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Episode 8: Stack Overflow Web Dev Panel

35:40 with James Churchill

In this episode, James Churchill talks with Treehouse Teachers Craig Dennis, Alena Holligan, and Kenneth Love about the results of the Stack Overflow 2017 Developer Survey.

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    [MUSIC] 0:00
    Hi welcome to the Dev Team Show my name is James. 0:03
    In this episode, 0:05
    we're going to take a look at 2017 Stack Overflow developers survey results. 0:07
    Joining me today are some of my fellow Treehouse teachers, 0:12
    Craig Dennis, Elena Hologan and Kenneth Love. 0:17
    Welcome to the show, everyone. 0:21
    >> Thanks, James. >> Thanks. 0:23
    >> Thanks for having us here. 0:24
    >> So, just to give you some context here, Stack Overflow has been doing a developers 0:24
    survey since around 2011, well, around, since 2011. 0:28
    This is the largest response that they've had yet, 0:31
    64,000 developers, users of their website, responded to the survey. 0:34
    The questions were like categorized or grouped into four high level categories, 0:41
    developer profile, technology, work and community. 0:45
    Be sure to check they shown us, there's gonna be a link to the survey, so 0:50
    if you want to take a look at that, pause the video or 0:53
    just follow along as we're talking, that's how you get to it. 0:56
    So I want to kinda dive into some demographics first. 1:00
    And specifically and maybe this isn't surprising but 1:03
    72.6% of respondent said that they are web developers. 1:07
    Which seemed a little high to me but maybe not incredibly high. 1:10
    But out of that group, 63.7% said, they were full stack web developers. 1:15
    I personally would have expected a little bit more specialization than that. 1:19
    For instance, only 11.9% said they were specifically front-end developers. 1:24
    And for whatever reason >> [COUGH] 1:28
    >> That number seemed low to me. 1:29
    What did you think? 1:31
    Did you have any impression or any reaction to that? 1:32
    >> Yeah, I totally think that that 12%, 1:34
    that's really low for just a front-end only. 1:38
    And I guess maybe that's because people are stretching more into what they 1:40
    claim as full stack web development. 1:45
    I think that that's one of those things where that's not 1:47
    fully defined maybe enough, like when you're asking the question. 1:50
    Yeah, to me, I think that there's quite a few more front-end, 1:55
    maybe you don't know, too. 2:00
    There was also a lot of on the list there, too, 2:01
    and we don't know what the question looked like, as well. 2:04
    So, yeah, I was actually surprised by that, too. 2:08
    I thought that was interesting. 2:10
    >> Well, it's I think partially like DevOps. 2:11
    What does that actually mean to you? 2:16
    What does it mean that you're a full stack developer? 2:18
    If it's something that runs on the server, then it's back-end. 2:21
    If it's something that runs on the front-end, well, if I do PHP and 2:25
    JavaScript, then I'm a full stack developer. 2:29
    So- >> Which I definitely would agree with. 2:33
    >> So most people that do back-end also dive into some 2:35
    sort of JavaScript or something. 2:40
    So you identify as a back-end developer, or 2:43
    you probably identify as a full stack developer. 2:46
    So. 2:49
    >> You can also have a bit of a selection problem too, right? 2:51
    If you have somebody who's, maybe their job is web designer. 2:53
    Or they see themselves as being a web designer. 2:56
    They just work on the front-end, JavaScript, CSS, whatever. 2:58
    They may see this developer survey and go, well I'm not a developer, 3:01
    I'm a designer and not ever fill it out. 3:04
    >> Yeah, that's true. 3:06
    >> Right, because they don't feel like they're part of that group, 3:07
    they're not a developer, they're a designer. 3:10
    So this isn't the survey for me. 3:11
    >> Did anyone here actually take the survey? 3:14
    I actually missed it [LAUGH] when they- >> [CROSSTALK] I didn't take it this year, 3:16
    but I think I did last year or the year before. 3:19
    >> Yeah I've done one of the previous years, but I missed it this year. 3:21
    So I didn't get a chance to see the actual survey itself, and I went looking for it. 3:25
