Recently, web developer community site Stack Overflow released the results of their yearly survey on its members to discover their opinions and preferences in the industry. Around 100,000 reportedly took the survey. Indeed, the sizable population of respondents makes the study’s findings worth noting—becoming the best web development company is difficult to achieve if you’re not updated on the latest trends. 

One of the findings made by Stack Overflow was that JavaScript is still the most used language by developers. According to web news publisher, Ars Technica, HTML ranked second, followed by CSS. Other widely utilized languages are PHP, Python, and C++. 

But despite being the most used language, JavaScript is not the winner of the most well-liked list. As Ars Technica states,

“…For the third year running, that list was topped by Rust, the new systems programming language developed by Mozilla. Second on the list was Kotlin, which wasn't even in the top 20 last year. This new interest is likely due to Google's decision last year to bless the language as an official development language for Android. TypeScript, Microsoft's better JavaScript than JavaScript comes in at fourth, with Google's Go language coming in at fifth.”

However, well-liked doesn’t necessarily equate to more earnings. Despite being “trendy” or “fun” or more developer-friendly, web developers don’t use newer languages more. They continue to work more often with the tried and tested, no matter how “boring” and “tedious” they can become. 

In another study by analyst company Redmonk which uses data from both Stack Overflow and GitHub, Java Script and Java are the two top programming languages in use.  Although it seems that it may not last for long.

An article in TechRepublic notes that Java may be one of the most popular languages, but recently it has witnessed a considerable decrease in demand and is also growing slowly to boot. 

“Java decreased in popularity by about 6,000 job postings going into 2018 compared to going into 2017, according to an analysis from Coding Dojo. In Q1 2018, it remained the no. 2 most popular programming language behind JavaScript, according to RedMonk, but Swift and Kotlin were growing the most rapidly.”

If Java wants to stay at the top of the game, it has to evolve faster before others surpass it. Many new programming languages have to potential to do so.

Popularity rankings and surveys such as those from Stack Overflow and RedMonk aren’t for show. Business tech news website ZDNet mentions that “These and other popularity rankings are meant to help developers see which skills they should be developing.”

And ZDNet’s writer has a point. For both budding and veteran web developers, it is always a good idea to be knowledgeable of emerging programming languages. It gives them an edge over their competition, and opens the door to more job opportunities. As programming languages evolve, so too should the people who use them.

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