24,000 Developers Respond: How and Why They Use Python, Favorite Platforms, and Primary Secondary Language

JetBrains has published the results of its annual survey for Python developers, in which they seek to identify the latest trends in the world of programming on one of the languages most loved by programmers and the fastest growing in recent years.

Some 24,000 developers from more than 150 countries participated in the survey, which helps paint a pretty clear picture of the community around this language. Of all those interviewed, more than 80% use Python as their main programming language.

The Python / JavaScript combination is the most common

Favorite secondary programming languages alongside Python

Among those interviewed, 43% responded using JavaScript as a secondary language, a figure that reached 51% the previous year. In popularity they are followed by Bash / Shell, HTML / CSS, SQL, C / C ++, Java, PHP, C #, Go, TypeScript, R, and Rust.

Another interesting fact is that up to 11% said they did not use any other programming language besides Python, almost double the 6% who answered the same in the previous survey.

Favorite secondary programming languages alongside Python

These are the reasons why many programmers are starting to learn Python

Given that predominant combination of languages, it's no surprise that web development is one of the main uses that programmers put Python. However, it is still not the most popular, that position is for data analysis, a category that accounts for 59% of responses.

Main Uses of Python as a Programming Language

Main Uses of Python as a Programming Language - JetBrains Chart

Machine learning or machine learning is in third place, and yet the vast majority of developers working either in this technology or data analysis, do not consider themselves as scientific data, only one-third replied yes to this question.

Python's uses are as extensive as its community

One of the main reasons Python has become so popular is because of its versatility. And in fact, it is something that is clear with the data collected by these surveys. One of the questions asked was what the developers used Python for, and since it had an open text field the answers were very varied.

The list ranges from artificial intelligence, cryptography, cybersecurity, deep learning, IoT, or ethical hacking, to astronomy, bioinformatics, financial software, commerce, music, image processing, physics simulations, or even something as "trivial" as bots for Discord.

20 Python courses and tutorials to learn to program in the language most loved by developers

Python 3 is already the most used version, remember that just a few months ago Python 2 support ended after more than 20 years. However, 10% of respondents still use it actively.

Among the 24,000 respondents, 68% said they use Linux in some way, 48% say they use Windows, 29% work with macOS, and 2% say they use BSD. PyCharm and Visual Studio Code are the most widely used editors / IDEs, followed by far by Vim, Sublime Text, Jupyter Notebook, Atom, and Emacs. Up to 2% use NotePad ++.

Linux is the favorite operating system of Python developers

90% of developers use some version control system, 67% have full-time jobs while 10% are students. Must have 3-5 years of Python experience, only 10% go beyond 11 years, and 21% have less than a year of programming in Python.

Python developers are also young, 42% are between 21 and 29 years old, and only 5% are over 50 years old. Also, the majority (58%) use Python for both work and personal projects.