Ethics in AI

AI is a powerful and disruptive technology altering the landscape of application development and the wider world as we know it. The adoption of AI is increasing at a fast pace. While AI helps developers in every area of society to create solutions, implement change, and drive progress, it also forces us to think more deeply about our relationship with technology and the ethics of AI.

Indeed, adoption and availability of tools to build AI have caught up with the promises of the field and what once seemed unachievable is now within reach. As a result, many people are concerned and are actively discussing the implications of AI and to what standard we must hold ourselves in order to ensure that AI is aligned with our widely shared human values.

WHERE DO DEVELOPERS STAND ON ETHICS IN AI?

Their views are surely of the utmost importance because they are, after all, on the front line of building and implementing the algorithms that underlie AI products. In the 16th edition of our Developer Economics survey, we asked developers to what degree they agree or disagree with issues such as AI’s unintended consequences, algorithm bias, and jobs replacement, as well as their views about data collection and protection.

WE GOT THE BASICS RIGHT

It should give us peace of mind to know that the vast majority of developers take user rights very seriously. Developers agree that they should not only ask for user consent to collect data and follow security and data protection laws but that they should also go above and beyond legal requirements – 72% of developers told us so. Scandals such as the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica one have indicated that regulations are lagging behind and it is very encouraging that developers are aware of their ethical responsibility while regulators are still trying to catch up.

When it comes to AI specifically, however, developers have diverging opinions on a range of topics.

CAN AI BE TAUGHT TO BEHAVE AS THOUGH MORAL & HUMAN-FRIENDLY?

No topic divides developers more than the unintended consequences of AI. When asked whether AI can be taught to behave as though moral and human-friendly, developers’ responses split almost equally among those who agree (33%), those who neither agree nor disagree (40%), and those who disagree (27%). While such distribution of opinion could be expected from the general population, one might expect developers to have a more unified view as they possess a better technical understanding of what ML/AI can and cannot achieve.

Looking at the breakdown of developers’ opinions by age group we find that individuals who are under 25 years old have a much more positive outlook (45% agree) than those who are over 35 years old (28%). Where developers live is another differentiator: Europeans are more neutral (42% neither agree nor disagree) whereas South-Asia has the highest percentage of developers who agree that AI can be taught to behave as moral and human- friendly (49%). These differences may be the result of the type of involvement in ML/AI as developers in South-Asia are more likely to be using ML for medical diagnosis and prognosis, object recognition/image classification and NLP (Natural Language Processing), whereas Europeans are more likely to be working in more ‘traditional’ ML fields such as fraud detection.

Responses of ML/AI developers and data scientists also differ when considering their types of involvement (as professionals, hobbyists or students) and their use cases. Half of developers who teach AI, ML or data science have favourable views towards the ability of AI to behave in a moral and human- friendly way – in fact, teachers are twice as likely to strongly agree compared to all developers involved in ML/AI. On the other hand, developers who build machine learning frameworks are more likely to strongly disagree (12% vs. 8% for all developers).

Another very interesting insight is that more than half (56%) of ML developers who work in bioengineering and/or bioinformatics agree that AI can be taught to behave morally and be human-friendly. This is worth noting as these developers develop ML/AI that applies engineering principles of design and analysis to biological systems and therefore are likely to have a deeper understanding of the feasibility of such a lofty goal.

A burning question is “Will AI steal your job?”

Discover the answer and more details on the Ethics in AI, on our State of the Developer Nation 16th Edition report.

It’s free and full of insights.

Business

Gender Wars

The technology industry often takes credit for the changing world of work. One example is the model of remote employees working as digital nomads in their favourite coffee shop, connected via Slack and collaborating via the cloud to create products and services for consumption over the internet or on smartphones and tablets. But what about work within the technology industry itself? We take a look at the profile of women in tech and compare it with the profile of their male counterparts.

If we exclude those who preferred not to share their gender with us, and those who skipped this optional question, female developers responding to our survey were outnumbered by males by a ratio of 1 to 10 (9% women and 91% men). This suggests a global population of 1.7 million women developers and 17 million men. The technology industry is dominated by men and the imbalance in numbers is such that we cannot make numerical comparisons between men and women. Instead, in the rest of this chapter, we will look at relative differences in terms of experience, age and roles adopted, and the most common company sectors and development areas for men and women.

What are their ages?

Looking at the comparative ages of male and female developers, we find a higher percentage of women are under the age of 35. The 25-34 age group accounts for the largest number of developers of both genders (36% of women, 33% of men), yet male developers are more likely to be older: we found 37% of male developers are over 35 years, compared to 29% of women developers.

There are (at least) two different ways of interpreting this observation. One is to say that women are being increasingly drawn to software development; the comparatively young profile of women compared to men illustrates recent gains made in attracting girls and young women into technology. Analysis of college data for entrants to computer science courses, in North America at least, suggests that this is indeed a plausible explanation, as women are increasingly studying courses in the subjects that lead to a career in technology.

An alternative, or additional, explanation is that women may have always been involved, but tend to leave software development as they get older, either by choice or necessity.

And here’s a preview of the roles they undertake:

Women in tech & their educational background?

When we looked into the education levels of the genders, we noted that women developers are equally likely to have been educated to degree level in computing/software engineering when compared to men. Likewise for other classroom training that doesn’t lead to specific degrees, and for attendance at developer bootcamps.

Women are slightly more likely than men to have learned their craft using online course materials and slightly less likely to have learned on-the-job. Women are significantly less likely to be self-taught (57% of women compared to 75% of men) but it is still the most popular way of learning about development for both genders. The relatively older profile of men probably explains why more have become self-taught: they have engaged in continuous education throughout their longer career because of the rapidly changing nature of the industry. As women in tech and women developers particularly mature, we would expect the level of “self-taught” women to rise as they also teach themselves new skills to advance their career.

