Python squeezes past Kotlin to take Rust’s dev love crown

Python squeezes past Kotlin to take Rust’s dev love crown

Python has continued its slide to the top of the developer world in Stack Overflow’s annual survey for 2019.

Python is now the fastest growing major programming language, elbowing aside Kotlin to become second most loved programming language (73.1 per cent) – up from third in 2018. Stack Overflow defined “most loved” as a language in use that developers wish to continue using.

Kotlin has fallen to fourth (72.6 per cent) while Typescript has moved to number three (73.1 per cent). Rust retains its crown for the fourth year, with 83.5 per cent of developers.

Python is not only on track to becoming most popular, it remains number-one for the third year as the language developers most want to learn. Stack Overflow surveyed 90,000 developers.

VBA took the crown for language most dreaded language with Objective-C sliding in behind to second place. Stack Overflow defined “most dreaded” as something used by developers who express no desire to continue with it.

There was mixed news for Microsoft, a company that’s sweated buckets over the years to embrace open-source and open platforms and go beyond its historic monogamy to Windows.

Microsoft’s cross-platform Visual Studio Code was the single-most popular development environment, with 50.7 per cent, while Visual Studio came a respectable second on 31.5 per cent.

But when it comes to planform choices, while Microsoft and Windows are facts of life for many they are not especially loved. Linux, Windows and Docker were the three most commonly occurring platforms developers worked on during the last year – 53.3 per cent, 50.7 per cent and 31.5 per cent respectively.

Linux and Docker were most loved, though, coming first and second (83.1 per cent and 77.8 per cent respectively) with Docker and AWS the two platforms developers most wanted to start developing on. Windows’ highest ranking was among most dreaded platforms – not the most, but in the top five, on 35 per cent, with WordPress topping out on 59.5 per cent.

There was troubling news for high-priests of DevOps.

Chef and Puppet came the first and third in the race for most dreaded frameworks, libraries and tools – 66.7 per cent and 61.8 per cent respectively. Cordova was second.

As for containers, nearly half of developers – 46.1 per cent – confessed to not using them although the remainder of respondents were split between development (38.4 per cent), testing (30.2 per cent) and production (25.9 per cent). The remainder confessed to running containers for “personal projects.

There was bad news for Blockchain evangelists, too: 80 per cent reported their organisation is not using any Blockchain technology. While just over a quarter of developers saw blockchain as either having the potential to changes lives by working across domains or by providing a system of record outside currency, a solid 16.8 per cent said they thought Blockchain was a passing fad.

You can revel in the full Stack Overflow 2019 report here.