the past year, having grown by 5Y% from three million in early 2022 to 4.7 million in early 2024.
TNS analyst Lawrence Hecht said that besides Rust, Go, and JavaScript, other major programming languages have grown slower than the developer population, which has seen a 39 per cent increase in the last two years.