For more details on the Gender Wars, you can download our State of the Developer Nation 16th Edition report.

It’s free and full of insights.

Business Community

Developer Economics survey Q4 2018 prize draw winners

Post author By Vanessa Measom
Post date March 29, 2019
No Comments on Developer Economics survey Q4 2018 prize draw winners

developer economics survey q4 2018, developer survey, slashdata survey, developer prize winners, survey prize winners

It’s the moment that all participants of the Developer Economics survey Q4 2018 have been patiently waiting for. Time to announce our prize draw winners! Over 19,000 developers from 165 countries took part in this survey, and we appreciate everyone’s effort! Below you’ll find a table comprised of the emails of the winners of our community and general prize draws (obfuscated for security reasons). Congratulations to all the lucky ones!

Winners have already been notified by email – if you recognise the email fragment as yours and we haven’t contacted you, please drop us an email at survey@slashdata.co.

Please note that the list only includes prize-draw winners and not runner-ups. If the prize draw winners do not claim their prizes within the timeframe mentioned in the respective e-mail they received, then runner-ups will be asked to claim them instead.

===

Community Member prize draw winners

This exclusive prize was open to all existing members of our Community. Not yet a Community Member? Join here.

Prize draw winner	Prize
g****.b@g.c	Corsair STRAFE RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard – Cherry brown
m*****@g.c	Swiftpoint GT Wireless Ergonomic mouse
d****.a*@g.c	Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ Starter Kit
s***@g.c	Apple Developer Program membership fee
e*****.i***@g.c	Apple Developer Program membership fee
j********@o**.c	Apple Developer Program membership fee
m*.t*@a**.c	Apple Developer Program membership fee
j****@g.c	Apple Developer Program membership fee
t****@g.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
h*****@g.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
s****@g.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
m****@p********.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
s***@g.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
c************@g.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
e******@a.c.a	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
e************@l.r	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
j*.p**@g.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
g******@g.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
n********@y.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
s*********@r*****.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
i****@g.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
y**.m*@g.c	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
o******@b***.o	Omars Portable Charger 10000mAh Power Bank
a******@y*.c	Google Play Developer account fee
p**.v.m****@c****.c	Google Play Developer account fee
k******@k****.c	Google Play Developer account fee
m****.g*****@p*****.c	Google Play Developer account fee
s****.s@h***.c	Google Play Developer account fee
p**.v.m****@c****.c	Google Play Developer account fee
r*.s**@g.c	Google Play Developer account fee
m*******@m****.c	Google Play Developer account fee
h**********@1.c**	Google Play Developer account fee
n*******@g.c	Google Play Developer account fee
p******@h**.c	Google Play Developer account fee
a**************@g.c	Google Play Developer account fee
o.e**@g.c	Google Play Developer account fee
l*@t*****************.c	Google Play Developer account fee
s**@g.n	Google Play Developer account fee
P*****@g.c	Google Play Developer account fee
d*****@g.c	Google Play Developer account fee
m**********@h**.c	Google Play Developer account fee
n*******@g.c	Google Play Developer account fee
e*****@g.c	Google Play Developer account fee

General prize draw winners

Prize draw winner	Prize
w*******@g.c	Samsung S9 Plus
e.e.f.p******@g.c	Oculus Rift & Touch Virtual Reality System
s********@g.c	Axure RP8 Pro one year license
k********@g.c	$200 towards the software subscription of your choice
r***@g.c	Samsung 970 EVO 500 GB V-NAND M.2 PCI Express Solid State Drive
“z********@g.c	Filco Ninja Majestouch-2, Tenkeyless, NKR, Tactile Action, Keyboard
d****.a****@o***.b	Filco Ninja Majestouch-2, Tenkeyless, NKR, Tactile Action, Keyboard
l****@m.c.z*	a $100 USD Prepaid Virtual Visa card
t******@g.c	a $100 USD Prepaid Virtual Visa card
p***@g.c	a $100 USD Prepaid Virtual Visa card
a**********@g.c	a $100 USD Prepaid Virtual Visa card
m******@g.c	a $100 USD Prepaid Virtual Visa card
j.l*****@g.c	a $100 USD Prepaid Virtual Visa card
I******@g.c	a $100 USD Prepaid Virtual Visa card
s*********@g.c	a $100 USD Prepaid Virtual Visa card
g****.c**@g.c	a $100 USD Prepaid Virtual Visa card
d*******@m.r	a $100 USD Prepaid Virtual Visa card
s***.s*@m.o*	a $25 Udemy voucher
p*********@g.c	a $25 Udemy voucher
n******@w.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
k*******@y.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
a********@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
d**.t@y.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
m***@n.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
m****@n**.n	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
d*****@b.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
n*@y.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
c*****@y.c.p*	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
j*****@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
r*******@g.d*	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
R*********@y**.r	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
i*******@y.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
m*****@o**.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
m***@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
c****@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
d***@y.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
y****.k****@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
m****************@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
r**********@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
r.b*****@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
w******@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
d*****@u.e**	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
M****@l.c*	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
r******@y.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
a.m*@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
c**.p****@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
d********@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
e****@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
g*@n****.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
f*****.m****@b*****.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
j***************@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
m***.s**@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
k****@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
z****@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
2****@2**.n	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
s*******@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
v**********@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
b********@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
b*******@o.p*	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
m********@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
d********@h**.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
f**@y**.r	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
r**.m********@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
s******.v@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
l*****@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
y**.i@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
m******@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
n*@y.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
p***@g.c	a T-shirt with your AI Character on
a*********@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
s*****.p@g*.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
e******@m.r	a Mug with your AI Character on
a*****@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
s****@m.r	a Mug with your AI Character on
p**********@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
n**************@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
T******@y**.r	a Mug with your AI Character on
t******@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
y********@y.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
d************@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
j******.s@s**.c.b*	a Mug with your AI Character on
n*********@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
j**@s****.m	a Mug with your AI Character on
m*****@a.m.e*	a Mug with your AI Character on
l*.b**@i***.e.m*	a Mug with your AI Character on
f*****@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
r****@r******.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
f*********@o**.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
a*****.i@g**.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
p*******@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
g****@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
r********@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
a*******@y.c.b*	a Mug with your AI Character on
f*****@c*.i.a*	a Mug with your AI Character on
m*******@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
w****@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
a*********@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
t****@n.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
c**************@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
j.j@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
l*******@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
v********************@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
p**.l***@v**.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
s****@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
s*******@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
a*****@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
k******@y.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
b********@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
e*******@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
j*************@h**.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
r*******@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
j**********@h**.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
m****@a****.c.a*	a Mug with your AI Character on
s******@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
d*************@i*.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
s.k.z**@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
r********@g.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
v****.t@g**.c	a Mug with your AI Character on
j*********@g*****.c	a Mug with your AI Character on

