Developer survey

[rh71]

I thought this provided a pretty clear picture of our industry. 51k responses:

https://stackoverflow.com/insights/survey/2017/

Developer Type:
Web developer 72.6%
Desktop applications developer 28.9%
Mobile developer 23.0%
Database administrator 14.4%
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background 11.3%
Systems administrator 11.3%
DevOps specialist 11.1%
Embedded applications/devices developer 9.3%
Data scientist 8.4%
Other 7.5%
Graphics programming 4.8%
Graphic designer 3.9%
Machine learning specialist 3.8%
Quality assurance engineer 3.5%

Javascript has seen a notable upswing in recent years.
PHP has declined.
Rust is trending highly (never heard of it)

Visual Studio continues to be the top IDE

Tabs 42.9%
Spaces 37.8%

Top Paying in US:
Go $110,000
Scala $110,000
Objective-C $109,000
CoffeeScript $105,500
Perl $105,000
C++ $100,890
C $100,000
R $100,000
Swift $100,000
TypeScript $100,000
Python $99,000
Groovy $98,250
Ruby $97,000
Java $96,000
SQL $91,000
C# $90,000
JavaScript $90,000
Assembly $83,000
PHP $80,000
VBA $80,000
VB.NET $75,000

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

Why so many web developers?

 

[Chaotic42]

I do testing and application development in Python and I have a mathematics degree, not CS or SE. I've written some stuff in R, maybe I need to ask for a raise.

 

[Merad]

Rust is trending highly (never heard of it)

Rust is the hip (new?) low level systems type language these days. The one that all the kids who don't actually use C think will "finally replace C". It crops up up a lot because whenever there's an issue found with one of the major tools written in C that everyone uses (like curl or openssl) half the comments in discussions about it will suggest that it should just be rewritten in rust.

Why so many web developers?

Most general business apps these days are web apps, honestly. Even if you need/want a desktop app, unless you have significant performance requirements a lot of people are opting to write apps for electron (basically desktop web apps). Plus you have the startup ecosystem that's mostly web.

Also I think definitions have changed a lot in the last decade or so. IME web dev used to mean you did HTML + CSS with a bit of javascript. These days most web devs tend to be some flavor of "full stack" developer, doing both the front end work as well as server side in whatever language and often database stuff as well.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

Rust is the hip (new?) low level systems type language these days. The one that all the kids who don't actually use C think will "finally replace C". It crops up up a lot because whenever there's an issue found with one of the major tools written in C that everyone uses (like curl or openssl) half the comments in discussions about it will suggest that it should just be rewritten in rust.



Most general business apps these days are web apps, honestly. Even if you need/want a desktop app, unless you have significant performance requirements a lot of people are opting to write apps for electron (basically desktop web apps). Plus you have the startup ecosystem that's mostly web.

Also I think definitions have changed a lot in the last decade or so. IME web dev used to mean you did HTML + CSS with a bit of javascript. These days most web devs tend to be some flavor of "full stack" developer, doing both the front end work as well as server side in whatever language and often database stuff as well.

okay, is it better to learn JavaScript then? my CS classes so far are only instructed in two languages, C and java, although by my junior year, we will be learning a third(not javascript tho). I dont like designing web pages all that much, i mostly want to develop for the android platform but i am thinking about learning a few more optional languages outside of those needed for android development to meet the requirement of the job market.

 

[sao123]

Why so many web developers?

Web Apps are better than desktop equivalents, less overhead in larger more mobile work-forces.
Imaging having to deploy an app to thousands of workstations everytime you add a feature or patch a bug, unless you have a large IT department with a full SCCM setup, this is a nightmare for many companies.

It simplifies development in that you dont have to build 1 version for your PC's, another for Android tablets, and another for IOS tablets, 1 WebApp will work for all 3 devices.
Web apps are available everywhere just by using a common browser... meaning your workforce can work from anywhere using any device.