    The further I dug into these results the more questions I had around like how 3:29
    the questions were asked. 3:33
    And was it fill in the blank? 3:34
    Or was it some massive multiple choice list? 3:36
    >> Yeah, there were several questions where it wasn't clear, it's like, 3:39
    those numbers don't add up. 3:42
    So it must've been multiple choice. 3:43
    >> Right. >> There was a couple 3:45
    of those where it's like, I don't know. 3:46
    You say the most popular, but then like, yeah. 3:47
    So it was confusing in that way, I agree. 3:50
    >> So the other thing in terms of demographics. 3:52
    There was, seem to be a wide range of experience or level of experience, 3:55
    which was really encouraging. 3:59
    I was glad to see that there wasn't one particular group over the other. 4:00
    There wasn't just everyone saying I'm an expert and 4:04
    I have been an expert for a long time. 4:06
    So I think that proactive experience was pretty cool to see. 4:08
    Unfortunately, kinda the disappointing side of it was, 4:12
    it was heavily, heavily male. 4:15
    >> White male. 4:18
    >> White male, even further, right? 4:18
    Yeah, so that obviously is tough to see, such a stark acknowledgement, 4:21
    [LAUGH], of where we're at as an industry. 4:26
    >> Well, it is Stack Overflow. 4:28
    Yeah >> Yeah 4:29
    >> So, I mean, it's typically white males 4:30
    on Stack Overflow because it's not the friendliest community, so. 4:33
    >> Interesting. 4:38
    >> Most women that I know avoid it. 4:39
    They just don't want the criticism. 4:43
    To ask the questions there, they don't feel comfortable especially 4:45
    if you're a beginner, they don't want, you don't want to ask a question there. 4:48
    Why would I want to feel worse about myself when 4:51
    I already feel bad that I can't figure out this answer on my own? 4:54
    >> Interesting, are there other resources that people tend to use more 4:57
    than Stack Overflow? 5:01
    >> I think a lot of people search and don't participate. 5:02
    >> Yeah. 5:04
    >> Which is really sad. 5:05
    I think there's a lot more consumption than there is. 5:06
    >> Yes. 5:08
    >> Well, I mean, even outside of any things, 5:08
    like I don't want to feel worse about myself, or whatever, Stack Overflow, 5:11
    because of their gamified system of how you are able to ask, or answer, or 5:15
    whatever questions, makes it very difficult for someone to break in now. 5:19
    Because you have to have a certain number of points before you can go and 5:24
    answer a question. 5:27
    You can only leave comments or whatever. 5:28
    So unless you're willing to dive into that whole system, 5:30
    you can't necessarily participate in the community at all. 5:34
    >> I'm assuming that the survey was open >> No, yeah. 5:37
    >> That is, yeah. 5:40
    >> I think what is cool about that, I mean, yes, it's sad. 5:41
    But it is very like yo, look at this problem that we have right now in tech, 5:46
    right? 5:51
    >> Sure. 5:51
    >> I think not even just like people self selecting out of the survey itself. 5:52
    But that is a problem. 5:57
    Don't think it's at that number in reality? 5:59
    >> I don't think. 6:02
    I don't know. 6:03
    I don't know that it's necessarily at that number? 6:04
    But I would also say that you have a lot of different things at play. 6:07
    >> Okay, I think that's fair. 6:12
    Yep, and the other aspect of that, just while we're on the topic 6:14
    that was discouraging, was later in the survey when they were talking about, I 6:18
    think it was underneath the work section, yeah, I think that's what it was. 6:25
    But the part that asked about how important do you think 6:30
    diversity is- >> Sure. 6:34
    >> In the workplace? 6:35
    And maybe these stats are published probably in a lot of other places, 6:36
    I would assume, but I haven't looked at that recently in particular, but again, 6:41
    white males voted the lowest in terms of how important it was. 6:46
    It was like in the 60%, if I remember correctly off the top of my head. 6:51
    Yeah, it was surprising and disappointing for me, anyway. 6:55
    >> Yeah, especially since there's been so 7:00
    much concrete evidence showing how valuable diversity is. 7:03
    You've got people, everybody uses and 7:08
