The Application Developers Alliance has released a new comprehensive report on global developers. Click here for the full report.
The Executive Summary of the report is as follows:
In April 2015, the Alliance commissioned IDC to conduct an extensive global survey of software developers yielding over 850 responses. The survey cut across a broad crosssection of developers engaged in all paramount activities of application development. Some of the key findings are:
Developers use multiple languages in their programming. 88% have used more than one language and 18% have used more than 5 languages in the past year.
The causes of software projects failing is a central debate. 48% of developers cited changing or poorly documented project requirements as the reason for failure while 40% cited underfunding or a lack of resources.
Many more women are joining the developer ranks. While females comprise only 25% of all developers, they are more than 40% of newer developers.
Mobile software development is now the norm. About 87% of respondents are engaged in mobile development, and 18% cited organizational commitment to a mobile-first approach.
Java was the most highly cited programming language with 68% of developers possessing moderate or high Java skill levels. This is likely due to its entrenchment in enterprise systems and its use as the “native” language for Android. Javascript, which is built into all browsers, is the second most-cited programming language.
Wearables, the Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics are the next wave technologies that are most exciting to developers today.
Developers are anxious about staying current with the latest trends with 57% reporting they are challenged to keep up with new development technology
Developers work in teams (74%) and are increasingly working in smaller teams. 60% of developers work in teams of 5 people or less, and 85% in teams of 15 people or less.
Four in five developers use open source code in software development, and over two in five reported they contribute to open source projects. This is the highest IDC has noted in open source engagement and represents an important milestone for open source.
The report contains helpful, easy-to-digest infographics breaking down languages, tools, trends, applications, and all things impacting and interesting developers today. Check it out, it's a good read!
