Tag: developer economics

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Business Languages Platforms Tools

Take the new Developer Economics Survey Q2 2018

developer economics, developer survey, de15, slashdata, developer economics survey, slashdata survey, software developers, dev survey

Got something to say about popular platforms and apps out there? How about languages, tools, or APIs? It’s prime time to let your opinion out – our semi-annual Developer Economics survey is now LIVE! Don’t miss a chance to join over 40,000 developers from 160+ countries who take part in our surveys every year to tell us about trends and shape the future of where software development is going next. Start right away here!

 

Who is the Developer Economics survey for?

The survey is for pretty much everyone who gets their fingers into coding. All developers who work on software development are welcome to take the survey, whether your work on Mobile, Desktop, IoT, AR/VR, Machine Learning & Data Science, Web, Backend, or Games.

What sort of questions is the survey asking?

We ask stuff that all developers care about. Career? Check. Satisfaction with tools? Check. Future trends and what will matter in the years to come? You bet.
As always, the survey asks you questions like:

  • Which are your favourite tools and platforms?
  • What are some must-have developer skills today?
  • Are you working on the projects you would like to work on?
  • Where do you think development time should be invested?

This time, we added new questions about developer skills, so your first-hand insights are that much more important.

What do I get from it?

Apart from contributing to the developer community with your insights (and making it a better place, obviously), there are many perks. Have a look at what we prepared for you this time:

  • Amazing prizes up for grabs: iPhone X, Samsung S9 Plus, HTC Vive Pro, GitHub 12 months developer program, Udemy vouchers, and more.
  • Access to State of the Developer Nation 15th Edition report with the key findings from this survey (coming up in Q3 2018).
  • A referral program you can join, share the survey and win up to $700 in cash!

How’s this survey different than last year?

We asked developers what they wanted to see in the 15th edition of the Developer Economics Survey. Majority of you rooted for a Sci-Fi theme and we delivered! Complete the survey and you’ll find out who is your intergalactic alter-ego and where your force lies!

What happens with my responses?

Anonymized results of the survey will be made available in the free State of the Developer Nation 15th Edition report. If you take the survey, we’ll reach out to you with the copy of the report so you can be the first to check out the insights. In the meantime, you can check out previous editions here.

 

So, what are you waiting for? Take the survey now!

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Community

Developer Economics survey Q4 2017: the winners are announced!

developer prize Draw winners
Developer Economics Q4 2017 prize announcement

Welcome to the full rundown of the Developer Economics survey Q4,2017 (November-December) prize draw winners. Below you’ll find a table comprised of the winners. We’ve listed the name and countries of all the people that have won and given us permission to share their details . For those where we are awaiting permission, their emails are displayed (but obfuscated for security reasons) and finally those who’d prefer not to share their details, we’ve simply displayed their initials and country.

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.

Congratulations to all the winners!

===

Exclusive Panel prize-draw

This exclusive prize was open to all existing members of our Panel. Not yet a panelist? Find out more about it here.

Prize Draw Winner Country Prize
Marcelo M. Brazil 13-inch MacBook Pro

randomdraws.co.uk/cert/pdeca

Panel prize-draw

Prize Draw Winner Country Prize
Zafer B. Turkey Pluralsight annual professional subscription
*rfi**od@g**il.com Russia Alexa Echo
iva****inis@wind***live.com Croatia Western Digital WD Elements Portable USB Type-A 3.0
Anzhelika T. Russia Western Digital WD Elements Portable USB Type-A 3.0
pa***rochm***4@g**il.com United States EcoSpruce 15.6 Backpack
78***758@qq.com China Redbubble $20 certificate
f**ch@ka***oo.com Nigeria Redbubble $20 certificate
b***oma***do@g**il.com Brazil Redbubble $20 certificate
u***15@hot**il.com Netherlands Redbubble $20 certificate
Manoj A. India Redbubble $20 certificate
E***ypet*t@g**il.com Nigeria Redbubble $20 certificate
Shahim M. India Redbubble $20 certificate
Fuad K. United States Redbubble $20 certificate
me***45@y**dex.ru Russia Redbubble $20 certificate
na***h.anna***@g**il.com India Redbubble $20 certificate