    consumes the Internet and apps and all that stuff, and 7:11
    it tends to be actually women who do a lot more of the purchasing that they show. 7:15
    So you would think that you would want more input from 7:20
    those demographics if those are the people that you're actually trying to sell to. 7:26
    >> Right. 7:30
    >> Again, I think we're starting to see that, and 7:31
    I hope that that is a trend that continues to rise. 7:35
    I don't know, did not look at the past results, if that has changed? 7:39
    >> Yeah, I did- >> Over the years? 7:43
    >> Yeah I did look at the results. 7:45
    >> Or I don't know if they asked the diversity last year, or not, I'm not sure. 7:46
    I'd be interested to see if it changes between this year and next year. 7:50
    That would be interesting. 7:54
    >> Yes. >> Because, 7:55
    that's become a lot more of talking point. 7:56
    >> That's an interesting comment in general about all of this, right? 7:58
    In terms of the relevance and how you use this information, 8:01
    that just looking at a static number in a particular year doesn't tell 8:04
    you probably a lot about what is actually happening in the industry. 8:08
    And it's that year to year, the trend, the comparison of it, 8:12
    that may not guarantee but might be more interesting. 8:16
    >> I think it more valuable, definitely, in most regards. 8:20
    >> Yeah, so moving on to education, so at Treehouse this is a kinda, 8:23
    a topic that we all pay attention to. 8:29
    I just find it interesting that they were a majority, 76.5 percent said that they 8:33
    had a bachelors degree or higher college education, which again, 8:39
    not having a degree in computer science surprised me. 8:45
    Well, I don't think the survey asked if their degree was in computer 8:51
    science, did it? 8:54
    Or was it just a college degree? 8:55
    >> There was a subsequent question that asked them, and 8:57
    I believe it was around 50% said it was in computer science. 8:59
    So yeah, it was something less than that total, of course, but. 9:03
    >> Well, I think we're a group, I think programmers in general, we're a group that 9:06
    we typically tend to enjoy learning or we tend to enjoy, logical thought. 9:12
    Like that kind of thing which lends itself to schooling. 9:17
    So you get all the people who, they go to college for 9:20
    some degree, even if it's not what they end up in, right? 9:22
    Or you go to school for two years and then you drop out, or whatever. 9:24
    So I don't find it weird that many people had schooling, 9:27
    I find it very heartening that, say, if 50% or 9:31
    whatever of that 70 something percent had CS degrees. 9:35
    I don't have a CS degree, I don't think any of us do. 9:39
    And it's nice to see that so 9:43
    much of the other people in the industry don't need that degree. 9:46
    >> Right. >> And that [COUGH] also if you look 9:49
    at the 20 years plus numbers that were within this experience, 9:52
    that could be part of the people with those degrees, right? 9:55
    I did see quite a bit of change or 9:59
    what felt like quite a bit of change of the numbers in there. 10:01
    So 90% self-taught, something along those lines, yes? 10:04
    >> Yeah, I had made a note of that as well and 10:06
    which has to be regardless of whatever level of education you've achieved 90% 10:10
    of all the respondents said, I'm also self-taught to some degree. 10:15
    >> Sure. >> Which I think is a pretty strong 10:18
    indication of what we're choosing to do as we become developers, 10:21
    right, yeah and of those 80.2% use the official Docs 10:27
    as a way of teaching themselves which I get for whatever reason. 10:32
    Even though I use the Docs a lot myself, I just hadn't really like spent time 10:39
    thinking about how important Docs are to the industry as a whole, clearly, they're 10:42
    important, clearly, we should be caring a lot about how well docs are written. 10:47
    >> And saying thank you. 10:50
    >> Technical writing is insanely hard, 10:52
    yeah, I think that shows a good trend in projects, 10:54
    especially open-source projects now, putting more time into docs and training. 10:57
    I remember when Django project first came out, obviously, 11:02
    my little part of the world, but one of the things that really set it apart was 11:06
