Which programming languages do software developers and other tech pros want to learn? The answer to that question can offer crucial insights into the future of software development, or at least show which languages interest developers the most.
HackerEarth’s latest State of the Developer Ecosystem report, drawn from “thousands” of responses from developers, hiring managers, and tech recruiters, breaks down the top languages drawing developers’ interest and learning time. Here’s the full list; as you can see, few languages truly break away from the pack, although Go, Kotlin, Rust, Swift, and TypeScript are edging ahead:
HackerEarth’s survey isn’t the only indicator of Go’s burgeoning popularity. Last month, the TIOBE Index, which attempts to rank the world’s most popular programming languages, cited Go as a fast gainer, rising from the 13th to the 10th position over the past year. “Go is not revolutionary, but its strength is in combining the right features,” read a note accompanying TIOBE’s ranking update. ‘It has built-in concurrency and garbage collection, is statically typed and has good performance.”
Various outlets regularly cite Go as one of the programming world’s fastest-growing and most-loved languages. If you want to explore its capabilities, start off by visiting its dedicated website, which offers downloads, tutorials, documentation, and a browser-based “playground” for writing code. Sites such as web3schools likewise provide in-depth tutorials on certain language features.
TypeScript is another language enjoying an uptick in popularity. Technically, TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, meaning whatever you code in it is transpiled to JavaScript; you can argue (and folks do argue) whether TypeScript should be counted as a “full” programming language, but it’s undeniable that many developers find its features useful when working with any kind of JavaScript codebase.
These new languages attracting developers’ interest have one big thing in common: their features all make it easier for software developers and engineers to do their work. Anything that helps streamline the software-building workflow will only grow in popularity, especially if it fixes issues with an older language. Keep that in mind as you plot your own learning journey.
