Swift Breaks into Top 5 Favorite Developer Languages: What's Behind the Success?

Stack Overflow: Swift entered the top 5 favorite programming languages of developers

The annual Stack Overflow developer survey for 2020 brought an unexpected surprise: Swift, the language created by Apple for iOS and macOS, entered the top five most loved programming languages for the first time. According to the survey, which involved over 65,000 developers worldwide, Swift took 5th place with a 72.1% positive rating, surpassing veterans like Python (68.5%) and JavaScript (62.3%).

This leap is particularly notable compared to 2019, when Swift was only in 8th place. The rise in popularity is linked to the release of Swift 5.3, which brought ABI stability and modular support for Windows and Linux. "Swift has ceased to be a niche language for iOS developers," comments Paul Hudson, author of the book "Swift for Beginners." "It is now a full-fledged tool for server-side and cross-platform development, which has attracted the community's attention."

Interestingly, Swift outperformed not only Python but also Rust (70.4%), which traditionally leads the ranking of "most adored" languages. Experts attribute this to improvements in the ecosystem: the emergence of Swift Package Manager and support for SwiftUI have significantly simplified interface creation. "Swift offers the speed of Objective-C and the safety of Rust, but reads like Python," notes Chris Lattner, the creator of the language. "For mobile development, this is an ideal balance."

However, there was also criticism. Some developers noted that Swift still suffers from instability in backward compatibility: updates often break old projects. Nevertheless, 72% positive feedback is a serious signal for the IT industry. "If Apple continues to invest in cross-platform capabilities, Swift could become the #1 language for mobile and server-side development by 2025," predicts IDC analyst John Gallagher.

For the Python community, this means competition for developers' minds is intensifying. Python, although remaining the leader in overall usage (41.7% of respondents), is losing ground in the "love" ranking. Perhaps this will push the Python community towards more active adoption of static typing and performance improvements.