Unless you are doing some high precision, high compute workload, like CADD, Science, or Engineering, Web Apps seem to be the best way to go for general purpose data-drive app development.

 

[Merad]

okay, is it better to learn JavaScript then? my CS classes so far are only instructed in two languages, C and java, although by my junior year, we will be learning a third(not javascript tho). I dont like designing web pages all that much, i mostly want to develop for the android platform but i am thinking about learning a few more optional languages outside of those needed for android development to meet the requirement of the job market.

At least learn the basics of how the web works. You're probably going to need to interact with it at some point, whether you have to build some simple pages, call a REST API, or whatever.

Javascript based web development is a shit show right now. New libraries and frameworks pop up every few years, and popular frameworks that people are using at any given time tend to release massive breaking changes every 6 months or so. Literally almost anything you learned right now (other than the javascript language itself) is likely to be near worthless within a year. Fortunately if you're proficient with a language like Java you shouldn't find it too difficult to move into javascript development if you ever have the need.

If you want to learn something extra and web related you might look at C# and ASP.NET MVC. C# would be your server side backend language, and you can use Javascript for whatever you need to do on the client side page. The vast majority of non-tech companies out there run on either .NET (C#/VB) or Java, so knowing both of them can't hurt you.

 

[purbeast0]

okay, is it better to learn JavaScript then? my CS classes so far are only instructed in two languages, C and java, although by my junior year, we will be learning a third(not javascript tho). I dont like designing web pages all that much, i mostly want to develop for the android platform but i am thinking about learning a few more optional languages outside of those needed for android development to meet the requirement of the job market.

If you are interested in Android then keep at the Java.

"Designing" webpages really has nothing to do with developing them. Keep the designing to designers.

Also, learning C and Java will give you a solid foundation so that you can pick up Javascript if the time arises. But if you learn Javascript first then have to go back to the other OO languages, you're going to have a tougher time.

Also, Javascript is nothing like Java. The fact that they both have similar names really is a disservice and probably causes more headaches because people think they are related somehow but they are not even close to being the same or used to build the same types of applications. Although with node now, you can have a backend running fully in Javascript.

No matter what language you learn now, if you stick with it, you'll eventually get to the point where you are language agnostic and just know "how" to program, and you can pick up any tool/language necessary to get the job done. It took me about 9 or 10 years to get to that point. When you get to the senior level, it is way more important to find good engineers rather than finding language experts.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

If you are interested in Android then keep at the Java.

"Designing" webpages really has nothing to do with developing them. Keep the designing to designers.

Also, learning C and Java will give you a solid foundation so that you can pick up Javascript if the time arises. But if you learn Javascript first then have to go back to the other OO languages, you're going to have a tougher time.

Also, Javascript is nothing like Java. The fact that they both have similar names really is a disservice and probably causes more headaches because people think they are related somehow but they are not even close to being the same or used to build the same types of applications. Although with node now, you can have a backend running fully in Javascript.

No matter what language you learn now, if you stick with it, you'll eventually get to the point where you are language agnostic and just know "how" to program, and you can pick up any tool/language necessary to get the job done. It took me about 9 or 10 years to get to that point. When you get to the senior level, it is way more important to find good engineers rather than finding language experts.

okay, guess i will avoid javascript for now and pick up python and C# or .net as extras. My CS professor is a javascript enthusiast, he always tries to shove javascript at us even though it isn't in the curriculum so i thought it is kinda important....

 

[purbeast0]

okay, guess i will avoid javascript for now and pick up python and C# or .net as extras. My CS professor is a javascript enthusiast, he always tries to shove javascript at us even though it isn't in the curriculum so i thought it is kinda important....

When you say you don't like "designing" webpages do you mean designing them or developing them? There's a big difference. Designing is coming up with the look and feel, where as developing is actually turning it from design into a functioning web site/app.

If it's the latter and you don't like it, then there is really no point in learning JS at this point. There are some basic concepts in it though dealing with async calls that could be helpful for Android development though.

