Is JavaScript Taking Over the World?

Programming languages continue to evolve i.e. the stack you preferred last year is not the same this year. Right?

According to the 2023 Stack Overflow Developers Survey Report, unsurprisingly, JavaScript maintained its stronghold as the most commonly used programming language.

Credit: Stack Overflow Developers Survey

About 63.61% of all developers responded that JavaScript is the most popular programming language followed by HTML/CSS and Python.

But, JavaScript continues to be the most popular language, not for 2 or 3 years but since 2013, according to the Stack Overflow Developers Survey report.

YEAR	%(All Respondents)
2023	63.61%
2022	65.36%
2021	64.96%
2020	67.7%
2019	67.8%
2018	69.8%
2017	61.9%
2016	55.4%
2015	54.4%
2014	58.9%
2013	56.6%

Credit: Collected from Stack Overflow Developers Report

From the above lists, a question arises – Is JavaScript taking over the world?

A big YES!

According to the survey data and its popularity, Yes! it’s not wrong to say that, JavaScript is taking over the world.

But, how and why it becomes popular?

What Makes JavaScript So Popular?

JavaScript, abbreviated as JS, was created in 1995 by Brendan Eich when he was an engineer at Netscape.

Features of JS

High level
Light Weight Scripting language
Just in time compilation

Multi-paradigm
Dynamic typing
Prototype-based

Object-oriented programming support

Apart from these features, here are some good reasons, I believe contributed to the popularity of JavaScript:

1. Early to Market

JavaScript is the first widely supported language that runs across all browsers. If you want to show a pop-up on the screen, only JS can do that. It led to world dominance which we still see.

2. Runs on the browser

JavaScript also gained popularity because of its extreme ability to run on the browser i.e. it’s the only language that runs on the browser as well as the server.

3. Full Stack Development (Node.js)

When it comes to the web, JavaScript was always on demand and developers love to use them.

However, after the arrival of Node.js, ‘JavaScript everywhere has become a reality i.e. is presently used for full-stack development.

You must be thinking of – What is this Node.js?

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, back-end JavaScript runtime environment that runs on the V8 engine and executes JavaScript code outside a web browser.

4. New Features in ES6

ECMAScript 6, also known as ECMAScript 2015, is the latest version of the ECMAScript standard.

It is the first update to the language since ES5 was standardized in 2009.

Some of the new features added in ES6:

arrows

classes
enhanced object literals
template strings

let + const
iterators + for..of
generators

Unicode and many more.

5. Trending in IoT

Now Node.js is being adopted in the IoT sector. It is used in IoT projects for both the device and the server.

Why is it trending?

Simply, just because of its features, it is fast, has lots of plugins, is scalable and is good at I/O etc.

Future of JavaScript

We’ve all sorts of programming languages capable of accomplishing different tasks. And, JavaScript is one of them.

It is called the ‘Programming language of the web’, and in the coming future, it will be in high demand.

I feel like JavaScript has the potential to tap into so many popular industries as of now: JS is used in most popular websites.

However, the future is uncertain and mysterious. Will JS continue to take over the world in the coming decades?

What do you think of it? Put it down.👇