[mswehli]

No, Swift isn't like other langugaes which start from nothing. Most languages come out quietly and build a userbase slowly but steadily, which results in more organic growth, so they will have a steadier curve. Existing developers however have no real pressure to move to the new language, and can do so at a comfortable pace IF they decide it is even worth learning.

Swift however was released to a huge population of existing iOS and Mac developers, in releasing Swift Apple basically set a timer on the end of life of Object C and it meant that all developers at some point or another HAVE to learn swift to continue having a healthy career as iOS/Mac developers or be relegated to maintaining legacy code (which usually doesnt last long for client applications). So they release it, instant exposure to all existing Objective C programmers, instant interest from nearly everyone in their target audience (existing developers), and they're all in a rush to begin learning about it as staying relevant depends on it. However once a large subset of existing developers have already learnt about it, interest dies down again and it evens out at a rate you would expect from any other language based on interest from NEW developers.

[bsaul]

That would explain the initial large ups and downs. But i don't explain the general slow downward tendency starting from april 2017 and going on ever since.

You can compare that with kotlin (suddenly adopted officialy for android), typescript (suddendly adopted by major javascript frameworks, and sponsored by microsoft), etc.

I just don't explain the trend other than either language loosing market share on some fields (such as server side development), or ios native development loosing market share in general. I don't think people are reverting to objective-c...