Tags dev prize draw, developer economics survey

Business Interviews Tools

Dev Evolution: Meet Vasil from AndroidPal

Post author By Vanessa Measom
Post date February 28, 2019
No Comments on Dev Evolution: Meet Vasil from AndroidPal

android, app development, developer tips, developer economics, developer blog, developer community, app community, android community — AndroidPal

How do tech startups win the hearts of developers with their products? What does it take to create value and get developers to use their tools? Our guest Vasil from AndroidPal talked to us about these challenges and shared a few tips on Android development.

Who?

I’m Vasil, owner and CEO of AndroidPal Ltd. and other businesses like Belvek Ltd. I have been into computer technologies most of my life, during the last 10 years — professionally.

My interest in technology and computers started when I was very young, probably at the age of 7. Back then people did not have computers at home. My brother and I had the chance to land in an after-school activity to learn programming. It was only once per week and we couldn’t wait for it to start. We were taught BASIC back then on computers called Pravetz.

We’ve initially worked with 8-bit but later 16-bit computers which were mostly identical with the Apple II computer. It seemed I had a knack for programming, maybe because I was good at Maths.

Additionally I’ve studied and worked with other popular at the time programming languages and technologies like VBScript (yes, it was a thing), Visual Basic, Delphi, OpenGL, PHP, ASP (prior to .NET) and of course HTML.

Fast forward 15 years and I started my own IT company. We’re based in Sofia, Bulgaria and have been providing software development and related services for more than 6 years now.

Most of our clients are from USA, Germany, Austria and Italy. We also have our own products and services in different fields – education, travel, gaming and entertainment.

How did you get into app & Android development?

We’ve been developing one way or another for Android for almost exactly 9 years now. I can still remember the first Android phone I got – HTC Desire. I think it must have been mid March 2010 when I’ve heard of the phone. I really liked it, but said to myself that I can buy it only after I’ve created a simple app for Android and learn more about Android development.

Back then developing for Android was not easy, the current Android version at the time was Android 1.5 but I remember that writing Android apps I had to support Android 1.1 too.

Developing for Android was done with Eclipse. Eclipse is an open source IDE and back then, at least developing for Android with it was not easy. There were too many issues with the IDE – it required too much memory, freezed often, needed restarts and obscure workarounds to make it stable.

So, that first app that I built used Android NDK and had C and C++ code to allow fast image manipulation. And fast it was – probably 3 to 5 times faster than manipulating the image data directly in Java. Of course a year later the Dalvik VM got JIT which would make a Java implementation comparable in terms of speed.

Ever since that first app I and later the people I work with are developing more and more for Android working on big or small projects for various industries.

And yes, I bought that HTC Desire phone on May 21st 2010 (I know the date because I bragged to a friend over email).

Tell us a bit more about AndroidPal.

AndroidPal started because of a problem. We were working on an Android app with a particularly complex graphical user interface. We’ve inherited the code of another company and struggled making certain views (the interface) work. To such extent that we had to create a tool to inspect the layout better. This is how our own View Hierarchy Inspector tool was born.

We thought it would be very useful to developers like ourselves and it would be great if we created other helpful tools.

With more than 2.7 billion active users undoubtedly Android OS is the most popular OS. There constantly are new technologies and frameworks and SDK updates and languages coming out. We know how overwhelming it can be for developers, and it is.

So we thought we start an online community centered around Android Development — this is what AndroidPal is all about. It’s a website where you can find useful information, chat with peers and learn. The site has different sections like – Questions, Libraries, Knowledge Base and Chat.

We’ve built all of these as only the foundation onto which we can implement all our other ideas. AP Studio is part of AndroidPal and the name is just a short version of “Android Pal Studio”.

What pain points are you solving for developers? Why should developers use your IDE?

AP Studio offers tools which Android Studio does not. One example would be the Icon Creator, probably the most popular AndroidPal Studio tool among existing users. Then there is the Shape Drawable creator and other tools. Say you want to create a Shape drawable resource file, you might need to check the docs to recall the exact specs and write XML text code. Our tool works visually. It has controls based strictly on the specs so you can’t go wrong.

Among other things this saves time. The tools are built into the IDE and there are quick actions to streamline the process. For example when you create an icon for your app AP Studio can immediately and automatically set it as your app’s launcher icon.

Then there is the snappiness of AP Studio. It does not have the heavy requirements of Android Studio and feels much quicker. In our work we sometimes need to make a small change and see the result right away, no need to spin another instance of Android Studio in such cases. We’re dedicated to increase the snappiness factor even further.

