The Kotlin language dedicated to the development of Android applications is evolving very quickly. Cybersecurity platform Snyk released its annual report on the JVM ecosystem this week, which shows that Kotlin overtakes Scala and Clojure, to become the 2nd most popular language on the JVM (Java Virtual Machine). The report collected more than 2,000 responses in the second half of 2019 and offers several conclusions. It revealed that 36% of developers have switched from Oracle JDK to another OpenJDK distribution in the past year.

To classify the most used languages ​​of the JVM, Snyk asked the following question to the developers: “Which JVM language do you use for your main application?” Snyk found that while JVM languages ​​have grown in number over time, Java is still the most popular language in the ecosystem. The report found that about 9 in 10 people use it as their primary language. According to Snyk, one of the main reasons for this dominance is that Java is evolving faster than other languages.

Kotlin, the language designed by JetBrains for developing Android applications, has gained tremendous popularity in recent years. In fact, according to last year’s report, Kotlin went from a 2.4% rate to a remarkable 5.5% adoption rate this year. It thus takes second place in the ranking of the main JVM languages. Clojure drops to third place with 2.9% and Scala takes fourth place, with 2.6% of respondents adopting it as their main JVM language.

“It is important to note that the innovations that Kotlin is trying to achieve are already found in the development of Java. New versions of Java attempt to incorporate concepts that are popular and appreciated in languages ​​like Kotlin. So it’s interesting to see how it influences the future adoption of different JVM languages, ”said Snyk. However, the report also revealed that, while other JVM languages ​​are gaining popularity very quickly, Java remains the undisputed master of the JVM class.

Source : Snyk