Since 2016 is getting closer to an end, I've decided to run some counting scripts on the data collected from all of this year's HN's "Who is Hiring?" threads. This way we can see "what's shaking in the ~~real~~ startups' world".

Disclaimer

1) The data below comes from one source only - the "Who is Hiring" thread from Hacker News. While the thread itself is a good source of information, its focus is placed on the startup part of the entire IT industry. Any attempts to extrapolate trends presented here to the industry as a whole can be slightly misleading.
2) The technologies presented below were selected on the basis of my personal (and biased) feeling of importance. If I missed anything important, or you would like to see some other comparison, please let me know. Happy to add one more colorful chart.

2016 in numbers, lines and bars

The total number of entries created this year in “Who is hiring” threads, divided into 12 editions.

And here’s how it looks compared to the results from previous years.

Programming Languages

The aggregated numbers from all 12 months show that Python, Javascript, Ruby and Java are still very safe choices. You can't go wrong learning any of these. Also, despite the noSQL movement, SQL is still with here us. It's probably a good idea to learn SQL in 2017 as well.

Frameworks, libraries, storage and other supporting technologies

The chart below presents technologies not in any way similar to each other and the aim of it isn’t to compare them. You can find here storage engines, web frameworks along with hosting platforms and operating systems for mobile platforms.

My idea here wasn't to compare apple to apples, but it was more to point important technological trends worth learning (along with languages). The tags presented here are extracted from job post descriptions and can be treated as employer requirements.

React is the new frontend default?

Again, I know that comparing Javascript and React it a bit of a stretch. But placing Javascript together with its framework shows pretty interesting relation. React as Javascript library has more mentions than language for which it was created. It looks like the library itself is so strong that tagging Javascript along seems redundant. It looks like React could be the new jQuery.

Backend

Here’s additional information on this graph. While PHP’s or Ruby’s main field of usage are web applications, Python, Java and Go have a wider variety of uses. Also Node.js is not really a language but rather a runtime, but it seemed fair to put add it to this chart as well.

Docker

At this point it's neither a buzzword nor just a development setup. The overall growth rate looks really impressive. In fact, it’s impressive enough for me to take a closer look. I decided to break it down into months.

While the growth of Docker on HN pages was really impressive, it looks like it might slow down a bit.

Mobile

The difference between the two is not too drastic. In small favor of the iOS systems.

Objective-C vs Swift

At the end of year 2016, Objective-C looks like an obsolete technology. This is what Apple was aiming for and what in general is probably a good thing. There is possibly a lot of Objective-C legacy codebase in the wild, but if you are looking into learning to code on iOS platforms, Swift is the right choice.

Remote

Remote work is an important trend for the industry. In 2016, 21% of jobs posted on Hacker News were tagged as remote, either as option or requirement.

I hope this is helpful for all those wondering about the current programming languages, technologies and trends. If you would like to see any other comparisons from this year, send us and email on mail@whoishiring.io.