Our best ideas are yet to be implemented. One such idea is how to organize and reuse resources and experience from different projects. One way is to have a library of resources, for example a library of icons or library of layouts. Something that you can navigate easily. A public as well as developer’s very own private library. Our Shape Drawable Creator tool does have a public library with 8 free items, we’ll add more and accept submissions by developers and improve and categorize things a lot in the next iterations of the software.

Indeed everything in AP Studio is ad hoc. Android Studio is based on IntelliJ Idea which is a great software, but has been built as a generic purpose IDE. Google had to create a plugin for it. At some point we wanted to create our own plugins for Android Studio, but the IntelliJ Idea plugins documentation and the effort required to do so seemed overwhelming. Simple things would require a lot of work.

Therefore being ad-hoc and using modern technologies allows us to have a special touch in everything and to quickly respond and implement user suggested features.

To summarize, I would recommend developers use our IDE because it offers new tools and ultimately saves time and leads to less errors.

How was your experience of building the IDE? What challenges did you face in developing this?

Building an IDE is not a trivial task, it was much more effort than we’ve initially imagined.

Entering an unknown territory was very challenging. It’s a different kind of software than what we’ve done before. Also the sheer amount of technologies involved, the research of how things work and why, reading and understanding the (sometimes lacking) documentations – it’s a very big effort.
But it’s fun and rewarding to see things work. To get to a stage where we can start paying more attention to UX as functionality is already fine.

Martin, one of the main developers of the project had this to say:

“Having only been working on web sites and web apps I found using Angular for a Desktop app was something completely new to me. In my work on the project I’ve encountered things which were different from my usual Web development work. It was a tough but interesting work and certain tasks seemed overwhelming, but I did not give up and as a result became a better developer overall.”

Even though it’s well featured IDE now and offers everything you need to develop for Android we’re long way of having all our ideas implemented.

What’s next for AndroidPal? How do you see it progressing in the next two years?

On the whole we want to improve the online part and include interactive guides for beginners, different tools. To name but a few things coming:

Android Update tool where developers learn from a very well presented data what they need to do in order to update / upgrade from version X to version Y.
Git repos with Android specific web tools (e.g. preview specific android resources, display android specific info about the project).
Knowledge base – we have great ideas there and want to develop them.
Most importantly – more work on AP Studio IDE – to ultimately have low-code / no-code solutions for a wider audience (not just professional software developers).
Some sort of PM tool (todo lists — we have been using our own tool for it and are thinking of integrating it with AP Studio).

One other non-technical aspect of the project is AP Academy where we would apply our experience in teaching and explaining Android topics to a wider audience and in ways that would make the whole learning process better.

What’s your best piece of advice for developers today?

Software development is not an easy thing. Being a professional software developer means you have to keep up with all technologies as much as you can. Learning and improving is a lifelong process. Becoming good takes years. The best piece of advice would be to not give up when there’s a tough problem to solve. So, keep calm and don’t give up.

For most developers there would always be someone who is better in a particular aspect of programming. We should be humble and strive to learn.
As software developers we should always try to solve problems. Not to learn the syntax of a programming language as best as you can. Or learn the most number of programming patterns. What brings value is solving problems. Being creative when solving problems is equally important.

But this is just some developer with 10 years experience talking. There are far more experienced developers who have been into technology from much earlier days. There are great books out there every developer should read. The list might be long and depend on what kind of programming you do, but I would always recommend the books of Uncle Bob (Robert C. Martin) — for example one of his best known books “Clean Code”. Another book I’d recommend is “The Pragmatic Programmer” by Andrew Hunt and Dave Thomas.

What technologies do you invest in the most, and why?

One way or another we use the following technologies across AndroidPal and in AP Studio in particular:

– Java
– Kotlin
– Gradle DSL
– Python
– Javascript
– Typescript
– Angular
– NodeJS
– PostgreSQL
– MongoDB
– SQLite
– Firebase
– Electron
– HTML5 / CSS3 / SCSS

Most of the codebase of the IDE is Javascript / Typescript, however many of the important (albeit much smaller) parts are written in Java.

Then there are libraries and frameworks within those technologies which are too many to list.

Using HTML5 for the interface made so many things so much easier than in other platforms (comparing for example using existing Java GUI frameworks or creating our own). The freedom and ease such a mature technology offers is something we’ve really learnt to appreciate.

HTML5 and Angular made the big difference. Can’t even begin to imagine how much more effort it would require to do this with traditional technologies.

Tags android, app developer, developer community

Platforms Tools

The battle: Tensorflow vs Pytorch

Post author By Eitan Rosenzvaig
Post date January 25, 2019
No Comments on The battle: Tensorflow vs Pytorch

Which framework should you use? An answer from 3,000 developers. Who hasn’t heard about the Tensorflow vs Pytorch battle between Facebook’s PyTorch and Google’s Tensorflow? A quick search will reveal the intensity of this clash of frameworks. Here is one great article by Kirill Dubovikov.

And here is your chance to defend the framework you believe in the most.

At its core, the duel is fuelled by the similarity of the two frameworks. Both frameworks:

Are an open source libraries for high performance numerical computation
Are supported by a large tech company (Facebook and Google)
Have a strong and active supporting community
Are Python based
Use graphs to represent the flow of data and operations
Are well documented.

Taking all of this into account we can say that almost anything created in one of the frameworks can be replicated in the other at a similar cost. Therefore, the question stands. Which framework should you use? What is the main difference between each community?

At /data we are constantly surveying the developer community to track the trends and predict the future of different technology sectors. For machine learning in particular this clash is critical. The prevailing framework, if there is one, will have a huge impact on the path that the machine learning community will take in the years to come.