    it had very well written, very easy to read docs. 11:09
    And so you're like, of course, I wanna use this, I can go read that thing, 11:12
    and I don't wanna tear my eyes out like I'm reading API documentation. 11:16
    >> Right. >> And that goes a long way, 11:19
    I've noticed a lot of the libraries love 2-D as an amazing little Lua gaming 11:21
    library that has beautifully written and beautifully designed docs. 11:25
    And you want to sit and read the docs as supposed to, like I said, 11:30
    we're just reading like an API and you're like, okay cool, there's methods. 11:33
    >> And it is a benefit to programmers, I think, my husband is a network engineer 11:38
    and most of the docs that he reads are useless, if not worse. 11:41
    >> And they're probably written from the companies who produce the technology. 11:47
    >> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, and they're blatantly wrong, no, 11:50
    this is not the way that it worked, and so it's helpful if you can read the docs, 11:55
    it's great to have that, it allows us to get better and 12:00
    to be able to do that or I think as programmers, we have that as a benefit. 12:05
    Where I think it's a lot harder for people who are on that networking, 12:10
    engineer end of things, they don't have as great of a learning environment. 12:14
    >> And they don't necessarily have the benefit of being able to go and 12:21
    look at the code, If all else fails you have no docs for something, okay cool, so 12:24
    long as it's open source, I'll go look at the code and figure out what it's doing. 12:27
    >> Right. 12:30
    Depending on the networking, on the hardware it may be a black box where 12:31
    you have no idea what's going on inside there. 12:34
    >> I think that the documentation has been part of like you said, for 12:36
    the Django project, it's been part of what makes an open source project, 12:40
    to survive you would have better docs these days. 12:44
    Which I think is cool, I think it's pointed to that, I think that has 12:47
    not always been the case like that number would not I bet if we look back from it, 12:52
    the docs not only, the official docs didn't exist like you're saying. 12:56
    >> We have an annual conference here in Portland that's simply about writing 13:01
    documentation, so it's obviously like coming up as an important topic. 13:04
    >> Right. >> Yeah, and it's, stating the obvious or 13:08
    maybe not obvious to some people, that evaluating the Docs, 13:11
    that's a great way to gauge or to measure your own level of interest in something. 13:15
    >> Right. 13:20
    >> As you're looking at the technology and 13:21
    you go look at the Docs and it's poorly written or that it's not there. 13:22
    >> Yeah. 13:25
    >> That might be a warning sign that this may not be something that's worth your 13:26
    time, or it might be an opportunity for you to get involved and to help, 13:31
    which is a great place to learn some help. 13:36
    >> Yeah, truly. 13:38
    >> So one last thing that I thought was worth calling out was that 64.7% would 13:40
    recommend online courses to other people for change, I think that was encouraging. 13:44
    So regarding technology, JavaScript was obviously a very popular language, 13:49
    62.5% of the respondents said they use JavaScript, SQL, 51.2% was the number two. 13:55
    >> You can't get away from it, right, even if you're using an ORM or whatever, 14:02
    you're still using SQL in there somewhere, you're probably gonna have to go and 14:06
    tweak some query. 14:10
    >> Do you think you would do that, 14:11
    that you would say that I use SQL daily cuz I use an ORM? 14:12
    >> No. 14:14
    >> If I was taking that, I would think maybe I'd write SQL reports, and 14:16
    that's why I would check SQL I don't think I would do it because of the ORM. 14:20
    >> No, I don't think people do it because of the ORM, I just think there's no such 14:23
    think there's no such thing as an ORM that doesn't eventually fall short, 14:25
    so you end up having to write some SQL to augment the ORM. 14:28
    >> Totally, totally, but I found that so many people are using this still and 14:31
    I guess one of the things that we can probably talk about later too is that 14:37
