

Stack Overflow User Survey Results - jncraton
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/01/2012-stack-overflow-user-survey-results/

======
dljsjr
I participated in the survey, and I don't expect anyone from SO to actually
read this posting on HN, but I did find that it was extremely biased towards
the idea of people who work places actually ship software based
products/services, and it was also extremely biased towards people that work
on the web (see the "what are you most excited about" category, which was
mostly web-based technologies).

I'm a software developer by day, and I work with a team of around 20 or so
other developers. But we don't ship products or create for the web. We're a
robotics research laboratory, rooted pretty squarely in academia and non-
profit. The closest we ever get to a "product" is a public YouTube video demo
or a publication and a conference talk.

I do a little bit of web/app stuff on the side, for fun, but I took the survey
from the perspective of my professional programming life, which is my day job.

I know that people like me are in the minority, and that web dev/app dev is
where the growth is right now, but it seems a little silly to skew a survey
like this away from "people who write software in the general case" because
then you aren't really creating a survey of _all_ StackOverflow users. I
actually found it a little challenging to answer some of the questions
accurately. Seeing how they tied their results so strongly in to their Careers
product makes the layout of the survey self-evident in hindsight, but I was a
little unsatisfied with the survey itself regardless.

~~~
robmcm
What language do you use stack overflow for?

~~~
dljsjr
I use SO in a lot of different ways. I enjoy looking for questions that I can
answer in any of the languages that I have experience with. I also use it as a
simple search engine for inspiration; if I have an implementation task I'll
often search SO first with some of my ideas to make sure I'm not
reimplementing the wheel. All of our development at the lab is in Java, which
I've been using for about 4 or 5 years on-and-off, so I don't often find
myself asking a lot of "how do I do this?" syntax or technicality questions
when it comes to the day job stuff; it's usually a cursory search for details
or an algorithmic type question.

As far as actually asking questions, I've been on SO for a few years so I've
used it for a lot of different things over time. I used it when I was first
getting acclimated with C and Java outside of class projects, and now I use it
whenever I'm picking up a new pet language. I've been asking and searching a
lot about Haskell lately.

~~~
robmcm
That's interesting, I teand to get to SO as a result of a Google search rather
than searching directly.

Also I find most questions are simple implementation issues or bugs, rather
than around complex design problems. Perhaps I am missing a trick...

~~~
cynwoody
>Just like the printer post above, it's incredible how many webcams are left
completely unsecured.

Likewise. I started noticing that SO results to software-related queries were
of sufficiently better quality that I started to qualify some searches with
site:stackoverflow.com. (Similarly, I also add site:ycombinator.com with some
other types of searches.)

It's too bad that SO/SX has fragmented their URL structure to make the site:
qualifier less effective. E.g., it would have been better to have
developer.stackexchange.com, superuser.stackexchange.com, etc. Then you could
choose to do just site:stackexchange.com to search the whole corpus vs
site:developer.stackexchange.com to be more narrow.

------
simonsarris
The info-graphic cheekily dissolves into an ad, which I guess is OK given the
context.

I'm surprised to see JavaScript as the most popular language, but pretty
pleased.

Living in New Hampshire I don't have many programmer friends, so communities
like StackOverflow are important to me. Relatively new additions like the SO
JavaScript chatroom[1] help too.

It may not feel like a community in the traditional sense to some, but in a
lot of ways StackOverflow gives me the encouragement I need to help people,
practice my craft and keep learning.[2] It really means a lot to me (and I'm
sure a lot of others).

Also, note that the tiny link below the info-graphic has the raw data if you
want to take a look at all the numbers[3].

[1] <http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/17/javascript>

[2] <http://i.imgur.com/POZmt.png>

[3]
[https://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=vU4rF_2bPVQaftSo1s69...](https://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=vU4rF_2bPVQaftSo1s69bGGbvMPXp7ktcfSHiDFP_2bM5qw_3d)

~~~
B-Con
JS is #1, and JQuery is #3. That's a runaway win by the JavaScript stack.