With this in mind, we asked the developers who said that they are involved in data science (DS) or machine learning (ML) which of the two frameworks they are using, how they are using them and what else they do in their professional life.

Tensorflow is winning the game, but is PyTorch playing on the same console?

From the 3,000 developers involved in ML or DS we saw that 43% of them use PyTorch or Tensorflow.

This 43% is not equally distributed between the two frameworks. Tensorflow is 3.4 times bigger than PyTorch. A total of 86% of ML developers and data scientists, said they are currently using Tensorflow, while only 11%, were using PyTorch.

Moreover, PyTorch has more than 50% of its community also using Tensorflow. On the other hand, only 15% of the Tensorflow community also uses PyTorch. It would seem like Tensorflow is a must but PyTorch is a nice-to-have.

Who is using PyTorch and who is using Tensorflow? What is each framework being used for the most?

Here are the things that really stood-out from the rest:

It is conclusive. In comparison to PyTorch, Tensorflow is being used in Production and most probably deployed to the cloud, as implied by the significantly higher backend experience of Tensorflow users (4.8 years vs. 3.8 of PyTorch users). As compared to PyTorch, Its community is composed more of professional machine learning developers (28%), software architects (26%) and programmers within a company (58%). This is most likely due to Google’s focus on deployment through APIs such as Tensorflow serving which has become a key motivator for the adoption of Tensorflow for many developers who are trying to push data products into production environments.

On the other hand, PyTorch is being used more than Tensorflow for data analysis and ad-hoc models within a business context (10%). In the PyTorch community there are far more Python-first developers (i.e developers using Python as a primary language) who work on web applications (46%). Moreover, the versatility of this Pythonic framework allows researchers to test out ideas with almost zero friction and therefore it’s the go-to framework for the most advanced cutting edge solutions.

Do you use any of these frameworks?

Have your say in our bi-annual survey currently running and let us know how you are building those convolutions – and win some awesome prizes in the process.

Tags pytorch, tensorflow

Business Platforms

Virtual reality: Where did it all go wrong?

Post author By Jo Stichbury
Post date January 21, 2019
No Comments on Virtual reality: Where did it all go wrong?

In this article, I’m going to talk about how I perceive the mainstream consumer audience to have rejected virtual reality, and suggest that its child, augmented reality, may be the Slope of Enlightenment that convinces us to buy in. While these are my views alone, towards the end of the piece, I’ve dug out some data from software developers around the world who are working with AR and VR. Even if you don’t care about my views, you may find what they have to say interesting. And, if you’d like to express your own thoughts, I’ve included a link to a survey that’s open right now, which will help key players in the industry to draw their own conclusions.

Virtual reality: Tomorrow’s world, today

I worked in the smartphone industry before it came of age. Our mission was “a smartphone in every pocket” at a time when simple feature phones like the Motorola RAZR were the must-have communications device. Within a few years of our early projects, the competitor, Apple, launched the iPhone. The rest is history. The App Store opened its doors, the stars aligned, the technology dream was realised and smartphones went on to rule the world.

I grew up in a time of change. We had a BBC microcomputer before I was ten years old. As a teenager, I sashayed along to the sounds of the eighties on a tape Walkman, and later mobile CD players and minidiscs. Then Napster, now Spotify. Change. The cadence of technological evolution was a rapid heartbeat, sounded out by the Internet, mobile phones and a maturing software development industry, which I joined enthusiastically.

Maybe I just got used to an unrealistic pace of change? But whatever happened to virtual reality (VR)? Its heartbeat seems to have flatlined. Nothing much has changed in the years that have passed since the “year of VR” (pick your year, we’ve had a few of them), which turned out to be nothing much of the sort. When I look at my mobile phone of a few years ago, or my website developed in 2004, I think how clunky and quaint they look compared to the sleek form factor and execution possible today. But when I look at the VR headsets of yesteryear and today and compare what they deliver? Not so much.

Take a look at this slideshow of legacy VR hardware. Sure, we’ve come some way since the Sensorama, but the Sega VR of 1993 wasn’t significantly more dorky than today’s HTC Vive Cosmos, was it?

Does anybody really want to strap a heavy, nerdy headset on that makes you suffer motion sickness after a few minutes use, tethers you to a PC, dulls your senses to the real world outside the headset and causes you to trip over your furniture?

Sure, expensive and shiny, next generation VR devices, are coming. But much of the hardware available is unchanged from when it came to the stores two or more years ago, which means hard-core early adopter audiences aren’t shelling out again. While availability of more cost-accessible hardware for casual users has increased, e.g. the Oculus Go, the handsets are still expensive enough to give mainstream consumers pause, and typically compromise on aspects of quality that mean the VR experience is somewhat flawed.

Convince people that you’ll change their lives

In the consumer world, expectations for VR were raised early and sadly led to disappointment as it became clear that the ambitions went far beyond what was possible given the technology available. Overpromised, VR lost the attention of mainstream audiences, as it simply could not deliver. In part, this was down to problems with the hardware, such as cumbersome headsets, inadequate processors, poor displays and weak audio. Then there’s the secondary reason: there is no “must-have” killer app that convinces sufficient people that you’ll change their lives.

The two issues go hand in hand (the ‘chicken and egg’ situation) since if technology is inadequate, the content creators see no justification for investing heavily in VR. In turn, this means insufficient buyers and revenue to justify the investment in improving the technology. (It’s worth pointing out that secondary uses for VR, such as in industry, education, healthcare, have a very different uptake/content model, and as such, I’m considering just the mainstream here).

And, as such, entertainment content is the key to unlocking adoption by persuading consumers that VR devices are a must-have item. Like 3D TV, VR has thus far failed to deliver a sufficiently convincing experience that sends people rushing to shops to buy the hardware, despite its costs and the limitations involved.

