Every year, StackOverflow surveys its users in search of dying languages and future trends. And, every year, tons of developers find themselves annoyed, surprised, and horrified by the goldmine of odd results.
Over half of developers have a standing desk? Really? — Grimdotdotdot
The 2018 edition is no different—let's take a look!
Open source is surprisingly popular
43.6% of developers contribute to some open source project, which is surprisingly high. One clarification, which perhaps StackOverflow might introduce in a future survey, would be to ask whether open source contributions are part of their day job activities or as part of a hobby. It seems like certain kinds of developers are more open source-friendly, too.
Involvement in open source varies with language. Over 70% of developers who work with Rust, Julia, and Clojure contribute to open source, while less than 40% of developers who work with VBA, VB.NET, and C# do so.
Most people are new to coding
Most of the respondents have only been coding for 3-5 years, and a whopping 30.1% have only coded professionally for 0-2 years. Strong signals all around that the developer workforce is still surprisingly new, and that there's plenty of opportunity for those who haven't yet joined the fray.
Self-teaching is nearly universal
86.7% of the respondents answered in the affirmative to the prompt: "Taught yourself a new language, framework, or tool without taking a formal course." That figure is nearly identical for those who identify as professional developers. For anyone out there who's
by subscribing to our newsletter.