    there's more data science roles up here in this developer service, 14:41
    maybe that's why there is more SQLs >> And like SysOps DevOps people, 14:46
    they could be writing a lot of SQLs to diagnose why problems are happening, 14:50
    or the site keeps slowing down at 2:00 AM everyday. 14:52
    Okay, let's go look through our logs, go in our database and 14:54
    find out what's going on at 2:00 AM or whatever. 14:58
    >> Yeah, as a web developer I find that I'm 15:01
    easily distracted by much more interesting things in SQL and SQL feels to me like 15:04
    something that I learned years ago and have in my back pocket when I need it. 15:09
    But I don't spend a lot of time using it or 15:14
    learning new keywords and new- >> Totally, 15:17
    it is been abstracted away from you, you are doing it but you are not doing it. 15:23
    >> Right, you're not reading it. 15:26
    >> The other thing i found confusing about the survey itself was the labels that they 15:27
    used around identifying specific technologies, just think of an example, 15:32
    they mentioned React. 15:37
    >> Okay. >> Well, React is a suite of stuff, 15:39
    so I found myself wondering if that was just meant to be a broad umbrella, 15:41
    does that include React native, for instance, or does it not? 15:45
    And if it didn't, I didn't see React Native mentioned anywhere else 15:49
    in the results, which surprised me a little bit. 15:52
    >> Well, and wouldn't React results all be folded into JavaScript results anyway? 15:54
    >> Yeah. 15:58
    >> Yes and no, but when you're thinking about specifically mobile developments, 15:59
    I found myself wanting to know a little bit more about people's level of 16:03
    interest in that, and I wasn't able to see what I was looking for because of that. 16:07
    Another example, for instance, was they refer to AngularJS But 16:13
    there was no mention of Angular 1 versus Angular 2, while Caesar, 16:16
    even though they share a name they are two different technologies. 16:20
    >> Right. 16:24
    >> So again, I felt a little disappointed that there wasn't anyway to tease out, 16:25
    at least in the results, as they have published so far. 16:28
    Maybe in the raw data that's different but in the results that they've published, 16:30
    it was difficult or impossible to tell what they are talking about. 16:34
    >> Yeah, pretty sure there is definitely namespace coalitions from my 16:38
    there is a Spark framework and its under Frameworks, libraries and tools. 16:43
    And there's a Spark web framework and it's a Spark database, 16:49
    big data playground thing that's like, which one are you talking about? 16:53
    >> Right. 16:57
    So yeah, definitely saw that, too. 16:58
    >> The other thing that I found initially disappointing, but 17:00
    I think I've rationalized, I've found a way to look at the languages over time, 17:04
    data, so C# over time, has gone from 45%, 17:09
    in terms of who says they use it to 34%, they had the biggest drop. 17:13
    >> That's a good drop. 17:18
    >> Yeah. >> It's a huge drop, 17:19
    Python went the opposite direction from 22% to 32%, 17:21
    JavaScript went from 57% to 62%, and Node.js went from 8% to 26%. 17:25
    >> And that's just from last year, right? 17:31
    >> No, I think that was over time since they've been doing those. 17:34
    >> That was over time? 17:36
    Okay. 17:36
    >> Now the way that I started to rationalize this was I think this might be 17:37
    not as descriptive of people's level of interest in the technology, but 17:41
    might describe more about how their user base has expanded over time. 17:45
    So I get the impression that initially, 17:49
    there might have been more prevalence of .NET C# developers. 17:51
    >> Maybe a bit more enterprise people. 17:56
    >> [CROSSTALK] >> Right, and then as they've grown and 17:57
    broadened their user base over time, it's not hard for me to imagine, 17:59
    I don't have anything to back this up. 18:03
    >> Yeah, it's diversified and the audiences are attracted to it. 18:05
    >> I could see that. 18:09
    >> Right, into JavaScript developers, right, which would change those numbers. 18:10
    [LAUGH] >> Yeah. [CROSSTALK]. 18:13
    >> We're all just gonna gradually converge into JavaScript anyway, 18:14
    it doesn't matter. 18:16
    >> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] 18:17
