Over the past two years, the Rust programming language has shown unprecedented growth rates, and the number of developers using this language has doubled. However, according to a recent survey, JavaScript retains its leading position and remains the most popular programming language, with 25.2 million active developers worldwide. The rapid growth of Rust indicates a growing interest in languages that have high performance and reliable memory management mechanisms, while JavaScript still dominates web development and other areas.
According to the 26th edition of Slashdata's Developer Nation survey, the Rust community grew from two million in the first quarter of 2022 to four million in the first quarter of 2024. Over the past 12 months, the growth was 33%. The SlashData report covers the first quarter of 2024.
The Rust programming language has received an enthusiastic response from an active community of developers, who highly value it for providing secure memory management while maintaining high performance. However, growing concerns about cybersecurity may encourage even wider adoption of the language. According to the report, over the past six months, the United States and its international partners have actively supported the transition to secure memory management programming languages like Rust.
While the ability to secure memory management is not a unique feature of Rust, the combination of high performance and built-in memory-related bug protection mechanisms is likely to attract an increasing number of developers to the programming language,according to the report.
"Recent promotion and research efforts by agencies such as the NSA, CISA, NIST, and ONCD can provide valuable evidence of the significant risk of memory security vulnerabilities to our digital ecosystem," said Rebecca Rumbul, Executive director and CEO of the Rust Foundation. "The Rust Foundation believes that the Rust programming language is the most powerful tool for addressing critical infrastructure security gaps. We are strongly committed to strengthening Rust's security through programs such as our Security Initiative."
JavaScript continues to lead the way in programming languages with more than 25 million active developers worldwide. According to the report, "JavaScript's dominant position is unlikely to change anytime soon, with its developer community growing by 4 million over the past 12 months, matching the growth rate of the global developer community."
One of the key factors that ensure the power of the JavaScript development community is the extremely widespread use of this language in all types of projects. According to the data, at least 25% of developers use JavaScript in a wide variety of areas, ranging from web development to the Internet of Things (IoT). This versatility of JavaScript allows it to remain a leader among programming languages and form an extensive and active community of developers around the world.
Python and Java are also showing strong positions, with Python having overtaken Java as the second most popular language, due to interest in machine learning and AI. Python had 18.2 million developers in the first quarter of 2024, compared to Java's 17.7 million.
Despite losing second place, Java has maintained its status as one of the most popular programming languages for almost three decades. According to the report, there has recently been an increase in the use of Java among developers of server services and web applications. At the same time, the share of developers creating mobile applications in Java remained unchanged, while the share of developers of desktop applications in this language decreased slightly. However, due to its versatility and extensive legacy, Java continues to be one of the major programming languages in the industry.
Next in popularity is C++ with 11.4 million developers, followed by C# with 10.2 million and PHP with 9.8 million. The smallest communities have Objective-C with 2.7 million, Ruby with 2.5 million, and Lua with 1.8 million developers.
The Go language has seen its developer community grow by 10% over the past year, rising from three million in the first quarter of 2022 to 4.7 million in the first quarter of 2024. The report notes that "Go is an attractive language due to its production capabilities, simplified concurrency, and ease of reading."
In contrast to the growth of languages like Rust, Objective-C has stagnated over the past two years, retaining about 2.5 million developers. Apple continues to support Objective-C, but Swift has become the main language for all Apple platforms, growing the community to 4.6 million developers over the past 12 months.
SlashData estimates that there are 43 million active software developers worldwide in the first quarter of 2024. More than 10,000 respondents from 135 countries participated in the Developer Nation survey.
TNS analyst Lawrence Hecht noted that with the exception of Rust, Go, and JavaScript, other major programming languages grew more slowly than the total number of developers, which increased by 39% over the past two years.
According to the 26th edition of Slashdata's Developer Nation survey, the Rust community grew from two million in the first quarter of 2022 to four million in the first quarter of 2024. Over the past 12 months, the growth was 33%. The SlashData report covers the first quarter of 2024.
The Rust programming language has received an enthusiastic response from an active community of developers, who highly value it for providing secure memory management while maintaining high performance. However, growing concerns about cybersecurity may encourage even wider adoption of the language. According to the report, over the past six months, the United States and its international partners have actively supported the transition to secure memory management programming languages like Rust.
While the ability to secure memory management is not a unique feature of Rust, the combination of high performance and built-in memory-related bug protection mechanisms is likely to attract an increasing number of developers to the programming language,according to the report.
"Recent promotion and research efforts by agencies such as the NSA, CISA, NIST, and ONCD can provide valuable evidence of the significant risk of memory security vulnerabilities to our digital ecosystem," said Rebecca Rumbul, Executive director and CEO of the Rust Foundation. "The Rust Foundation believes that the Rust programming language is the most powerful tool for addressing critical infrastructure security gaps. We are strongly committed to strengthening Rust's security through programs such as our Security Initiative."
JavaScript continues to lead the way in programming languages with more than 25 million active developers worldwide. According to the report, "JavaScript's dominant position is unlikely to change anytime soon, with its developer community growing by 4 million over the past 12 months, matching the growth rate of the global developer community."
One of the key factors that ensure the power of the JavaScript development community is the extremely widespread use of this language in all types of projects. According to the data, at least 25% of developers use JavaScript in a wide variety of areas, ranging from web development to the Internet of Things (IoT). This versatility of JavaScript allows it to remain a leader among programming languages and form an extensive and active community of developers around the world.
Python and Java are also showing strong positions, with Python having overtaken Java as the second most popular language, due to interest in machine learning and AI. Python had 18.2 million developers in the first quarter of 2024, compared to Java's 17.7 million.
Despite losing second place, Java has maintained its status as one of the most popular programming languages for almost three decades. According to the report, there has recently been an increase in the use of Java among developers of server services and web applications. At the same time, the share of developers creating mobile applications in Java remained unchanged, while the share of developers of desktop applications in this language decreased slightly. However, due to its versatility and extensive legacy, Java continues to be one of the major programming languages in the industry.
Next in popularity is C++ with 11.4 million developers, followed by C# with 10.2 million and PHP with 9.8 million. The smallest communities have Objective-C with 2.7 million, Ruby with 2.5 million, and Lua with 1.8 million developers.
The Go language has seen its developer community grow by 10% over the past year, rising from three million in the first quarter of 2022 to 4.7 million in the first quarter of 2024. The report notes that "Go is an attractive language due to its production capabilities, simplified concurrency, and ease of reading."
In contrast to the growth of languages like Rust, Objective-C has stagnated over the past two years, retaining about 2.5 million developers. Apple continues to support Objective-C, but Swift has become the main language for all Apple platforms, growing the community to 4.6 million developers over the past 12 months.
SlashData estimates that there are 43 million active software developers worldwide in the first quarter of 2024. More than 10,000 respondents from 135 countries participated in the Developer Nation survey.
TNS analyst Lawrence Hecht noted that with the exception of Rust, Go, and JavaScript, other major programming languages grew more slowly than the total number of developers, which increased by 39% over the past two years.
