Stack Overflow: Most Loved, Dreaded and Wanted Languages in 2021

Stack Overflow has released its Developer Survey results for 2020. Just like every other year, the Q&A site for coding conducted a survey to find out the most loved, dreaded, and wanted programming languages.

Most Loved Programming Languages In 2020

The top four slots in the most loved programming languages are the same as last year, with a slight change in position. Rust is once again the most loved programming language of 2020. Typescript came second this time, pushing back Python to the third position.

Talking about the major shift in the rankings this time, we are seeing major gains by the Go programming language, which has moved to 5th position from 10th last year.

Before discussing the results further, let’s take a look at the complete list of most loved programming languages by Stack Overflow in 2020.

S. no	Language	Percentage of developers who voted for it
1	Rust	86.10%
2	TypeScript	67.10%
3	Python	66.70%
4	Kotlin	62.90%
5	Go	62.30%
6	Julia	62.20%
7	Dart	62.10%
8	C#	59.70%
9	Swift	59.50%
10	JavaScript	58.30%
11	SQL	56.60%
12	Bash/Shell/PowerShell	53.70%
13	HTML/CSS	53.50%
14	Scala	53.20%
15	Haskell	51.70%
16	R	44.50%
17	Java	44.10%
18	C++	43.40%
19	Ruby	42.90%
20	PHP	37.30%
21	C	33.10%
22	Assembly	29.40%
23	Perl	28.60%
24	Objective-C	23.40%
25	VBA	19.60%

This marks the fifth consecutive year for Rust to rank first on this list. However, it was observed by the Rust project itself that many developers fancy Rust but don’t really learn or use it. The major reason behind this was adoption issues faced by developers in implementing Rust in projects or organizations as a whole.

Also Read: 10 Most Popular Programming Languages In 2020

Most Dreaded Programming Languages In 2020

VBA, Objective C, and Perl are the most dreaded languages this year. Even though there a high percentage of developers who are currently using them, the survey makes it clear that they have no interest in pursuing these languages.

Perl is a new addition to the hated languages club. Interestingly, the language never made it to last year’s list, and now it has become the third most dreaded language.

S. no	Language	Percentage of developers who voted for it
1	VBA	80.40%
2	Objective-C	76.60%
3	Perl	71.40%
4	Assembly	70.60%
5	C	66.90%
6	PHP	62.70%
7	Ruby	57.10%
8	C++	56.60%
9	Java	55.90%
10	R	55.50%
11	Haskell	48.30%
12	Scala	46.80%
13	HTML/CSS	46.50%
14	Bash/Shell/PowerShell	46.30%
15	SQL	43.40%
16	JavaScript	41.70%
17	Swift	40.50%
18	C#	40.30%
19	Dart	37.90%
20	Julia	37.80%
21	Go	37.70%
22	Kotlin	37.10%
23	Python	33.30%
24	TypeScript	32.90%
25	Rust	13.90%

Most Wanted Programming Languages In 2020

Python has consistently managed to attract developers who do not use it right now but want to learn it. The programming language has topped the list for the fourth consecutive year.

We are seeing some modest gains in developers’ interest in learning Rust this year as well.

S. no	Language	Percentage of developers who voted for it
1	Python	30.00%
2	JavaScript	18.50%
3	Go	17.90%
4	TypeScript	17.00%
5	Rust	14.60%
6	Kotlin	12.60%
7	Java	8.80%
8	C++	8.60%
9	SQL	8.20%
10	C#	7.30%
11	Swift	6.60%
12	HTML/CSS	6.50%
13	Dart	6.00%
14	R	5.10%
15	Ruby	4.50%
16	C	4.30%
17	Scala	4.20%
18	Haskell	4.20%
19	Bash/Shell/PowerShell	3.90%
20	PHP	3.50%
21	Assembly	2.60%
22	Julia	2.30%
23	Objective-C	1.80%
24	Perl	1.10%
25	VBA	0.70%