The study “The State of JavaScript” compiled extensive data for the year 2022 to show the state of JavaScript and the international community of developers who actively use JavaScript. The makers thus tied in with surveys from previous years. They were able to access almost twice as many answers to their questions as in the previous year: 39,472 came together for the study. The survey took place from November 21 to December 22, 2022.
JavaScript/TypeScript are alive – but the status quo is faltering
The team behind the study comes in his report on the website to the general assessment that JavaScript and TypeScript are very much alive and well established among developers. On the other hand, they also point out that after years of relative stability, many developers are now beginning to question the status quo. Among other things, they base this on the fact that new front-end frameworks such as Solid, which topped the report in 2021, and also Qwik indicate that React may not have all the answers after all. Further, they note that on the server, Astro, Remix, and Next.js (among others) are making the developer community reconsider how much code they really need to deliver to the client.
What and how JavaScript is used
How do the surveyed professionals use JavaScript? Frontend development is very popular with developers: 76 percent of those surveyed stated that they use the language for precisely this purpose. Right behind that, with 50 percent of the participants, comes development for the backend. The development of mobile applications is lagging behind at almost 21 percent, and only 1.7 percent of the developers surveyed use JavaScript for projects related to machine learning.
What kind of projects do developers use JavaScript for? Frontend development wins the race here.
In this context, it is also interesting to ask how the respondents split their time between writing JavaScript and TypeScript code: 11 percent stated that they develop exclusively in JavaScript, while 28 percent spent their entire time writing of TypeScript code. Only 7.5 percent of those surveyed split their time writing code between TypeScript and JavaScript in half.
What kind of projects do developers use JavaScript for? Frontend development wins the race here.
Rendering frameworks instead of backend frameworks
If you are looking for the backend frameworks section in the 2022 report, you will now find the relevant software listed in the new “Rendering Frameworks” category. The makers of the report justify this by saying that the “Rendering Frameworks” category is more specific. In this area, SvelteKit and Astro have swapped their previous year’s rankings for developer satisfaction: Astro leads SvelteKit with 93 percent. The same picture emerges when it comes to the question of which backend framework the respondents would like to learn – here, too, Astro leads ahead of SvelteKit.
The organizers heise developer, iX and dpunkt.verlag judge on February 15, 2023 enterJS Web Performance Day the end. Participants get to know state-of-the-art tools for more speed. Performance experts show in seven online lectureshow to speed up web applications. There are deep dives into Angular and JavaScript in 2-day workshopswhich also take place online.
If you would like to get an overview of the results yourself, you will find all study results in the report on the Project website. There it is also possible to search the data according to your own interests with customizable charts and tables.
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