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JavaScript still king.[/caption] Developers tend to have their favorite languages and tools, but some things will also scare them off. Stack Overflow’s annual
survey is a good barometer of developer passions and paranoia. As you may have guessed, JavaScript is the most widely-used language among Stack Overflow’s respondents. A solid 62.5 percent use it, which is a full 10 percent more than use the number-two language, SQL. Java checks in at just under 40 percent (39.7, if you need specifics), while C# makes a solid showing at 34.1 percent. Those are all standard, established languages – but what about
the new breed? Only 4.3 percent of Stack Overflow users report using Go, which has been lauded as the
next best thing. Swift shows up with
6.5 percent of users, which
just edges Objective C (6.4 percent). R, which has seen
a bit of attention lately, is used by 4.5 percent of Stack Overflow users. Unsurprisingly, Node.JS is the
most widely-used “framework, library or other technology,” with Angular JS coming in second. The .NET Core is third, with React coming in fourth. In an interesting twist, there are more Firebase users than Xamarin faithful: 9.8 percent to 8.3 percent respectively.
If you’re a database nerd, MySQL is the most dominant technology on that front, commanding 55.6 percent of users. SQL Server takes 38.6 percent, while SQLite (26.6 percent) and PostgreSQL (26.5 percent) duke it out for third and fourth place. MongoDB rounds out the top five, with 21 percent using it. On the flip side, over half of those using it 'dread' MySQL and SQLite. While it may seem sometimes as if everyone has a MacBook, only 18.4 percent of developers say they’re running macOS. Windows is the most dominant platform (41 percent), with Linux coming in second at 32.9 percent. Android is also preferred, with 28.2 percent of Stack Overflow users saying they use it. As for iOS – only 16.4 percent say they use iPhones. Objective-C isn’t even welcome anymore. Some 68.1 percent say they ‘dread’ using it, which still pales in comparison to the most dreaded language: Visual Basic 6, with 88.3 percent of users saying they’d just rather not. Of course, 40.2 say they dread JavaScript, so polarization is the name of the game. Conversely, 63.9 percent report loving Swift, so Objective-C’s days are numbered (we just need a little ABI stability on the Swift front). Rust users are the happiest, though, with 73.1 percent of users saying they like using it. Go is also popular, with 63.3 percent enjoying their time with it. And JavaScript lovers, don’t worry: 59.8 percent still love it.