What’s more, VR content isn’t coming along as fast it used to. Hollywood used it for marketing, e.g. to promote films such as 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and TV shows including Game of Thrones. But this has dropped back as consumer uptake and gratification was found to be negligible.

Venture funding for consumer VR software companies may drop by more than half this year, to $265 million from $576 million a year ago, SuperData says. And this isn’t surprising. According to the SiliconANGLE. VR headset sales have dropped nearly 34% since Q2 2017. Even committed hardware manufacturers are showing signs of taking their foot off the gas. Samsung, which was one of the first to market with its Gear VR mobile headset, didn’t say anything about VR in its major announcements at CES this year.

Is AR the way out of the trough of despair?

Experts predict that new kids on the block, Augmented Reality (AR) on smartphones and Mixed Reality (MR) headsets, such as Microsoft’s HoloLens. will pick up the audience that VR failed to serve. In terms of the Gartner Hype Cycle, AR and MR — the children of VR — look to serve as the Slope of Enlightenment.

AR can be delivered by the hardware already in your pocket. It doesn’t need the level of resolution or processor power demanded by VR. AR is also far less cumbersome than VR and can be used on the go since it doesn’t require total immersion in the experience. The software brings in a virtual element without losing the real world.

Certainly, analysts report adoption of augmented reality and mixed reality to be on the up, with earnings expected to come from mobile AR apps, particularly games. Google and Apple have strongly embraced this market with ARCore and ARKit, enabling developers to access AR services on more than 500 million devices in the wild today. Both Apple and Google envisage third-party apps and services that use AR as valuable additions to their app stores. Successful apps add billions to the top line (Apple was expected to make $3 billion revenue over 2 years from in-app purchases within the best known AR title to date, Pokémon Go) and high-profile AR apps also strengthen the ecosystems of both companies, boosting other revenue streams.

The smart money is now shifting to companies working on AR and MR. Apple have a rumoured research project to build a headset for delivery next year. Investment in companies working on MR is expected to jump by nearly 50 percent this year, according to SuperData, with sales of MR headsets expected to ramp up significantly and surpass earnings of VR headsets within the next two years.

The above is purely my opinion, based on observations of the tech industry over a number of years and a healthy degree of skepticism when it comes to inflated expectations. It’s uninformed by experience at the coalface of development however. So, what do software developers working with AR and VR, have to say?

Software developers working in VR and AR told us…

Here at SlashData we run regular surveys of software developers around the world to uncover valuable insights from those working in mobile, desktop, IoT, cloud, web, game, AR/VR, data science and machine learning.

In our Developer Economics 14th edition report, which is based on a large-scale online developer survey that ran over a period of eight weeks between November and December 2017, we reached over 21,700 respondents in 169 countries. We studied the data returned from developers working in AR/VR and found the following:

25% of professional game developers say they are targeting AR and/or VR. This figure falls slightly to 19% across the entire corpus of developers surveyed.
Dedicated VR hardware, such as Oculus Rift, is attractive to games developers (61% report using it), but across all developers working on VR projects, we see a much lower uptake (33%), reflecting its early adopter status in fields other than games.
Across all developers working on VR projects, 32% are targeting smartphone hardware using Google’s Cardboard, and 19% are using Daydream View, built into Android Nougat and beyond, reflecting that developers, and consumers, are still experimenting with the technology on their existing hardware.
A similar picture emerges for AR, with Android and iOS taking the lead in most popular AR platforms across all developers targeting AR.
Of the dedicated AR hardware available, Microsoft HoloLens leads the pack, with Google Glass at Work and MagicLeap trailing behind when the survey ran in late 2017.

We are currently running another survey and we would value your input. If you’re a software developer working in the field of AR or VR, or considering doing so, please consider answering the questions. If you’re not a developer but are working in the AR/VR field, pass the link on to your developer friends and colleagues.

Every survey completed has a chance to win Oculus Rift +Touch Virtual Reality System to test your creations (or simply play around), Samsung S9 PLus, $200 towards the software subscription of your choice, or other prizes from the prize pool worth $12,000!

Plus, if you refer other developers to take the survey, you may win up to $1,000 in cash. Just don’t forget to sign up before you take the survey, so that we know you want to be included in the prize draw!

What do you say, are you in?

Tags augmented reality, virtual reality

Business

Evolving technology helps game developers make money

Post author By Developer Economics
Post date January 15, 2019
No Comments on Evolving technology helps game developers make money

Game economics are changing with streaming

Before gaming consoles hit the market in the 80’s, gamers had to visit the arcade and wait for a machine to be available for their turn to play. This created a sense of community and players watched more games than they played, especially if their supply of coins was low. The emergence of streaming is bringing this experience back and watching games has become its own form of entertainment. But how has it affected game developers?

What will working on game development look like in 2019 and beyond? Where should you brush up your skills? Take the Developer Economics survey and get to shape the future of game development.

One of the reasons Fortnite has become so popular is because it is so watchable. Streaming is creating a new channel for developers to promote their games and generate revenues. Gamers can actually watch experts play a game before trying it themselves. The trend is also bringing new capital into the space. Streamers can make big money attracting subscribers to follow them on their channels and sponsors are paying to promote to these audiences. Ninja, the most successful streamer, is reported to make $500,000 a month from his streams. While this revenue does not go directly to developers it does bring a new source of capital into the ecosystem, introducing new opportunities.

This new revenue source is helping spread more money across the industry. In the first half of 2017 only 29% of game developers were making more than $100 a month. In the first half of 2018 that jumped to 48%. While many factors may be influencing revenue growth, streaming is providing a new way to engage with video games, passively, providing opportunities to innovate new business models.

game developers generate more revenue

One dominant trend in game developer business models is that developers are focusing on a fewer number of them, and the more popular ones such as advertising and in-app purchases are getting significantly less popular. Presumably this is due to developers focusing only on revenue sources that are producing for their apps. However, the use of a few less popular approaches is growing. This can be traced back to a growing communal and collaborative environment in the gaming space. Symbiotic relationships are emerging among streamers, developers and gamers that are beginning to change the economics of the industry.

