Why Python Overtook JavaScript on GitHub: AI Projects Fuel Explosive Growth

Lead: The annual report finds AI projects exploding in growth, driven by new users from outside the programming community.

Octoverse reports an "unexpected" shift: Python has replaced JavaScript as the most widely used language on GitHub.

Since 2019 Python has been second only to Java, but this rise is largely due to a surge in generative AI projects on GitHub.

Beyond Python’s top spot, GitHub notes that Jupyter Notebooks—open‑source, web‑based development notebooks designed for data science—have seen a 92% increase in usage over the past year.

These two factors, combined with an influx of new users, may indicate that people in data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and academia are using GitHub more than ever.

GitHub concludes that 2024 will be the year generative AI becomes a core building block for developers, with the total number of GenAI projects expected to reach 98% and contributor numbers to rise 59%.

Many of these contributors are new users, a large portion from India and Brazil.

GitHub also reports that the number of students, teachers, and open‑source maintainers accessing GitHub Copilot through the free plan has doubled, showing that AI not only helps more people learn to code faster but also attracts and supports more people becoming developers.

In short, GitHub’s conclusion is that artificial intelligence is reshaping the definition of a developer: it is no longer limited to someone with a computer‑science background or expertise in a specific programming language.

GitHub notes that the concept of a developer now includes not only software engineers but also operations or IT developers, machine‑learning researchers, data scientists, students, teachers, and mathematicians.

Given Python’s status as a favorite in the data‑science community, its rise to the most popular language on GitHub (while JavaScript still leads in code pushes) is entirely understandable.

When asked about Python’s new dominance, Deb Nicholson, Executive Director of the Python Software Foundation, told GitHub that they are delighted to see Python’s popularity continue to climb, especially with the added growth of Jupyter Notebooks, data analysis, AI, and open‑source technologies.

GitHub also states that, alongside Python’s ascent, the alternating popularity of Shell and C makes 2024 a bumper year for open‑source software, with first‑time contributors continuing to increase.

Considering the rest of the report, it is unsurprising that many open‑source contributors spend their time on AI projects, many of which receive substantial commercial backing.