In the Stack Overflow survey, yearly, thousands of programmers and developers are asked about there work and one part of the questionnaire is about the tools they use mostly and the ones they desire to use in the next year.
The interesting question by looking at the Stack Overflow survey history for me is if there is any trend changes in using the tools by the developers in the past years. These are consist of Programming language, Database and Frameworks.
To answer this question, let’s take a look at the survey data from 2017 to 2020 and sort out the information regarding the tool.
Programming language trends
By looking at the programming languages history of the last four years there are some attractive points to see.
The JavaScript was the most common programming language in the last years, though the HTML/CSS also gained popularity recently. The Java is lightly in downward trend, pushed back by Python which gained the 4th place in 2020.
Bash/Shell and PowerShell are also gaining a new place among the programmers.
Considering the wish of the programmers to work with other programming languages in the coming year, the Python is becoming popular (see Figur below). This shows that the developers see a good potential in Python which market trend approve it. It wont be a surprise if we see it among the 3 most used programming languages in 2021.
Trend in Databases
By analyzing the usage of the different databases, the MySQL is with a big gap the most commonly used database, followed by the other SQL family members. Oracle with under 10% is not a real rival for SQL.
Looking at Database desired to work, there is tendency that MySQL lose it’s place to PostgreSQL or MongoDB.
Change in the Frameworks?
Plotting a graph of the usage percentage of the Frameworks, we see that the Node.js is without any thread from the rivals, the very most common Framework. In the wishes of the developers is also no sign of any change in the near future.
It is interesting to see the sudden and backward trend in using React and AngularJS which is also tangible in usage statistic of them both and a jump in wish to work with TensorFlow. Maybe that is a signal that, the machine learning is waking up the interest among the developers .
Conclusion
Just analyzing 4 years of data is not quite enough to predict the future, but there are some hints showing that something is happening.
By Python becoming more popular, more flexible databases used and more machine learning, the future of the programming world is about to change. Perhaps leaving the development of simple apps and Webpages behind and going toward more intelligent codes.
