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Comment by mmoskal | Hacker News Reader

According to Stack Overflow developer survey [0] Rust is at 12.5%, roughly a half of C# or Java and a quarter of Python. Also more than twice Ruby. So definitely not niche.

[0] https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology#most-popular...

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To be clear, that developer survey asked:

    > Which programming, scripting, and markup languages have you done extensive development work in over the past year, and which do you want to work in over the next year?

It does not ask if you are gainfully employed and using this language for your job.

Also, in the same results, just above Rust, I see:

    > PowerShell 13.8%

<sarcasm> So, I guess that we can safely say that Microsoft PowerShell is still more popular than Rust. </sarcasm>

Powershell is probably more popular, it's used a lot for IT stuff so we never hear about it but it's there.

In my mind not niche means having jobs, and Rust has no jobs, not in any meaningful amount at least, and none at all in most countries. That puts it deep in the niche category for me.

It's popular in the "let's rewrite X in Rust" community which are very actively posting on HN, Reddit and wherever they can. That gives the impression it is not niche.

But the moment you search Rust on LinkedIn, you can see the truth.

> According to Stack Overflow developer survey [0] Rust is at 12.5%, ... So definitely not niche.

The annual survey is very popular in the Rust community. Its results are often used for advocacy. Participation by Rust developers is very high. So what you have is a classic case of a selection bias.

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