Technology changes fast, and keeping up with current technologies is not a simple task, as a developer sometimes you need to decide between mastering a technology hoping that it doesn’t become obsolete or move to a new technology knowing that there is always a learning curve.
That is why it is helpful to know which technologies are growing and which ones are slowly dying in this ever changing world. With this you can decide which technologies to master and learn in 2020.
Programming Scripting and Markup Language
Javascript stays in the first place as it has been for the last 7 years, a solid language to learn if you still don’t use it, frameworks like Node.js, React.js and Angular.js are still strong choices for fullstack developers. PHP has been slowly leaving the top places in the list, while Python has been growing really fast in the past years specially for its Machine Learning capabilities, learning Python now might be the best bet for any developer that wants to stay up to date.
Web Frameworks
In the past 5 years web development has grown exponentially, the libraries and utilities available seems multiply every day. Jquery keeps the first place as the most used library while React.js users finally surpassed those of Angular.js, the rend of Javascript over PHP is clear.
Non-web Frameworks
Node.js is closely followed by .NET technologies while React Native is the framework of choice over Cordova, Xamarim and Flutter in the cross-platform development department. Pandas and Tensorflow have strong presence and will definitely keep growing as data analysis keeps growing in demand.
Databases
MySQL still the most used database, but this year PostgreSQL was preferred over Microsoft SQL Server.
Platforms
Linux and Windows are still the most used, but we can see that almost a third of the developers are using Docker (and Kubernetes is at 8.5%), clearly container technologies are something everyone should learn.
Conclusions
Based on this information, I consider that right now Javascript is a well rounded language to master, you can use it for almost any type of development, and its ecosystem just keep growing. If you want to prepare for the near future Python looks like a solid choice, anything related to data analysis and machine learning is increasing demand as we speak. PHP is becoming a niche language, most of the web is build on it and if new generations are focusing on Javascript but you already know PHP it might be a valuable asset when it becomes rare and websites still need to be updated.
Survey source: stackoverflow.com
