Introduction
I’ve been working for a large organization for over 10 years. We have a large portfolio of technologies all along the value chain of the business. Some of those technologies are the latest in the field of concern, while some are outdated and need to be upgraded ASAP. However, influencing the organization direction in adapting and abandoning new technologies seems to be a complex challenge!
In this article, I’m sharing some relevant insights resulted from my analysis to this year Stack Overflow Annual Developer Survey.
Note that more than 64,000 developers from around the world participated in this year survey that was conducted in February (2020).
The analysis is divided into 4 parts, each part starts with a question that I try to answer using the survey results.
Part 1: Organization Size Effect on Developers Level of Influence on Technology Purchase
When selecting and purchasing technologies, organizations leverage services offered by specialized research and advisory firms that provide information, insights and strategic advice on technology trends.
While it is important to always be aware of the trends and to understand how technologies evolve to avoid having an outdated technology portfolio, which might become not only a performance burden to the business, it could also create a cybersecurity threats! It is critical to understand that every organization has its own environment, infrastructure, direction and strategic objectives. All of these heavily impact which technology should be embraced. In addition, adapting new technologies and upgrading your current portfolio is a costly process that requires time, effort and money, and should always be planned a head of time and never rushed just because a new flashy technology recently evolved in the market!
What about the developers working for that organization? They must want to play a role in determining the direction of the technology adaptation, at the end of the day, they are the ones who will be (using) that technology to enable the organization achieve its goals.
How do those developers think of their level of influence on their organization when purchasing new technologies? And is there a relationship between the level of influence and the size of the organization?
In the 2020 Stack Overflow Annual Developer Survey, there was a question about the perspective of the developers on their influence on such decision.
The question that was asked in the survey says:
What level of influence do you, personally, have over new technology purchases at your organization?
1. I have a great deal of influence
2. I have little or no influence
3. I have some influence
Another question that can be used to give an idea about the size of the company they work for is:
Approximately how many people are employed by the company or organization you currently work for?
Just me, I am a freelancer, sole proprietor, etc. — 2 to 9 employees — 10 to 19 employees — 20 to 99 employees — 100 to 499 employees — 500 to 999 employees — 1,000 to 4,999 employees — 5,000 to 9,999 employees — 10,000 or more employees
To analyze the data, I categorized the companies based on the number of employees into the following categories:
The resulted bar chart is:
The chart above shows that more developers, around 34%, in the micro size organizations said that they have great influence on their organizations when purchasing new technologies than the other 3 groups, and around 40% said that they have some influence. In total, 73% of the developers working for micro size organizations said that they have some or great influence.
On the other hand, around 58% of developers working for large organizations said that they have little or no influence, and only around 9% said that they have great influence.
In small organizations, almost 60% of the developers said that they have some or great influence, compared to 50% in the medium size organizations.
The results are further detailed here:
So, if you really want to have influence over adapting new technologies where you work, you might want to consider moving to a small or micro size organization. If you already work for one and still don’t feel that you have at least some influence, just don’t give up and keep trying :)
If you are part of the leadership team in your organization, do you think you can enhance the engagement level of your employees by involving them more in planning the future of technologies adapted by the organization?
Part 2: Country of Organization Effect on Developers Level of Influence on Technology Purchase
After investigating the relationship between the organization size and the level of influence the developers have over purchasing technology, I’m interested to know if the country of the organization plays a role in determining the level of influence the developers have. This is mainly to see if culture impacts level of influence.
The relevant question in the survey is:
Where do you live?
Although this question doesn’t confirm the organization origin nor the origin of the developer. However, for the ske of this analysis I’ll assume the earlier: it’s the organization origin.
In the survey results, there are 163 countries. Nevertheless, I selected the top 10 countries, ordered by the total number of entries:
The chart below shows that in large organizations in India and Canada, almost 11% of the developers have great influence, which is above the collective percentage calculated for all organization in Part 1, which is 8.67%. On the other hand, in Australia, less than 4% said that they have great influence, which is less than half of the percentage for all organizations.
As for the little or no influence, more than 66% of the developers in France and Spain said that they have little or no influence.
In micro size organizations, we see in the chart below, a significant increase in the number of developers who said that they have great influence on purchasing technologies. US and Netherlands are on the top of the list with around 42% developers said that they have great influence, which is above the collective number calculated above in Part 1 for all micro organizations: 34.4%.
For Indian companies, the result is interesting because it shows that only 26.8% of the developers think that they have great influence. It’s not too far from the collective number, but compared to the influence level of large organizations, I expected to see a much bigger number.
At the same time, India also recorded the biggest percentage of developers having little or no influence on purchasing technology followed by Spain.
From the analysis above, we can clearly see that more developers in large organizations in India and Canada said that they have great influence on purchasing technology, while more than 66% of the developers in France and Spain said that they have little or no influence.