~~~
ajross
Note that the "win" is less about language-vs-language and more about
environment. Fifteen years ago, you saw Java score a similar rapid "win" over
C++, which is gave up more slowly to C# over the following decade.

What this really shows is that (1) most programming is "IT" programming (i.e.
focused development for specific businesses), (2) most IT programming is user-
focused, and (3) we've seen a rapid shift in the customer's preferred UI
environment.

Java was a revelation for people developing client software in the 90's. It
was faster and easier, and in many cases could be deployed over the web. Its
later wins on the server backend (which came more slowly) were driven by the
client side.

And Javascript is taking that mantle, driven by the mobile world. Yes, you
could still develop a Windows client app, but it won't work on your employees
iPhones and Galaxy S3's. So you deploy a web app instead.

And thus you use Javascript.

~~~
Zarathust
According to the TIOBE index[1], it only shows that SO is very biased toward
javascript, not that it is more or less used. StackOverflow is simply the new
goto place for js programmers and seems to become more and more exclusively
driven by web development, which might not reflect the whole programming
industry.

[1]
[http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....](http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html)

~~~
svachalek
True to a degree, but it's not as if TIOBE is unbiased.

------
blinkymach12
The "Where do developers live?" chart wasn't particularly satisfying[1], so I
thought it would be interesting to look at developer population in proportion
to the total population reported by the 2010 census[2].

After doing so, Washington and Massachusetts come out on top. California is
#6.

Full details in this google spreadsheet:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ak1kLptmHteHdEV...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ak1kLptmHteHdEVWeFNFb2J6djBmVTc5VXM1ZUNxU2c)

Briefly:

Washington

    
    
      2.15% of total population, but 5.3% of developer population. Ratio of 2.47
    

Massachusetts

    
    
      2.04% of total population, but 4.7% of developer population.  Ratio of 2.3
    

...

California

    
    
      11.91% of total population, but 14.9% of developer population. Ratio of 1.25
    

...

I threw the spreadsheet together somewhat hastily, so apologies in advance if
you catch a typo.

[1]: <http://xkcd.com/1138/> [2]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population)

------
simfoo
> Most popular programming languages: jquery

Yeah, that's what StackOverflow has become.

~~~
danabramov
Yeah that was weird but you can argue it has become a kind of DSL for DOM
manipulation.

Yes _I know it's not a language per se_ but because many questions request
answer specifically in jQuery and not vanilla JavaScript, 84% JavaScript
questions have jQuery tag and _only 39% of jQuery questions have JavaScript
tag_ , I think it's pretty fair to include it as a language of its own.

I don't think they cared about pedantic at all.

------
Zarathust
One metric I would have liked to see was whether people were more or less able
to find _good_ answers to questions. A lot of times my questions are answered
with "you shouldn't do that" and usually, I know that it is bad, but turn to
SO for tricky stuff. I can't change things like the build process or build
scripts easily at work for example, I want to know how to adapt to it instead
of getting told me how wrong I am.

I mostly code in C/C++ and the number of meaningful answers to my questions
has declined over the years. Maybe I don't ask stuff as trivial as I used to
but I just can't accept as many answers as I used to, despite community's
pressure to "work on my acceptance rate". I end up accepting the answer that
helped me the most, even if it was very little help.

------
rcirka
Why is jquery counted as a language? Javascript is a language, jquery is a
framework.

~~~
salmanapk
haha in-joke.

------
eliben
The "satisfaction %" heart graphic made me chuckle. The 1.4% growth from 2010
to 2011 doesn't seem like a big change in heart size, but the 0.8% between
2011 and 2012 - that deserves a huge heart.

Even when produced by trustworthy sources like SO, statistics can mess with
your brain.

------
donretag
"You like us…you really like us!"

The problem with this statement is that the survey is based only on SO users.
Non-users cannot comment whether or not they like the service.

Sincerely,

A StackOverflow non-user

~~~
EvanKelly
Do you make a concious decision to not use StackOverflow for a particular
reason or is it simply not a tool you need?

~~~
donretag
StackOverflow is simply a tool that I do not need.

