News

What Tech Do Developers Love, Dread and Want (and How Does Web3 Fit In)?

• By David Ramel
• 01/04/2023

One of the most popular parts of Stack Overflow's huge annual developer report is an examination of what tech devs love, dread and want the most.

The company, known for its popular coding help site, last year issued a report based on a survey of 73,268 software developers from 180 countries around the world.

With that big of a base, the survey-based reports are among the industry's most largest and most respected.

So here is a summary of the tech that developers most love, dread and want (along with their views about Web3).

Loved vs. Dreaded
Tech sectors examined here include: programming, scripting and markup languages; databases; cloud platforms; web frameworks and technologies; and other frameworks and libraries.

• Programming, scripting and markup languages: Here, the programming language Rust has long ruled. "Rust is on its seventh year as the most loved language with 87 percent of developers saying they want to continue using it," the report said. "Rust also ties with Python as the most wanted technology with TypeScript running a close second."

  

• Databases: "PostgreSQL becomes the most loved and wanted database after five years of Redis being the most loved," the report said.

  

• Cloud Platforms: "AWS remains not only the most used cloud platform but also the most loved and wanted," the report said.

  

• Web frameworks and technologies: "Phoenix overtakes Svelte's spot as the most loved web framework," the report said. "Angular.js is in its third year as the most dreaded. React.js completes its fifth year as most wanted."

  

• Other frameworks and technologies: "Hugging Face Transformers surfaces as the most loved library while Tensorflow remains the most wanted," the report said. "This suggests that developers want to build machine learning models but enjoy using pre-trained models more. The popular cross-platform libraries, Flutter and React Native also remain in the top three most wanted."

  

The sprawling report also includes Loved vs. Dreaded sections for: other tools (Docker is most loved and least dreaded); IDEs (Neovim is most loved and least dreaded); asynchronous tools (Notion is most loved and least dreaded); and synchronous tools (Slack is most loved and least dreaded).

Wanted
For the most-wanted section, SO listed the percentage of developers who are not developing with the language or technology but have expressed interest in developing with it.

Here the top five entries for each category are:

• Programming, scripting and markup languages:
  1. Rust (17.6 percent)
  2. Python (17.59 percent)
  3. TypeScript (17.03 percent)
  4. Go (16.41 percent)
  5. JavaScript (12.98 percent)
• Databases:
  1. PostgreSQL (19.05 percent)
  2. MongoDB (17.26 percent)
  3. Redis (14.3 percent)
  4. Elasticsearch (8.29 percent)
  5. SQLite (8.18 percent)
• Cloud platforms:
  1. AWS (34.34 percent)
  2. Google Cloud (18.14 percent)
  3. Microsoft Azure (15.57 percent)
  4. Firebase (8.38 percent)
  5. DigitalOcean (6.47 percent)
• Web frameworks and technologies:
  1. React.js (22.54 percent)
  2. Node.js (16.12 percent)
  3. Vue.js (14.6 percent)
  4. Next.js (11.28 percent)
  5. Svelte (9.34 percent)
• Other frameworks and technologies:
  1. TensorFlow (15.33 percent)
  2. Flutter (13.52 percent)
  3. React Native (13.05 percent)
  4. Apache Kafka (8.64 percent)
  5. Torch/PyTorch (8.57 percent)

Web3
The SO report also includes a section on the in-progress Web3 movement, characterized by decentralized architecture that leans on new tech like blockchain and token-based economics. The survey asked respondents how favorable they were about blockchain, crypto and decentralization.

"Developers are torn on blockchain, crypto, and decentralization," the report said. "32 percent are at least favorable, 31 percent are unfavorable and 26 percent are indifferent. While those learning to code are more favorable than Professional Developers, more of them are also unsure."

For a complete examination of this topic, see last year's Virtualization & Cloud Review article, "Fad or the Future? What Developers Think of Web3."