On the other hand, around 42% of the developers in micro size organizations in the US and Netherlands have more influence, while more than 29% of the developers in India and Spain have little or no influence.
Part 3: Popular Programming Languages in 2020
As you’ve seen above, developers have different views on how much influence they have when their organizations adapt new technologies. To drill down a bit, I’m intersted to know more about the popularity of the programming languages used by all oragnizations.
From there, I’m also intersted to see the popular programming languges in each of the 4 groups of organizations (based on size).
For this part of the analysis, I’ll incorporate the answers of the following survey question:
Which programming, scripting, and markup languages have you done extensive development work in over the past year, and which do you want to work in over the next year? (If you both worked with the language and want to continue to do so, please check both boxes in that row.)
(A list of 25 languages was proivded as part of the question)
First, let’s look at the popular programming languages of all developers:
The most used language is JavaScript, and the most language developers want to use next year is Python. It also seems that developers want to use JavaScript, HTML/CSS, SQL, Java, Bash/Shell/PowerShell, PHP much less than they did this year. While they want to use TypeScript, Go, Kotlin and Rust more. It will be interesting to monitor the trend of these languages in future surveys to see if they take off!
Now let’s dig a bit deeper and see if there is a noticeable difference in organizations of different size and the technology they use and want to use.
The 4 charts below show the most popular programming languages used by developers, as well as the languages that they want to use next year, grouped by the organization size.
As for the top 10 languages, almost all developers agreed on the following:
JavaScript, HTML/CSS, SQL, Python, Java, Bash/Shell/PowerShell, C#, TypeScript, C++, and C in Large organizations, while PHP is used more than C in the other 3 groups of organizations.
Looking at the charts, we see the same patterns we saw before:
- The most used language is JavaScript, always, and the most language developers want to use next year is Python. Expecting an even better future for Python!
- Developers want to use JavaScript, HTML/CSS, SQL, Java, Bash/Shell/PowerShell, PHP much less than they did this year.
- Developers want to use TypeScript, Go, Kotlin and Rust more.
- PHP is used less than C and C++ in large organizations than in medium and small organizations.
Looking at the charts above, I don’t see much difference in the selection of the languages the developers use and want to use in different size organizations. There seems to be an agreement across the board, and wheather you work for a large or a micro size organization, or have great influence or none, developers (in general) use and want to use the programming languages in a similar way.
Part 4: Programming Languages Popularity Trends between 2018 and 2020
Since there is so much data captured over the years through the survey, I decided to take a look at previous years’ to see if there are trends related to programming languages popularity. I selected 2019 and 2018 and compared the results with this year’s.
Looking at the charts below, we see that more developers wanted to use and have been using Python from one year to the following year.
Note: HTML/CSS is not shown in the charts above due to the way the question was written in 2018. HTML and CSS were listed as 2 different options. However, that isn’t the case in 2019 and 2020 as they were listed together as one option. However, both HTML and CSS came excatly after JavaScript in the popularity counts.
from last year to this year, we can see slight decrease in using JavaScript, which means that (maybe) some developers managed to stop using it. As for Python, it’s being used more now than before. This is correct for TypeScript as well. We also see more developers use Go, Kotlin and Rust, as they previous surveys said they would.
Conclusion
In this article, we used the results of the Stack Overflow Annual Developer Survey Data to discuss the following:
- Organization Size Effect on Developers Level of Influence on Technology Purchase: More develoeprs working for micro and small organizations have more influence on purchasing new technologies than those working for medium and large organizations.
- Country of Organization Effect on Developers Level of Influence on Technology Purchase: More developers in large organizations in India and Canada have great influence on purchasing technology, while more than 66% of the developers in France and Spain said that they have little or no influence. On the other hand, around 42% of the developers in micro size organizations in the US and Netherlands have more influence, while more than 29% of the developers in India and Spain have little or no influence.
- Popular Programming Languages in 2020: JavaScript is the most popular language among developers. Python is the most language that is becoming increasingly popular. Developers want to use JavaScript, HTML/CSS, SQL, Java, Bash/Shell/PowerShell, PHP much less than they did this year. They also want to use TypeScript, Go, Kotlin and Rust more. PHP is used less than C and C++ in large organizations than in medium and small organizations.
- Programming Languages Popularity Trends between 2018 and 2020: Developers have less interest in using JavaScript and more interest in using Python. There seems to be a correlation between what the developers say and do over the past 3years.
Methodology
I followed the CRISP-DM methodology to conduct this analysis. CRISP-DM is a well-known methodology that provides a structured approach to planning a data science project. It includes the following processes:
- Business understanding
- Data understanding
- Data preparation
- Modeling
- Results evaluation
- Deployment
The source code of analysis can be found here.
Data Source
The raw data files I used in the analysis can be found on the Stack Overflow website.
