For more than a decade, Stack Overflow has been shedding light on the rising and waning technologies, glimpsing into the promising future of the tech world. In May 2023 over 90,000 developers responded to the fresh StackOverflow survey about how they learned and leveled up, which tools they used, and which ones they would like to master.
Recently, the Stack Overflow survey 2023 was finally released. Without further ado, let's check what happened during the last year.
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The Respondent Profile. Students Increasingly Choose Online Learning
This year, Stack Overflow compared the most popular technologies across three different groups – all respondents, professional developers, and those who're learning to code.
As an online learning platform, we couldn't start without great news – among students who are still learning to code, the pursuit of coding knowledge through online resources has reached unprecedented heights, with a remarkable surge from 70% to 80% since the last survey in 2022.
Among the respondents, the younger generation (those aged 18 and below) gravitate towards online resources as their preferred learning avenue. With that, about 52% of people aged 25-34 give their preference to online courses as well.
Interestingly enough, this year, independent contractors, freelancers, and self-employed developers see a modest upswing, while full-time students witness a gentle decline, differing by 1% compared to the previous year.
The Top Technologies and the Popularity of Java: Established Place among the Leaders
Getting to the basics, we’d like to stress that JavaScript continues to take the top positions, being the most commonly-used programming language for the eleventh consecutive year. Python has surpassed SQL to claim the third spot. Notably, Python reigns supreme among both non-professional developers and those who are still learning to code.
Several technologies have made notable strides during the last year — Bash/Shell, C, Ruby, Perl, and Erlang have moved up by a position, whereas Elixir and Lisp have moved up two spots.
As you may see in these statistics, Java has secured the seventh position among all respondents. But if we dig deeper, it's easy to see that HTML/CSS is a markup language, SQL is a domain-specific language, whereas Bash/Shell is a command language. That’s why it would be fair to say that Java remains among the top 5 high-level programming languages.
Notably, those who are learning to code are more likely to report using Java compared to professional developers – 35% vs 30%. Java is the fifth most sought-after programming language for those who're just starting their learning journey. Again, if we discard HTML/CSS and SQL, it'll become clear that Java holds the solid third position in the shortlist of most demandable high-level programming languages across students.
What does it mean? Java is considered a great first programming language for several compelling reasons – simplicity, platform independence, extensive resources, and industry relevance.
The Most Popular Databases of 2023. PostgreSQL has Become the Leader
This year a mini-revolution happened – PostgreSQL has dethroned MySQL (it took the leading position for the last years). PostgreSQL was voted as the most admired database, beating out 31 other ones.
Why more and more developers prefer PostgreSQL? Because it outpaces legacy and specialty databases in the most crucial contexts – flexibility, technical performance, and applicability across the broadest number of enterprise workloads. Plus, open source is at the heart of all this.
It's worth noting that MongoDB stays the most used NoSQL database.
The Most Used Cloud Platforms
Regarding cloud platforms' popularity, we can't see significant changes this year. AWS continues to dominate as the most common platform, almost doubling the percentage of Azure, the second most used platform.
Ease of auto-scaling, integration with existing infrastructure, and an extensive free tier significantly contribute to AWS's popularity.
The Top Frameworks in 2023. Spring Framework Is in the Top 5
This year, responders again ranked Node.js and React.js as the two most common web technologies. Professional developers use them fairly equally, whereas those who are learning to code are using Node.js a bit more than React (52% vs. 48%).
jQuery and other web frameworks are almost twice less popular than Node.js and React.js among all responders.
Speaking about other frameworks and libraries, NET (5+) heads the list this year too. It's worth mentioning that Java-compatible Spring Framework also secures a spot in the top five frameworks.
What Other Tools Are Popular Right Now?
In 2023, Docker has outperformed npm as the most commonly-used technology among developers. While students continue to prefer npm, Docker is swiftly gaining traction in the developer community.
As for an integrated development environment, Visual Studio Code remains the top IDE across all developers and IntelliJ IDEA holds the third place.
The Use of AI Tools. The New Player on the Scene
This year, StackOverflow has introduced a new section – AI Search Tools. Not surprisingly, the top choice for AI search tools among all respondents is ChatGPT. 83% of surveyed developers and students have used it in the past year and are planning to continue using ChatGPT this year.
Such a percentage is above and beyond Bing AI (20%), WolframAlpha (13.36%), Google Bard AI (9.86%), and others.
Not surprisingly, beginners are more likely to use AI tools compared to professional developers (82% vs. 70%).
Besides inquiring about AI search tools, StackOverflow also asked about the most used AI developer tools.
Here, GitHub Copilot is the obvious leader with 55% of respondents using it. GitHub is an assistive tool for coding that is advertised as an "AI-paired programmer". It gives auto-generated suggestions as coders type for variables, function and file names, code comments, docstrings, etc.
Conclusion
Hopefully, these brief insights helped you to define what technology trends will shape the future. By keeping up-to-date with these trends, developers can stay on the wave and carve their path to success
Take note that the StackOverflow survey highlighted the ever-lasting popularity of Java and the related technologies and frameworks. In addition, the survey revealed that online courses had experienced an unprecedented surge, with an 80% preference among students who're learning to code. From all this, it's easy to conclude that we're going the right path, my friends!
Among the respondents, the younger generation (those aged 18 and below) gravitate towards online resources as their preferred learning avenue. With that, about 52% of people aged 25-34 give their preference to online courses as well.
Interestingly enough, this year, independent contractors, freelancers, and self-employed developers see a modest upswing, while full-time students witness a gentle decline, differing by 1% compared to the previous year.
As you may see in these statistics, Java has secured the seventh position among all respondents. But if we dig deeper, it's easy to see that HTML/CSS is a markup language, SQL is a domain-specific language, whereas Bash/Shell is a command language. That’s why it would be fair to say that Java remains among the top 5 high-level programming languages.
Notably, those who are learning to code are more likely to report using Java compared to professional developers – 35% vs 30%. Java is the fifth most sought-after programming language for those who're just starting their learning journey. Again, if we discard HTML/CSS and SQL, it'll become clear that Java holds the solid third position in the shortlist of most demandable high-level programming languages across students.
What does it mean? Java is considered a great first programming language for several compelling reasons – simplicity, platform independence, extensive resources, and industry relevance.
Speaking about other frameworks and libraries, NET (5+) heads the list this year too. It's worth mentioning that Java-compatible Spring Framework also secures a spot in the top five frameworks.
As for an integrated development environment, Visual Studio Code remains the top IDE across all developers and IntelliJ IDEA holds the third place.
Besides inquiring about AI search tools, StackOverflow also asked about the most used AI developer tools.
Here, GitHub Copilot is the obvious leader with 55% of respondents using it. GitHub is an assistive tool for coding that is advertised as an "AI-paired programmer". It gives auto-generated suggestions as coders type for variables, function and file names, code comments, docstrings, etc.
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