    >> Well, it brings about 18:18
    the question of actually utilizing this data and 18:20
    as a developer you run into that all the time, what does this data tell you and 18:25
    how do you get the results you're actually looking for? 18:29
    >> 100% validation, that's all I was looking for. 18:32
    >> [LAUGH] >> James is teaching the right language. 18:35
    >> That's it. 18:37
    >> You're doing good work, James >> Thank you. 18:39
    [LAUGH] >> Just wanting to know, 18:41
    is this giving me the result I think it's giving me? 18:44
    And that's something we all have to be careful, if we make assumptions all 18:48
    the time whether we're writing stuff, or whether we're reading a survey or 18:51
    those results, are they from the 2011 until today, is it from the last year? 18:58
    Those could make a huge difference, do we know for sure what it is, 19:04
    what are those results really showing? 19:07
    Yet, you have the results but 19:10
    it's hard to know what they're actually showing, and I think some of that is, 19:11
    we as developers forget about that as we write our own stuff. 19:16
    >> Right. 19:20
    Wow, look at this I am going to put this out there, 19:21
    how many of you have ever touched this language, this is the new, 19:24
    greatest, latest thing, but nobody is using it in production? 19:27
    >> There are going to be tons of people who suddenly go back to their company and 19:31
    go, we've gotta go build stuff in JavaScript because the stack overflow says 19:34
    that JavaScript is the hot language >> [LAUGH] 19:38
    >> It's like that's cool, but literally, 19:40
    all you are doing is deadlocked stuff, 19:42
    do you need JavaScript tupperware in that stack? 19:45
    Probably not, I probably wanna a bunch of languages so, 19:47
    people are going to misread this all the time. 19:50
    >> Yeah. >> It is just like any survey, 19:53
    any amount of data. 19:54
    >> Yeah, I know they're loved so they'll buy language and framework and platform, 19:55
    that said, what's most loved, dreaded and wanted? 20:00
    >> Right. 20:02
    Rust came in really high, which wasn't in and of itself surprising. 20:04
    But then the number two was Smalltalk, which was surprising. 20:08
    I was like, I can't remember the last time I heard 20:10
    someone give a talk about Smalltalk, or- >> Yeah, it's not- 20:14
    >> [CROSSTALK] small talk about Smalltalk. 20:17
    >> [LAUGH] >> Yeah. 20:18
    >> The chatting over- >> [LAUGH] 20:20
    >> That'd be great. 20:22
    >> It's like, I think it's one of those, aw, I love it, I miss Smalltalk. 20:24
    That's how I read that. 20:27
    I was like, that's cute, that's [INAUDIBLE]. 20:27
    >> [LAUGH] >> Those endearing- 20:28
    >> Yeah, it was like, aw. 20:30
    >> Smalltalk is kind of interesting because it's kind of like C, 20:31
    where it's one of those languages that has begat a huge number of other languages. 20:34
    >> Right. >> That still holds some appeal to people, 20:38
    like- >> Right. 20:41
    >> Yeah, it's just interesting. 20:42
    >> And I apologize, for the Smalltalk developers who are watching this. 20:44
    No judgment. 20:47
    >> It's a fine language! 20:48
    >> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, and I'm very grateful that they 20:49
    paved the way for so many other object-oriented languages. 20:53
    >> Yeah. 20:56
    >> And I feel like there's, 20:57
    this is a new feature that's coming out in this language. 20:58
    I'm like, this was around in Smalltalk. 21:01
    They're like, what? 21:02
    >> [CROSSTALK] [LAUGH] >> Yeah, it's like, wow. 21:04
    Maybe that's what that's about. 21:07
    >> That's kinda how I read that, I was like aw, thanks, guy. 21:09
    >> It is kinda surprising that Rust was the number one loved language or 21:12
    whatever when it hasn't really been around that long. 21:14
    It's fairly fresh, and yet it's still attracted a huge amount of audience. 21:17
    >> So loved, I think, there, becauseI read that too, and I was like, come on. 21:21
    Come on, who- >> Like, am I missing [CROSSTALK]. 21:25
    >> [LAUGH] >> Who's actually gone- 21:27
    >> I think it's I want to be doing this, 21:29
    I want to be doing some Rust. 21:30
    >> Well, it could be that they loved doing it when they played with it in their 21:31