randomdraws.co.uk/cert/xapwr

General prize-draw

Prize Draw Winner Country Prize
ge**.ch**s@ho**ail.com Greece Pixel 2 5″ 64GB phone
vol**no**09@g**il.com Russia iPhone X
Akash T. India Windows Acer MR headset
isa*****atolii2809@**ail.com Russia Nintendo Switch portable game console
sa***ras*01@g**il.com Russia Oculus Rift headset and controllers
E**c.***onya@g**il.com Kenya Corsair STRAFE RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard – Cherry brown
jo**an.mun***@d**sof**are.** Canada Raspberry PI 3 Model B
Vikram G. India Raspberry PI 3 Model B
s@ha****est.com Canada Raspberry PI 3 Model B
vp***l1.vip@g**il.com India $100 Alibaba Cloud voucher
Kostas T. Greece $100 Alibaba Cloud voucher
a****rier@g**il.com Russia $100 Alibaba Cloud voucher
p***ngoch**u.cn**@live.com Vietnam $100 Alibaba Cloud voucher
**oma*@**end**elle.de Germany $100 Alibaba Cloud voucher
Ahmad H. Malaysia Sublime Text 3 license
Silvio S. Brazil Sublime Text 3 license
***mitra@***oking**us.com Ireland $25 Google Developers license fee
je***jemd@g**il.com Mexico $25 Google Developers license fee
m***vilal@g**il.com Spain $25 Google Developers license fee
ho**sluk**rin@g**il.com Ukraine $25 Google Developers license fee
po***an75*@ya**o.com United States $25 Google Developers license fee
st**e@***nter***ting.com United States Code School year license
m***r.cem***car***rs@gm*il.com India HyperX Cloud Revolver S Binaural Head-band Black headset
**ud@ip**.edu United States Dell 8″ HD tablet

randomdraws.co.uk/cert/fkdyp

Surprise prize-draw

Prize Draw Winner Country Prize
i***elyan.ra***l2002@g**il.com Russia Google Home
R***mia@m**l.ru Russia Prestigio RoadRunner dash cam 506 16gb Micro sd
Octavian S. Romania Prestigio RoadRunner dash cam 506 16gb Micro sd
G***balje@g**il.com Belarus Prestigio RoadRunner dash cam 506 16gb Micro sd
victo***.ber***ist@g**il.com Germany Ubtech Jimu Tankbot
m***craft**4@g**il.com Ukraine Responsive (web stencil) sketch bundle starter pack
m***rren***u@m**l.ru Belarus Apple TV 4 Digital Multimedia receiver 32GB
si***orov@g**il.com Russia $50 Amazon voucher
am***an*al@g**il.com Canada The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide
ze***ro20**@g**il.com Ukraine Pair of Gunnar Crystalline Vinyl Gaming Eyewear – Onyx/Crystalline
ar**hte*@g**il.com Taiwan $100 credit towards software subscription of your choice

randomdraws.co.uk/cert/mkgqf

Categories
Business

If there were 100 Developers in the world

100 developers in the world

Have you ever asked yourselves what would it be like if there were only 100 developers in the world? Well even if you haven’t, we are sure we have just made you think about it.
Based on our Developer Economics survey that reaches 30,000+ devs per year, across mobile, IoT, cloud, desktop, AR/VR, machine learning , we designed a very interesting Infographic illustrating this scenario.

  • How many men and women would this world include ?
  • Which continent would be the most populated ?
  • How many would be Pros and how many Hobbyists ?
  • How experienced are developers  in this world?
  • What is the most popular coding language?

If there were just 100 developers in the world, then:

100-developers-infographic-visionmobile

Embed

Categories
Business

Every year software developers get less experienced

Developer Experience

That might sound odd, but it’s one of many conclusions drawn from our biannual study, and presented on developer experience in our (free) State of the Developer Nation report.

The report draws on data from the world’s-biggest survey of those working in software. During the latest wave we reached more than 21,000 developers, and found that they have less experience than they did a year ago.

