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What technology do developers love, fear, and desire (and how does Web3 fit in)?

One of the most popular parts of Stack Overflow’s massive annual developer report is an examination of what tech developers love, fear, and want most.

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

With such a large base, survey-based reports are among the largest and most respected in the industry.

So here’s a roundup of the technology developers love, fear, and desire most (along with their views on Web3).

loved vs feared
Technology sectors examined here include: programming languages, scripting and markup; databases; cloud platforms; web frameworks and technologies; and other frameworks and libraries.

• Programming languages, scripting and markup: Here, the Rust programming language has long dominated. “Rust is in its seventh year as the most loved language with 87 percent of developers saying they want to continue using it,” the report says. “Rust also ranks with Python as the most searched technology with TypeScript coming in second.”

  

• Databases: “PostgreSQL becomes the most loved and sought after database after five years of Redis being the most loved,” the report says.

  

• Cloud platforms: “AWS continues to be not only the most used cloud platform, but also the most loved and sought after,” the report says.

  

• Frameworks and web technologies: “Phoenix surpasses Svelte’s place as the most loved web framework,” the report said. “Angular.js is in its third year as most feared. React.js completes its fifth year as most wanted.”

  

• Other frameworks and technologies: “Hugging Face Transformers appears as the most loved library, while Tensorflow remains the most sought after,” the report says. “This suggests that developers want to build machine learning models, but enjoy using pre-trained models more. Popular cross-platform libraries Flutter and React Native also remain in the top three.”

  

The comprehensive report also includes sections on Beloveds vs. Feared for: other tools (Docker is the most loved and least feared); IDE (Neovim is the most loved and least feared); asynchronous tools (Notion is the most loved and least feared); and synchronous tools (Slack is the most loved and least feared).

My love
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 languages, scripting and markup:
  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. Elastic Search (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. Digital Ocean (6.47 percent)
• Frameworks and web 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. Lean (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 ongoing Web3 movement, characterized by a decentralized architecture that is supported by new technologies such as blockchain and token-based economy. The survey asked respondents how favorable they were about blockchain, cryptography, and decentralization.

“Developers are torn over blockchain, cryptocurrency, and decentralization,” the report says. “32 percent are at least favorable, 31 percent unfavorable, and 26 percent indifferent. While those learning to code are more favorable than professional developers, most aren’t sure either.”

For a full discussion of this topic, see last year’s Virtualization and Cloud Review article, “Fad or the future? What do Web3 developers think”.