What has changed for a decade?
A dive into the StackOverflow Development Survey from 2011 & 2020.
I doubt that someone remembers 2011, right? It’s been ten years ago and a lot of things happened.
That was the year when Steve Jobs died, followed by the massive success of Apple’s iPad — Apple became the most valuable company in the world, the social media were extensively used by protesters in the middle-east to fight for freedom (Arab Spring), a 9.0 level earthquake in Japan unleashed a tsunami that destroyed the Fukushima nuclear plant (the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986), Kate Middleton and Prince William married, the Sony PlayStation data breached happened with around 75 million accounts affected, the decline of BlackBerry started, and many more.
But what has happened since 2011 with the development community within StackOverflow?
For those who are not among the 100 million people who visit stackoverflow.com every month, this is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. Every year StackOverflow organizes a massive yearly development survey that tries to capture many aspects of the development world.
With this article we use the data from 2011 to compare and check what has changed comparing to 2020. The data will help us define three topics of interest:
- What were the most popular languages in 2011 and now?
- What were the top 10 countries in 2011 and now?
- Did Linux and Mac OS win the fight against Microsoft?
Let’s take a closer look at the survey results and dig into each topic.
What were the most popular languages in 2011 and now?
In the 2011 survey results SQL/JavaScript/CSS, and C# were the most popular languages. Together with Java they accounted for around 68% of all records. Next was the group of less popular languages but still within top 10 like PHP, C, and C++, which gravitated around 8% each. At the bottom were Python (~6%), and Ruby (~3%). And what about 2020 results?
2020 was the year of HTML/CSS/JavaScript, the front-end development languages that account for most of the results. Together with SQL they are the leading combination. Python gained momentum and climbed up with now ~10%. Java remains somehow stable with 8%, but we don’t see anymore C/C++, and Ruby within top 10.
What were the top 10 countries in 2011 and now?
In the yearly days of StackOverflow the data shows that the site was used mostly by people from the United States (42%), and Europe (~35%). During that time India accounted for just close to 4%. So, we could say that the site was mostly used by people from the western world. Is it the same in 2020?
2020 results could be summarized like: “the rise of India”. The users of StackOverflow from that country exploded. From just 4% in 2011, today’s respondents appointed India as a country of origin in 21.9% of the cases— a 579% increase, wow.
75% of the surveyed people were from US, India, UK, or Germany in 2020. A few “new” countries appeared in the radar of top 10, like France, Brazil, Netherlands, and Poland.
Did Linux and Mac OS win the fight against Microsoft?
Back in the good old days of 2011, most of the respondents appointed Windows as their operating system of choice (66%). They were split in different Windows versions with Windows 7 being the most popular operating system with ~45%. Linux was used by 18% of the people, and Mac OS around 16%. Obviously, that was the period of Microsoft and its Windows operating system. Is it still the case in 2020?
Windows lost 18% of it’s share the last ten years. In 2020 survey results, the people who reported Windows as their operating system are 48%. Linux-based system increased their popularity by 46% and now almost 27% goes to Linux. Mac OS, though, is the clear winner for the last decade with 60% increase. 25% of operating system answers go to Mac OS in 2020. So, the battle between Windows and its rivals continues. It would be interesting to see what would happen in the next 10 years. Will Linux or Mac OS take over the first place by 2030?
Summary
A lot of things happened for ten years but according to the StackOverflow survey results we could capture a few insights.
- Web development languages were the most popular within the programming world for the last decade.
- StackOverflow expanded its impact beyond just US and Europe. India was the country which showed tremendous growth in its presence for the last ten years.
- Windows is still the most preferred operating system but it is in constant decline. Linux, and especially Mac OS, were the winners of the last decade.
Would those trends continue in the next ten years? It’s hard to tell, but the StackOverflow survey results are just an image of the real world. So, we could at least say that technology-related businesses would continue to drive world forward in the next decade!
Post is also published on pmtonomy.com, site for project management guidance and consultancy.