It is not a community site, it is a Q&A site. Too formal. I find it far better
to ask a question on a specific mailing list and not on SO. It causes
fragmentation and I prefer to have one canonical source of information. Rails
question? Ask the mailing list. A community site for developers would be
welcome.

Another big problem that I have with SO is moderation. I do not want anyone
editing what I have wrote. It would be fine with the occasional editing of
egregious errors, but SO moderation is out of control (IMHO).

~~~
insteadof
Someone editing your post and moderation are two separate things.

What aspect of the moderation is gone wild? Noting a difference between those
with diamonds (moderators) next to their names and those with a high board
score (high rep users).

------
DenisM
I would like to see a survey about people's being (un)happy with the current
moderation regime, as I have a few bones to pick with it and I don't think I
am alone:

1) Some very useful questions such as "what framework would you recommend for
parsing CSV in .NET" get closed as "subjective, possibly leads to arguments",
whereas they already have a dozen of very useful answers. Had the moderators
got there on time, I would not get the info I wanted.

2) Short answers get auto-converted into "comments", so they can not longer be
marked as actual answers, even if they are the correct answer.

3) Answers consisting mostly of links to other SO questions with a brief
explanation get deleted because "they don't add value". I can't show you them
because they got deleted (duh!). That other question/answer might have
provided useful context and discussion, or it could actually be _the_ good
answer; besides the link itself is valuable as it links two related questions
together... In their zeal moderatos actually delete useful information from
the system.

4) Security questions overwhelmingly have dangerously wrong accepted answers.
SO should admit the shortcoming and ban all security questions (other than
pen-testing).

Basically, SO risks becoming another wikipedia with deletionists ruling the
roost.

~~~
junto
The following website doesn't inspire confidence, but without doubt,
FileHelpers 2.0 is the most awesome .NET library out there for processing and
creating CSV files: <http://filehelpers.sourceforge.net/>

Oh, and its free thanks to the hard work of Marcos Meli.

------
robmcm
I wonder if the "popularity" of a language is related to the fact people are
learning it.

More people could be developing in Java, but more people are learning
JavaScript and therefore active on Stack Overflow.

I generally find I use Stack Overflow a lot lot more when I am picking
something up for the first time.

Therefore I would assume JS is the language that is being most actively
learnt.

~~~
heelhook
Not necessarily IMO, considering it still does make sense to ask questions
even "after" you've learned a language, as long as you are using a
language/platform and continue to push yourself outside of your comfort zone,
you are bound to have questions. Wouldn't it be boring otherwise?

~~~
B-Con
Sure, but the number of questions you have in the first 3 months of the
language are bound to be more than the number of questions in the second set
of 3 months, and far more than after you've used the language for 3 years.
Granted most of the questions you have when you're "younger" won't require you
to actually ask as you can find answers, but I'd be surprised if the number of
questions asked by a user is relatively constant over the first several years
of having learned a language.

------
scorcher
I really don't think 2.2% increase in happiness during two studies is
statistically significant. Especially given the user base increased by over
300% in that time so presumably the demographic will have changed. Still,
clever use of information to promote their site. Its amazing how fast stack
exchange has grown.

------
okhudeira
I think the lighthouse image for 'Good management', number 3 under 'What's
important to programmers when evaluating a job opportunity', is spot on.
Really conveys that good management should provide very clear direction.

On a side note, I'm not sure why jQuery is listed as a programming language.

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duiker101
Programming language...jquery...

------
kenjagi
Judging from those results I think that the original question was more "what
if" rather than "what is" - particularly in the salary area.

In 10 years here in the Washington DC area I've never seen salaries that high,
or employers that can actually deliver that.

------
forgotAgain
While I appreciate the information, the ad made the whole thing cheesy.

------
shocks
Why only where US developers live? What happened to the rest of the world?

~~~
eli
Considering the answer is mostly a list of the most populous states, it's
particularly not useful.

~~~
shocks
<http://xkcd.com/1138/>

:D

------
lorenzfx
why is Stack Overflow still IPv4 only? Are they hosting on Amazon?

