Rust again tops the list of favorite programming languages according to StackOverflow survey

Rust on top again: programming language named most loved by developers for the eighth consecutive year

The annual StackOverflow developer survey, the world's largest community of programmers, has once again confirmed the leadership of the Rust language. According to the 2024 study results, Rust took first place in the "Most Loved Programming Language" category with a record 83% positive feedback among respondents who have worked with it. This is the eighth year in a row that Rust has topped this prestigious ranking, outpacing popular languages such as Python, TypeScript, and Go.

What makes Rust so appealing?

Rust's success is no accident. This language, developed by Mozilla Research and released as a stable version in 2015, combines the performance of C/C++ with modern memory safety mechanisms, eliminating an entire class of bugs related to memory leaks and data races. Key advantages noted by developers:

• Memory safety at compile time. The ownership and borrowing system allows you to write fast code without a garbage collector, guaranteeing the absence of null pointers and dangling references.
• High performance. Rust compiles to native code, matching the speed of C and C++, making it an ideal choice for systems programming, embedded systems, and high-load services.
• Modern ecosystem. The Cargo package manager, build and test tool, along with the central crates.io registry, provide thousands of ready-made libraries for any task — from web frameworks (Actix, Rocket) to parsers and low-level drivers.
• Excellent documentation and community. Rust is known for its friendly and open culture. The book "The Rust Programming Language" is considered one of the best programming textbooks ever, and the compiler produces some of the most understandable error messages.

Why is this important for Python developers?

For PythonLib readers, this news is particularly interesting. Rust and Python are not competitors, but rather ideal partners. More and more Python projects are using Rust to create fast extensions (via PyO3 or maturin). Writing performance-critical modules in Rust allows you to maintain Python's development speed while achieving C-level performance. For example, tools like Ruff (linter) and Pydantic V2 use Rust to speed up their work by tens of times.

The popularity of Rust in the StackOverflow ranking is not just statistics. It is a signal of the language's maturity and its transition from a niche ecosystem into the mainstream. Large companies, including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Dropbox, are actively adopting Rust for their critical components. If you haven't tried Rust yet, now might be the perfect time to learn its basics — if only to understand how to write ultra-fast Python libraries.

Stay tuned for news on PythonLib: we will definitely tell you how to start integrating Rust into your Python projects with minimal effort.