Over 50% of global developers use JavaScript, says report

[NiveRoshni]

More than half of the global developers use JavaScript over other programming languages. A recent study highlights that out of 20.4 million active developers, more than half, have chosen to learn JavaScript.

The annual developer report by SlashData said that JavaScript continues to remain the most popular and fastest-growing programming language. The firm estimates that there are 20.4 million software developers across the world, out of which 12 million developers choose JavaScript or Microsoft's JS superset, TypeScript. Google's AngularJS, Facebook's React, and Vue.js are among the widely used JS frameworks.

The growth is spurred by variants like Microsoft's TypeScript. Even large scale projects and enterprises have adopted JavaScript. Developer analyst forum, RedMonk has ranked TypeScript as the ninth most popular programming language.

Python and Java are used by 4.4 million developers. Over 75% of machine learning developers and data scientists prefer using Python. Only 20% of them use the R programming language for statistical computing and graphics.

Java is still popular among mobile developers. The language is particularly used for Android app development. Kotlin has emerged as the fastest-growing replacement for Java. Developer base of the language has doubled in size over the last two years. Since Google has made Kotlin its preferred language for Android development, the growth will continue to rise.

SlashData's report highlights the open-source adoption. Over 59% of developers have contributed to open-source software, one-third of these are under the age of 24. The firm has found out that 29% of these developers are looking to improve their coding skills. Around 44% of developers expect companies to support and contribute to open-source projects.