Comments on the Stack Overflow 2022 Survey

Every year, I read the Stack Overflow survey as soon as it comes out. I ditched Facebook, and never used Twitter, and in general, don't use social media [1], so it is always nice to see the general trends in the tech world.

This is going to be quite opinionated, or, more specifically, have no general direction, and will basically me just writing down my thoughts on this years survey (see title).

Let us begin!

Online course platforms to learn how to code

What stuck me as interesting about this is that there is no reference to freecodecamp. Their curriculum is 100% open source, and I often see it referenced on GitHub trending.

I also expected to Youtube to be on here, perhaps these 2 got grouped into the "other" category? Who knows.

Developer type

I find it kinda sad (not really) that most people fall into the "full stack" or "front/back-end" category. As a full-stack developer myself (who does other programming things as well), I have come to realize that there is more to programming then the typical:

Take data from website -> Send to API -> Validate -> Store in database

cookie cutter applications.

Why not build better tooling, better testing frameworks, faster build systems, better package management systems, and so on? There is more to programming then just full-stack work!

Most popular programming, scripting, and markup languages

As per usual, JavaScript tops the charts. Still, it is interesting that 32% of people "learning to code" are using C, and 35% are using C++. Perhaps this is due to University students learning C/C++?

Most popular databases

Postgres is awesome, and it deserves the top spot (among "Professional Developers", that is). Postgres feels like it was designed for humans to use, compared to something like MSSQL (it is a little quirky). Also, Postgres being open source is a huge plus for me!

Also, Redis is gaining a lot of popularity, and I think we will see the fall (or at least diminishing) dogma around "always use a RDBMS". Redis is super-lightweight, and really makes you think about your data: the lifetime of your data, how you want to access it, and so on.

Most popular "other tools"

Docker is a must have in this day and age. Honestly, I don't know how I did things before Docker. Kubernetes (k8s) is also rising in popularity, but I don't know how essential it is to the average developer, especially those learning to code.

Most popular IDE

Let me just take this moment to say that Vim, combined with Neovim, has a higher marketshare then IntelliJ! I have proudly been using Neovim for a while now (and VSCodium for certain tasks), and like all Vim users, I think everyone should give it a shot [2].

Oh boy! These are always my favorite:

Programming, scripting, and markup languages

As the title says, Rust is on it's 7th year as the most loved language. I love Rust. I think Rust is the future, but who am I kidding.

What I also find interesting is that Elixir and Clojure (functional languages) are right behind Rust! You have to go waaaay down the list to find JavaScript, which is slightly ahead of F#, another functional language! In general, functional languages are the future. I think we (by and large) are burned out with they typical OO languages, and looking over the horizon, we see lots of languages which are switching it up. The water is warm, and the grass is green!

Also, Rust, TypeScript, and Python are the top 3 on the "wanted" category, all of which have very strong type support (if you do it correctly). I also think we are starting to see the rise in statically typed languages, or at the very least, type annotations in dynamic languages.

Databases

Postgres and Redis are the most loved databases. Like I said, they deserve it. Moving on...

IDE

Neovim takes the cake for the most loved IDE (83%) for a second year! Vim also is a few steps ahead of GoLand and IntelliJ, both JetBrains products.

I do use JetBrains products, if you consider the JetBrains Mono font a product :)

Asynchronous tools

From what I can tell, monday.com is a very flexible, easy to use platform. Though I have never used it, I find it interesting that it is the most dreaded one on the list.

In general, I find these graphics cool to look at, but not super helpful. I think it is cool to know what people are wanting to learn, given what technologies they already know. But, in general, "going with the flow" isn't what I will be looking for when I choose the next technology I will be working with.

Top paying technologies

Wow! Clojure, Erlang, F#, and LISP (all functional languages) make up the top 4 highest paying jobs! In 6th place is Elixir, another functional language.

It would also seem that JavaScript developers can boost their salaries by $5k if they learn TypeScript.

I don't know how exactly this was calculated, since most developers will know more then just one language.

People using Neovim or Vim as their IDE make (on average) more then those using Rider, CLion, IntelliJ, and VSC (though not as much as Emacs users!)

Version control systems

97% of professional devs are using VCS. This is good news!

Interacting with version control systems

Most professional devs (85%) use the command line. This is also good news! The command line gives you infinite control over Git compared to what your IDE will use.

Also, who uses the GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket web interface to do their Git operations? There is nothing wrong with it, but it will seriously cramp your workflow if you have to push your code up before you can merge/branch/tag something.

Version control platforms

I have always found that GitHub has the best developer experience, and the data shows it. In fact, GitHub is the only platform where people are more likely to use it for personal projects then work projects (none of the other platforms can say the same). And, GitHub is about twice as popular as the next competitor, GitLab.

Daily time spent searching for answers/solutions

It must feel really good (for the 10% of people) who only search 15 minutes a day for answers! Either I'm doing something wrong, their doing something right, or they don't spend a whole lot of time coding. Maybe I just spend a lot of time reading documentation, always trying to find a better way to do things?

Developer Experience: Processes, tools, and programs

70% of people use CI/CD, and 58% of people use automated testing. These numbers are too low! We certainly need more people testing their code, as do we need people who use code (ie, GitHub Actions) to lint, test, and release their code.

That's it! Nothing too fancy, just my inputs on this year's survey.

[1]: Except Stack Overflow, it seems

[2]: Even if you don't like Vim/Neovim itself, you can always install Vim keybindings for your IDE, which is what I do for VS Code.