Developer Experience across all areas

Not individually of course. There’s no memory loss involved here. What happens is that the developer community is growing, and new programmers inevitably bring down the average level of experience. This has serious implications for the future of the industry.

If we take mobile developers, who are typical, we can see that right now 40% of them have been developing software for more than six years, but a year ago that proportion was 43%. At the other end of the spectrum we have 17% of developers with less than a year under their belt, up from 14% this time last year.

Building Developer Experience

That pattern is repeated across all sectors, even IoT (which is so nascent it often bucks the trends). While a good proportion of developers have built up their skills over time, we are going to have to adjust to a world where more software is being created by developers with less hands-on experience, and understand the implications of that trend.

One of those implication is a shift in the popularity of certain programming languages over their more-traditional brethren. This time we’re focusing in on the last six months, but if we again look at mobile developers we can see them embracing scripting languages, at the cost of Java and the various forms of C. Objective C takes the biggest hit, assaulted by Apple’s new wonderkid Swift on one side, and the (JavaScript powered) cross-platform toolkits on the other. Objective C is dropping fast, while C/C++ has a gentle decline and C# is just about holding its mindshare (thanks to Xamarin, which compiles C# to Android and is now a Microsoft property).

On the cloud the trend is less pronounced, but still evident. Java is growing, but so are all the other languages. PHP… C#… Python… in fact all the top languages have gained mindshare as cloud developers become increasingly polyglot while giving up on some of the niche dialects.

Developer Experience: the rise of high level languages

One area on the rise, across all the sectors, is the use of visual tools for software development. These drag-‘n-drop environments are often looked down upon by “proper” programmers, who respect the digital hierarchy (where Assembler is king, dialects of C make up the court, Java is left outside the room, and scripting languages aren’t permitted into the palace). These visual tools are still only used by a minority (25% of mobile developers, 19% of cloud) and fewer still rely on them as a primary tool (5% across mobile and cloud) but that proportion is growing steadily, and relentlessly.

The fact is that there aren’t enough low-level programmers to go around, and most applications don’t need them. Visual tools, and scripting languages, are good enough for the vast majority of applications in any sector. That applies across consumer and enterprise markets, as users of all kinds start creating apps with a few clicks. However, there is a question about how long can we consider those users to be software developers, and the tools they use to be designed for software development.

“If This Then That” (IFTTT.com) is a marvellous tool, enabling anyone to create “recipes” where an event (“this”) triggers an action (“that”). An incoming email can trigger the (Philips Hue) lights to flash red three times, making the owner feel like Batman while simultaneously aggravating his whole family.

IFTTT users can chain recipes together, creating actions that seed multiple events, loop back on themselves, and even branch based on inputs. At some point we have to accept that the IFTTT user has become a software developer, or that IFTTT shows us what the future of software development might look like.

Not all applications will be written that way of course. Lower-level languages will still be needed to plumb the functionality together, but there will come a time when the vast majority of applications will be created by developers with no software development experience at all.

Developer Experience trends

That day is a long way off, but with every year it gets a little closer and our data shows that process is in action. You can see more by downloading our State of the Developer Nation report, or talking to us about custom reports looking at the developer community, while there still is one.

Categories
Business

App developer trends Q1 2015

Our 8th Developer Economics survey has once again achieved an industry-leading scale, including responses from more than 8,000 app developers and 143 countries. Their collective insight shows us an app economy that’s beginning to mature. Platform mindshare and priorities are fairly stable and developers are increasingly turning to cross-platform technologies to deal with the multi-platform reality. Tool adoption is gradually increasing and a shift in focus towards enterprise app development is underway. You can get a copy of the full report here – it’s a free download.

DE8-illustration

The big changes on their way are in development languages and the Internet of Things. Apple’s new Swift has had an impressive level of uptake but C# and JavaScript are also growing in importance. Meanwhile mobile developers are showing a very strong interest in the next wave of connected devices.