    spare time. 21:35
    It's not necessarily loved like, we love this in production. 21:35
    It's I've loved writing this language. 21:38
    It's been fun to write. 21:40
    >> And I think that would be more, again, see it's that, 21:41
    how are you gonna interpret this? 21:43
    >> [LAUGH] >> Right. 21:45
    >> Again, I think that would be, the loved would be more of, this shows more of a, 21:46
    this is what I do in my spare time. 21:51
    Because wouldn't I do a language I enjoy in my spare time? 21:52
    >> Yeah. 21:55
    >> Even if I might write something else for work? 21:55
    >> Yeah, you're going to do a hackathon, I'm going to do it in Rust. 21:58
    >> I enjoy the stuff that I do in my spare time and 22:01
    then get to write what I want to write, not what I necessarily do as my day job. 22:03
    >> So it's I love my spare time. 22:08
    >> I love my spare time, not necessarily Rust. 22:09
    >> Well and to be fair when you're learning something, 22:13
    there is a honeymoon phase you go through where everything is amazing about 22:15
    the thing that you're learning before you discover where the problems lie, right? 22:18
    So- >> The dreader there. 22:23
    I felt so bad for VB6. 22:24
    >> VBA was in there too. 22:26
    >> VBA was there MTV.NET to be fair. 22:30
    >> It's all of VB. 22:33
    >> But thing came out to make life easier, it was so much easier, 22:34
    something poke at the stars and now people just hate it. 22:38
    It feels bad. >> So I've actually done years of 22:41
    VB programming kind of reluctantly. 22:44
    But I would, but 22:49
    not because it's not something that you could be productive at or something you 22:51
    can make a living at, but just because it's not something that I'm interested in. 22:54
    Cuz while you're doing something, 22:57
    it can weigh your opportunity to do something else. 22:59
    It's that opportunity cost that I think I would tangle with the most, so. 23:01
    >> Well, Craig and I were talking about this earlier too that there's this very 23:08
    common misconception that it's surprising people haven't caught onto yet in tech. 23:11
    >> [LAUGH] >> That tech goes away. 23:16
    But it doesn't, tech never goes away, right? 23:18
    You're like okay, cool, we're gonna write this thing, I'm gonna use VBA on it. 23:22
    Cuz I can do that real quick, I can do it in 20 minutes, and it'll be done. 23:25
    And we'll replace this with a full-fledged app next month. 23:28
    >> Later. 23:31
    >> You will never replace that with a full-fledged app, right? 23:32
    Because the VBA will work well enough that it will stick around. 23:34
    And so, someone gets stuck with maintaining that stuck, 23:37
    because it's try to- >> What? 23:39
    >> Someone has to maintain that forever. 23:41
    And I mean, this was like- >> And then they fill out the survey. 23:44
    Great, dread this. >> And they fill out the- 23:46
    >> [CROSSTALK] 23:47
    >> And they dread reviewing it. 23:48
    >> Yeah, I hate having to do the horrible code that was written 20 years ago. 23:49
    >> Right. >> And it happens to be written in VB. 23:54
    >> Right. 23:56
    Well, we have this as actually, 23:57
    it's becoming a more major problem here in the US. 23:59
    Most of our banking, income tax and 24:01
    military security applications are written on COBOL and 24:07
    Fortran because those were the languages that were in demand in the 60s and 70s and 24:10
    80s when all this was written. 24:15
    So, banks are having a really, really hard time time finding 24:17
    people to maintain the Fortran code that runs there like lone systems. 24:20
    >> Yeah. >> And it's because tech never goes away. 24:25
    >> Right. >> That Fortran will be running 50 years 24:27
    from now. 24:29
    >> [LAUGH] >> Right. 24:30
    >> Because no one's ever going to take the time to replace it, 24:30
    and they will be on our dreaded list. 24:33
    >> [LAUGH] >> Nice, so, 24:34
    moving on to the work section, there was one piece of data in there that 24:37
    really stood out to me and I think you guys probably saw it as well. 24:42
    That under Job Discovery, 26.8% say they've found 24:47
    a new position through a friend, family member or former colleague. 24:51
    >> [INAUDIBLE]. 24:56
    >> [CROSSTALK] >> I though that was fairly low. 24:57