 

[Merad]

"Designing" webpages really has nothing to do with developing them. Keep the designing to designers.

Realistically, at many companies (probably the vast majority TBH) there are not dedicated designers or front end developers. If you are a "web developer" you're probably actually a "full stack web dev", so you'll be doing it all.

AFAIK my company does contract designers for our external marketing sites, but they literally just make designs in photoshop. The devs still have to figure out the HTML and CSS to implement the design.

 

[purbeast0]

Realistically, at many companies (probably the vast majority TBH) there are not dedicated designers or front end developers. If you are a "web developer" you're probably actually a "full stack web dev", so you'll be doing it all.

AFAIK my company does contract designers for our external marketing sites, but they literally just make designs in photoshop. The devs still have to figure out the HTML and CSS to implement the design.

Implementing the design is not the same as designing. That is implementation/developing.

By designing I am talking about coming up with the user experience from a blank canvas, which is exactly what you are saying your company contracts out to actual designers.

If your company is having developers do that, then chances are the user experience and design of your site sucks - unless you have some gem if a developer who can also design.

And no you are wrong about "many companies" simply having full stack developers. Same with them not having dedicated designers. The trend for these people is on the rise too because companies are realizing just how important user experience is versus just having the functionality. Having a good designer/UX person is just as important, if not more important, than having good engineers.

There are TONS of companies that have people who are stuck in front end land or backend land and don't touch the other sides. Just do a job search on any website. Fullstack is my personal favorite though because I enjoy seeing the full thing through. But my current project I'm strictly doing front end.

I did though just integrate skype presence integration which was fun because it actually involved doing backend work (or middle-tier work if you wanna call it that). I wrote a servlet on our application server that our client hits, and that in turn hits the Skype API to get the presence information, then pushed back to the client where it's displayed. It was a lot of fun being able to see the full thing through which I hadn't done for a while.

 

[Merad]

And no you are wrong about "many companies" simply having full stack developers. Same with them not having dedicated designers. The trend for these people is on the rise too because companies are realizing just how important user experience is versus just having the functionality. Having a good designer/UX person is just as important, if not more important, than having good engineers.

News flash. Most companies that write software, do not sell that software. We have roughly two dozen websites that are meant for the outside world, but probably 300+ websites and desktop apps for internal use only. Most large companies are the same way - and very few of them spend money on UX designers for internal tools.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

When you say you don't like "designing" webpages do you mean designing them or developing them? There's a big difference. Designing is coming up with the look and feel, where as developing is actually turning it from design into a functioning web site/app.

If it's the latter and you don't like it, then there is really no point in learning JS at this point. There are some basic concepts in it though dealing with async calls that could be helpful for Android development though.

Well, which category does HTML and CSS fall under? I never actually design any images, special effects etc and I don't know how to use photoshop. I typically just download from Google images for the graphics I need in my project.

 

[purbeast0]

News flash. Most companies that write software, do not sell that software. We have roughly two dozen websites that are meant for the outside world, but probably 300+ websites and desktop apps for internal use only. Most large companies are the same way - and very few of them spend money on UX designers for internal tools.

News flash - many internal tools aren't designed like crap and have good UX. I know from personal experience. I'm not sure why you would think just because tools are used internally means they have to look like shit and have bad user experience.

I have been doing web app development for 5 years now and you know how many of my apps/sites are used in the outside world?

0

 

[purbeast0]

Well, which category does HTML and CSS fall under? I never actually design any images, special effects etc and I don't know how to use photoshop. I typically just download from Google images for the graphics I need in my project.

Some designers know how to do CSS/HTML but if you are going to be doing web app development you also better know it since you're going to be doing a lot of it when implementing stuff and fixing bugs.

Many don't consider CSS/HTML to be "programming" or developing, since it really isn't and there is no logic involved or anything. But if you're doing web app development, specifically the front end, chances are you're going to be doing a good amount of it.