Platform Wars
The platform wars have ended in a stalemate. [tweetable]Apple have an increasing lock on the high-end with iOS and Android dominates everywhere else[/tweetable]. Windows Phone is still growing, now at 30% mindshare, but not generating enough sales to break through the app-gap. The split of developer platform priorities amongst full time professionals best illustrates the stalemate. Android has 40% of developers, iOS has 37%, whilst Windows Phone and the mobile browser have just 8% and 7% respectively.

fulltime-pros-duopoly

Although not yet a priority the mobile browser has also bounced back strongly from an all-time low in terms of mindshare 6 months ago, with 25% of developers now supporting it. With the massive growth of mobile apps it’s important to remember that the desktop and mobile web combined is still the most important digital channel for the majority of businesses. [tweetable]The web is definitely not dead[/tweetable].

The Rise of Swift
Our development language rankings show absolutely unprecedented growth for Apple’s new Swift language. [tweetable]20% of mobile developers were using Swift just 4 months after it was introduced[/tweetable] to the world. For comparison, Google’s excellent Go language doesn’t make it onto our new top chart for server-side programming languages, having reached just 5% mindshare amongst mobile developers after more than 5 years. [tweetable]Amongst the first wave of Swift adopters, 23% were not using Objective C[/tweetable], a sign that Swift may succeed in attracting a much wider range of developers to build native iOS apps.

rise-of-swift

Revenues
Growth in direct revenues from the app stores is slowing. As these direct revenues are preferred sources of income for the Hobbyists, Explorers and Hunters that make up around 60% of the mobile developer population, competition for them is becoming more intense. 17% of developers who are interested in making money generate no revenue related to apps at all. A further 18% of developers make less than $100 per month and the next 17%, bringing us to a total of 52%, make less than $1000 per month.

below-1k-month

Those low revenue earners are not at all evenly distributed across platforms. Of those that prioritise iOS, only 37% are below the app poverty line, making less than $500 per month on iOS. On the opposite end of the revenue scale, 39% make more than $5,000 per month on the iOS platform. Rather surprisingly, the revenue distribution for Android-first developers is not much different than for those targeting BlackBerry 10 or Windows Phone. In fact, developers that go iOS first actually earn much more revenue on Android than those that prioritise the platform.

Internet of Things
Despite the relative immaturity of IoT platforms, mobile developer interest is high. A massive [tweetable]53% of mobile developers in our survey were already working on some kind of IoT project[/tweetable]. Smart Home was the most popular market with 37% of mobile developers working on IoT projects targeting it. Wearables were a close second with 35% mindshare. The majority of these mobile developers involved in IoT development are doing it as a hobby (30% involved at this level) or side project (just under 20%), whilst working on mobile apps in their day job. This is expected at this stage of the market where revenue opportunities are still limited.

Tools
Tool awareness is increasing. The fraction of developers not using any third party tools at all has fallen to an all time low of 17%. The second most popular category of tool is ad networks, with a 31% adoption rate. Unfortunately this is the one category of tool that’s negatively correlated with revenues. Cross-platform tool adoption is on the rise. The percentage of developers using these tools has grown from 23% to 30% over the last 6 months. While cross-platform tool use was previously uncorrelated with revenue it’s now a positive revenue indicator. We don’t believe this is due to a significant improvement in the tools, rather it’s because of their disproportionate use in enterprise app development.

Enterprise vs. Consumer
The enterprise app gold rush is now well underway with 20% of developers primarily targeting enterprises, up from 16% in Q3 2014. This shift in focus is paying off. [tweetable]43% of enterprise app developers make more than $10K per month[/tweetable] versus 19% of consumer app developers reaching the same revenue level.

Amongst consumer app businesses, the majority of the revenue is coming from free-to-play games. A typical game is giving a third of gross revenue to the app store provider as a cut of in-app purchases and spending half of what’s left on ads to acquire new users. These game developers are starting to look more like typical fast moving consumer goods businesses, with significant benefits from scale. Despite overall revenues from the stores still rising, life is getting much harder for the small independent developers that try to serve consumers.

The good news for consumer app developers is that 3 of their top 5 favourite categories are common with enterprise app developers. It’s definitely not too late to re-focus on B2B rather than B2C sales. Also, the skills developed building consumer apps are in greater demand than ever now that more and more businesses are taking mobility seriously. This is a trend that will keep running for several years yet.

Want more? Download and read the full report!