The challenge of developing a game and attracting users has proven too expensive for small developers so they are focusing on leveraging ecosystems and platforms that enable them to help each other instead of relying on launching their own game. Our data shows a small but steady increase in the

number of developers making money through selling services, assets and plugins to other developers. The communal effect fueled by streaming is also leading to increases in subscription games such as World of Warcraft which keep players engaged in the community. Developers are also making money through subscriptions to their own live streams of their development process.

As the rock stars of streaming create a new entertainment experience, development and streaming platforms are innovating new ways to provide opportunities. Twitch has launched extensions which enable viewers to engage with the game stream through web overlay extensions developed by third parties. Developers can create stats views or side games and split profits with the streamers who are attracting the audience. Unity content store is providing a channel for developers to deliver plugins to other developers, another channel for delivering game software. As games are passively consumed, it also provides more opportunity to sell merchandise. We are seeing an uptick in developers generating revenues this way.

Cryptocurrencies are another trend that is helping spread the wealth across the industry by enabling developers, streamers and gamers to make micropayments to influence behaviours. Gamers can tip streamers when they are entertained and developers can pay streamers to promote their games, all through cryptocurrencies. Bits, the cryptocurrency within the Twitch platform which allows viewers to tip streamers, generated $12 million in the service’s first 10 months.

game developers business models

Game developers are moving to the web

As developers promote and distribute games outside of app stores through streams, they are also moving to the web. This fact and the constantly improving performance of JavaScript is reducing the percentage of developers focusing on mobile, desktop and tablets.

As gamers congregate in communities around streamers, developers can reach these prospects without having to go through an app store. Moreover, smaller developer teams don’t have to build for each platform and can have more control of their app and engagement with their audience via the web. New Twitch extensions are also web based, providing a new product category for web developers.

The improving performance enabled by JavaScript JIT compiling engines and frameworks such as React are enabling web developers to create superior game performance over what was possible in the past. With greater performance and distribution options, it is not surprising that the web is becoming more popular with game developers.

game developers moving to web

As the opportunity to make money becomes more democratised, the chance for real innovation grows. When more resources are spread around the industry, fledgling ideas have the economic viability early on and stand a better chance to get out of the starting gate.

We are currently running another survey and we would value your input. If you’re a software developer working in the field of game development, or considering doing so, please consider answering the questions. Plus, if you refer other developers to take the survey, you may win up to $1,000 in cash.

Tags game development

Community

The largest developer community: a critical view

Post author By Stijn Schuermans
Post date January 14, 2019
No Comments on The largest developer community: a critical view

When developers evaluate new technologies, one of the elements they often look at is the size and strength of the developer community surrounding that technology. “Can I get help and support from peers when needed?” It’s one of the reasons why open source technologies tend to be so popular. Conversely, technology vendors regularly signal their virtue with community numbers: “Our product is used by millions of developers, choose us!”

However, there is reason to be critical of this line of thinking. The activity of a core group, or indeed the vendor itself, may matter more to get great support than the sheer number of users. Most technologies are not subject to network effects: they don’t become inherently more valuable when more developers adopt them. Even in open source projects, there is often only a small number of core contributors. Furthermore, vendors may bloat the numbers they report: deliberately, or simply because they don’t have good data available.

At /Data, we’ve been maintaining and publishing estimates on the global developer community for a few years now. Our biannual survey also gives us a solid idea of how those developers are spread across various communities. So let’s see where some of the largest developer communities can be found and how powerful those communities may really be.

What do you mean by: community?

The largest regions in terms of developer population are North America, with an estimated 4 million active software developers in mid 2018, and Europe (3.8M in the EU28). However, calling these communities is a bit of a stretch. Developers in these regions are fragmented across countries and cities, as well as technologies and languages. North America includes the relatively homogenous USA, but also various Latin American countries. Europe includes software powerhouses like the United Kingdom, but also smaller Eastern European countries. From the perspective of finding peers to support you (or talent to recruit), looking at small groups gathered in cities around specific technologies is more useful than considering the wider geography.

The largest developer program in our research, with over 10 million active users globally, is Google. Google is great at empowering and supporting their community through forums and the likes. This said, they also have excellent developer satisfaction scores when it comes to vendor-driven support of developers with documentation, tutorials and training, tooling, and so on. Google is the default choice for many developers; it’s not clear whether that is due to the strength of their community or due to the value they provide themselves. They of course offer a multitude of technologies, where experience in one product doesn’t necessarily translate into another. Perhaps it’s more correct to view them as a collection of communities.

What about different sectors of the software industry? More than 14 million developers are involved in creating web apps. Once again, we can wonder about the fragmentation in this community across technologies. A sector view may not be the right level of analysis.

Finally, we can look at a technology. There are over 10 million active Javascript developers, making it the most popular programming language in the world today. Here we may see a stronger sense of community, with forums, real-life groups, learning institutions and more being organised specifically around the language.

In short, when we say “community”, it’s not trivially clear what we mean by that. (Neither is “developer” for that matter, but that’s a story for another blog post). Community size is not necessarily an indicator of homogeneity, coherence or level of activity. That makes it less than straightforward to assess the value of a developer community.

How (not) to count developers

If you’re interested in estimates of developer communities, you will have no doubt seen very high numbers being floated. Developer tools routinely reports user numbers in the millions; communities who claim a broad reach, like Stack Overflow or Github, will report tens of millions of developers. At /Data, we are skeptical of such numbers, in particular if you intend to use them to make adoption decisions.

