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The State Of Software Development In 2020

Change is inevitable. This sounds philosophical, but really this statement just applies everywhere. So yes, the software will change in 2020. In fact, it might bear changes every month, every week, and every day. The companies who are cloud-based platforms tweak, tune, update, and augment their functionality almost every day. And sometimes, those changes are done multiple times. 

So let’s talk about the latest Annual Developer Survey published by Stack Overflow. The community surveyed nearly 65,000 developers about the developments in the field of software, tools, and how they are planning to level up their skills. Please note, Stack Overflow is the largest and most trusted online community for developers. 

While we are talking about the exciting developments in the software world, this noteworthy information needs to be spotlighted here: Stack Overflow saw a slight increase in female-gendered respondents. This might be an interesting tip for all the hiring managers reading this piece. 

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Let’s just say there will be some shape-shifting this year, so prepare yourselves. To make it easier for you, we have gone through the survey in detail to share the most standing out findings with you. 

Most Popular Technologies

Most Popular Technologies

All hail JavaScript, people. For the eighth year in a row, JavaScript is still the most commonly used language in programming. However, as we ponder further in the survey, we can see that TypeScript has gained moderate popularity too. That being said, Ruby is again standing ground in the top 10. Of course, the regular contenders are still in the playground like HTML/CSS, SQL, Python, and PowerShell. There are also some trendier ones making appearances like Go and Kotlin. 

At this juncture, Rust held the top place for the most loved language, fifth time in a row. About 86.1% of respondents voted most loved for Rust, followed by TypeScript at 67.1%, and Python at 66.7%. However, Python development fell from it’s the spot this time and got beat up by TypeScript. Please don’t forget to notice Go moving up from 10th to 5th position since last year. 

Most Dreaded Technologies

This basically translates into the languages that the programmers are still using but would like to discontinue as soon as possible. In fact, as per the survey, developers wouldn’t mind if these languages interrupted for good. The top spot holders for this category are still VBA, Objective C (76.6%), and Perl (71.4%). 80.4% of the respondents don’t wish to be using VBA anymore. 

Don’t mistake this to the fact that developers have stopped using these. These programming languages are still in use but are just not much liked. They are like that ex no one wants to be in touch with, but since they are part of the same friend circle, they kind of have to. 

Most Wanted Technologies

Python wins all the hearts here. About 30% of respondents want to learn Python. This is basically the technologies that the developers may or may not use but still would like to learn them. Joining the dear friend Python is Rust. Rust (14.6%) has seen some sharp gains in the learning bracket since last year, as per the survey.

Most Famous Collaboration Tools 

Most Famous Collaboration Tools

There’s always a need for better collaboration tools for developers and software engineers in the world of software development. In fact, with the whole pandemic battle going on in the world, we are all in need for tools that facilitate the process of remote work. The tools that make managing remote programmers an easy task for the hiring managers. 

About 82.8% of the respondents use GitHub at their disposal. The second most popular tool is Slack, voted by 53% of the respondents. There’s also Jira and Google Suite that follow after these. 

So if you are looking for tools of collaboration for your remote teams, these are your picks. You can give Gitlab a try too, which is used by 37% of the respondents. 

Key Takeaways 

As per this survey, about 55% of the respondents are full-time developers, and 20% work remotely or freelancers. The most common combinations include back-end, front end, and full-stack developer. The most correlated pairs include database administrator, DevOps specialist and site reliability engineer, academic researcher and scientist, and designer and front-end developer.

You’ll be surprised, but 78% of the respondents code as a hobby. In fact, about 40% of these respondents mentioned that they learned to code 10 years ago. And about 65% of them have been coding professionally for less than 10 years. 

At this juncture, technical executives and engineering managers seem to have the most professional coding experience - about 16.5%. Among other individuals, developers tend to be system administrators, database administrators, and developers who create desktop and embedded applications.

Since there are multiple articles every day that talk about going easy and flexible on the educational requirements for developers. This is something the hiring managers should take note of - approximately 75% of respondents have completed equivalent to a bachelor’s degree or higher. 

In fact, about 85% of the respondents feel that formal education is essential, which contradicts the popular opinion that one doesn’t need a formal education to become a developer.

There is also a gradual increase in the number of women developers, which is excellent for hiring managers. You can make the necessary changes in your hiring strategy now. That being said, men still account for 92% of the developer crowd. 

Concluding this with the top paid lot and their salaries. Across the bunch, engineering managers, SREs, DevOps specialists, and data engineers seem to be paid the highest. So you know if you are looking for career progression, you know which way to lead. 

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