\n\nThis analysis includes Stack Overflow tags with at least 10,000 questions and excludes tags that end in numerals like \u003Ccode>ios8\u003C/code>.\n\nTwo tags stand out in this analysis, both with tremendous growth, and they have something in common. Swift is Apple's language for developing iOS apps that is a successor to Objective-C, and the \u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/angular\">\u003Ccode>angular\u003C/code>\u003C/a> tag on Stack Overflow is used for newer releases than the \u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/angularjs\">\u003Ccode>angularjs\u003C/code>\u003C/a> tag. Both of these technologies grew incredibly fast to have a big impact because they were natural next steps for existing developer communities. (Note that \u003Ca href=\"https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=jquery%2Cangularjs%2Cangular%2Creactjs\">AngularJS \u003Cem>also\u003C/em> grew incredibly fast\u003C/a>, though, and has the 10th highest rate of year-over-year growth ever on Stack Overflow.)\n\nThe other technologies here exhibit comparatively modest year-over-year growth, but are all interesting examples of what kinds of things can happen in our industry.\n\nAndroid Studio is an IDE targeted to mobile developers; it was first released in 2013 and grew immediately in popularity. The \u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/tags/angularjs-directive/info\">\u003Ccode>angularjs-directive\u003C/code>\u003C/a> tag is obviously related to the massive growth of Angular. The \u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/tags/ipad/info\">iPad\u003C/a> was announced by Apple in 2010, and the machine learning library \u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/tags/tensorflow/info\">TensorFlow\u003C/a> was released as open source by Google in 2015. We see from this plot what remarkable success looks like for a new technology.\n\n\u003Ch2>Most dramatic decreases\u003C/h2>\n\nWhat about the other side of the coin? What tags have the largest percent decreases, in any given year?\n\n\u003Cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8578\" src=\"https://stackoverflow.blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/decreases-in-stack-overflow-technologies-e1510157077852.png\" alt=\"decreases in stack overflow technologies\" width=\"900\" height=\"540\" />\n\nLike the first plot, this includes Stack Overflow tags with at least 10,000 questions and excludes tags that end in numerals like \u003Ccode>ios4\u003C/code> and \u003Ccode>xcode6\u003C/code>.\n\nBackbone.js is a JavaScript framework, with the brutal lifecycle typical for that ecosystem, and the game engine Cocos2d for iPhone has fallen out of favor. Silverlight has been deprecated by Microsoft, and Flex is a framework for Flash, also on its way out. Both were featured in our post on \u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/08/01/flash-dead-technologies-might-next/\">shrinking technologies from August\u003C/a>. The \u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/tags/orm/info\">Object-Relational Mapping\u003C/a> tag has a higher level of post-peak activity than the other tags here, but is dramatically lower than about a decade ago.\n\nParse is a pretty interesting example here. Parse is a mobile backend developer platform that was acquired by Facebook in 2013; Facebook announced it was \u003Ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/28/facebook-shutters-its-parse-developer-platform/\">shutting down the platform\u003C/a> in (you can probably guess this) January 2016. Parse was open sourced in the meantime. I like Parse as the flipside of the examples like Swift where a new technology is announced; Parse was a growing, apparently popular platform and its \u003Cem>shuttering\u003C/em> was announced.\n\n\u003Ch2>Sustained growth\u003C/h2>\n\nTechnologies can exhibit dramatic shifts like we've discussed, but some technologies grow at a more steady rate. What Stack Overflow tags have exhibited the most sustained growth since 2010, with questions in at least 5 years? Let's look at the median annual growth for tags with at least 10,000 questions and find technologies that have grown at a high level over many years, not only in a burst.\n\n\u003Cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8579\" src=\"https://stackoverflow.blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/growth-of-technologies-on-stack-overflow-e1510157125611.png\" alt=\"growth of technologies on stack overflow\" width=\"900\" height=\"771\" />\n\nHere we see the \u003Cem>first\u003C/em> \u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/angularjs\">Angular\u003C/a> tag, along with other JavaScript ecosystem members like TypeScript and Meteor. Several of these technologies are connected to the growth of data science and machine learning, including \u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/tags/pandas/info\">Pandas\u003C/a> and the \u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/tags/dataframe/info\">\u003Ccode>dataframe\u003C/code>\u003C/a> tag. Others occupy unique positions in the software industry, such as the ubiquitous search engine Elasticsearch and the game engine Unity. These technologies are diverse, but they all have grown at strong and steady rates over the past 5 to 7 years. Check out the \u003Ca href=\"https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=typescript%2Celasticsearch%2Cunity3d%2Cpandas\">Stack Overflow Trends\u003C/a> tool to see what their growth patterns look like.\n\nHere at Stack Overflow, we understand how technologies in the software industry rise and fall, and we have data to see these changes first hand. We use our data and expertise to help our clients \u003Ca href=\"https://www.stackoverflowbusiness.com/\">make better decisions when engaging with developers\u003C/a>. 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