First, because it is not clear where each source draws the line in what they consider to be an (active) developer. Are IT professionals, DevOps, or sysadmins included? What about people who once made an account, but never actively used the product?

However, the bigger issue seems to be where such numbers are sourced. Most estimates floating around the internet are based on (unique) pageviews, downloads, IP addresses, and the likes. All of these are susceptible to a multiplier effect, not in the least due to multi-machine and multi-browser software testing, frequent cleaning of caches and cookies for testing, repeat downloads of developer tools, and development automation (e.g. build servers). Abandoned accounts may significantly skew the estimates as well. Sometimes, numbers we’ve come across seem to be based on nothing at all.

Measurements like that are only a vague indication of the number of actual active developers and therefore of the strength of the community. They tend to be not comparable across vendors. Not to mention that it is in the self-interest of the vendor to report the biggest number they can find. Indicators that indicate actual developer activity, like Monthly Active Users, are exceedingly rare.

Conclusion

Whether you’re a developer thinking about the direction of your career, or someone who is deciding on which technology to adopt, the question of how strong the supporting community is, is perfectly legitimate. To asses the true benefit of community, however, make sure to use the right scope and reliable, meaningful numbers.

On our part, we will continue to provide you with our best estimates of active software developers, using sources that are direct evidence of recent coding activity. To do that, we would value your input. We are currently running another survey in our Developer Economics series. If you’re a software developer, please consider answering the questions. If you’re not a developer but are working in the software industry, pass the link on to your developer friends and colleagues.

Every survey completed has a chance to win Oculus Rift +Touch Virtual Reality System to test your creations (or simply play around), Samsung S9 PLus, $200 towards the software subscription of your choice, or other prizes from the prize pool worth $12,000!

We’ll also donate $2,000 to Raspberry Pi Foundation, helping young ones learn how to code, so the more developers take the survey, the closer we are to helping the community grow!

What do you say, are you in?

Tags developer community

Community

Live now – new Developer Economics Survey Q4 2018!

Post author By Miljana Mitic
Post date November 28, 2018
No Comments on Live now – new Developer Economics Survey Q4 2018!

developer economics survey, developer economics q4 2018, developer economics 16 edition, developer survey, software developers survey

Whether you’re a professional dev with years of coding experience under your belt, curious weekend hobbyists or still a student sharpening your skills, it’s always a good idea to test your standing with the latest technologies. Our brand new Developer Economics survey is now open for all devs who want to check how well you know tools, technologies, and vendors. Curious if you’re going in the right direction? Start now to find out!

What’s new in Developer Economics Q4 2018 survey?

Let’s start by telling you about our new survey feature! Now you can sign up for the survey using your email and easily save your answers (if you wish to pause and resume later where you left off) and receive updates. Plus, you can access our Referral Program and share the survey with other developers with just a few clicks.

To make the journey just a little bit more exciting, there’s a fresh sci-fi theme waiting for you. Find out which one out of our 5 new characters is your secret AI alter-ego. Are you Brainops or Intellecta? Only one way to find out!

We also want to use this survey as an opportunity to give back to the dev community. For each completed response to the survey, we’ll donate a small amount of money to the Raspberry Pi Foundation which supports young coders in the making. The idea is simple – the more responses we get, the more money we’ll donate. So it’s really up to you to help us make an impact and support a good cause!

What do you get for participating?

We cherish each and every new developer response, and want you to get something back! We’ve prepared pretty cool perks for everyone who takes part. Here’s what you can get our hands on.

We have a whopping $12,000 worth of amazing prizes up for grabs: Samsung S9 Plus, Oculus Rift + Touch Virtual Reality System, Filco Ninja Majestouch-2 Tenkeyless NKR Tactile Action Keyboard, developer licenses, Udemy vouchers, and more! Want to hear a secret? There are extra surprise prizes that you may win if you complete additional questions in your area of expertise. If you’re specialising in development for mobile, web, cloud, desktop, AI, AR/VR, IoT, machine learning or data science, we have a few hidden perks for you.

Feeling competitive? You can win up to $700 USD cash if you refer other developers to take the survey. Our goal is to reach 23,000 responses from all over the world – help us get there! Share our Tweets, banners, and texts with developers you know, collect points and you may be the lucky one! Just go to the survey, sign up and game on!

We also give to the survey participants an early access to key findings from the survey via our State of the Developer Nation 16th edition report (coming up in Q1 2019). The previous 15th edition got over 3k downloads since its release in September, and there’s a reason why people love it! It’s packed with stats and latest trends to help guide your career and skill building. And the best thing? You’ll get it first if you take the survey! Plus, you will get access to the Developer Benchmarks with key graphs illustrating global trends. Comes in handy when you want to prove to your boss or project pals that your ideas are solid and actually supported by data!

Last but not least, after you have answered all the questions, you get your own AI character at the end of the survey. Want to you feel superior to all the mortals out there? You know you do, so jump in and find out who your AI alter ego is!

Take the survey now!

Community

Donations, social good and tech: a modern placement for developers

Post author By Emilia Bouzioukou
Post date November 15, 2018
No Comments on Donations, social good and tech: a modern placement for developers

Social good & donation has many forms and thankfully there are several resources in the tech arena to support people and projects that most of us have not thought to do. Aiming to put the voluntary effort of developers in perspective, we realise there are important questions that someone has been answering for some time now:

How will we integrate technology into activities for social benefit, whether building an interactive map for an international humanitarian movement, or communication platform for a charity organisation?

And how can knowledge and tech skills be developed among people who don’t readily have access to it, like refugees stuck in a country due to heavy disputes in their homeland?

Tags coding charity