    >> Fair enough. 25:00
    I've had that personal experience myself, that finding a position and not having to 25:02
    even do a formal interview process because you kind of come through a trusted source. 25:06
    It makes a huge difference. 25:10
    >> Yeah, I was just surprised it was not higher because most people 25:14
    that I know have found jobs through some sort of network. 25:19
    >> Yeah. 25:24
    >> Either a acquaintance of an acquaintance but 25:25
    it's about who you know, I think that's very important and 25:28
    some hing that you should not be neglected is building that network. 25:32
    >> And on the other side to of like also helping 25:37
    people out when they need to come in, right? 25:41
    Remembering that if it's there, and that's when you expect to be hiring. 25:42
    If you are in a place where you are working and 25:47
    you do have connections, bring those people, bring those people in. 25:50
    >> There's also the other side of that too though, where the networks that we tend to 25:53
    have people to bring in from are often homogenous networks to us. 25:57
    The people who look like us. 26:00
    So, if we want to increase those diversion numbers, we want more women, 26:02
    we want more beautiful color, we want more LGBT, whoever, 26:07
    you need to not prioritize the friend of a friend. 26:11
    >> Right. >> As a hiring person, right, 26:15
    if you're a hiring manager. 26:16
    It's really cool that Craig recommended somebody and 26:17
    you should totally talk to them. 26:19
    But you should put just as much weight on them or give just as much weight to 26:21
    the other people that get brought in through traditional channels or 26:25
    through local diversity groups or whatever as you put on Craig's friend. 26:29
    >> Or make better friends. 26:33
    >> [LAUGH] >> There is also that, but 26:34
    that's very hard to do. 26:36
    >> Yeah. 26:36
    >> [LAUGH] >> Deliberately. 26:37
    >> Deliberately. 26:39
    >> Yeah, that's very hard to do. 26:39
    >> [LAUGH] >> Humans are not good at that. 26:40
    [LAUGH] >> So but before we move on to what I 26:42
    would call the speed round, which we'll get into a second here. 26:45
    >> Ooh! [LAUGH] 26:49
    >> Any other comments that anyone wanted 26:49
    to make about the survey itself, or any results within there? 26:52
    >> The only thing I was going to bring up, 26:57
    you talked about how Python had a big jump. 26:58
    And I think that is probably really due to data science becoming a bigger thing, 27:00
    as opposed to more people writing Django or Flask or whatever. 27:06
    I think a lot of that is just in the data science world because we have some really 27:10
    good tools like Pandas and NumPy that can do that work pretty easily for people. 27:13
    And I think that's a big part of why Python got the jump it did. 27:21
    And I think also JavaScript got the jump it did, is because of data science too, 27:23
    from people doing the analytics side, where they have to create graphs, 27:27
    create charts, create whatever to help visualize the data. 27:31
    >> Yeah, Elena? 27:33
    It falls along the same lines as Craig and I were talking about with, well, 27:35
    where do you get, if you see these results, and 27:39
    you see, this is the new greatest latest technology. 27:41
    What should I start learning? 27:44
    Well, it's not about where to start. 27:46
    There's some great resources out there. 27:48
    I would say all of our teachers, their basic courses are great. 27:51
    And they're easy to learn and friendly. 27:54
    >> Sure. >> And you can get started on the basics 27:56
    of programming in whatever language you want. 27:57
    >> Yeah. 28:00
    >> It's not as much about when to start as where you want to end up? 28:00
    >> Yeah. >> Each language has its strength. 28:04
    >> Yeah. >> And 28:08
    kind of the same with the data science cuz that's growing. 28:08
    If you're interested in data science, then by all means, go towards Python- 28:11
    >> Totally. 28:15
    >> Because it really works well like that. 28:16
    If you want to go more of the corporate America type of thing, go Java, 28:18
    I mean that's where- >> Or C#. 28:22
    >> Or C# but that's where- >> [INAUDIBLE] 28:25
    >> [LAUGH] 28:28
    >> He needs a validation. 28:30
    >> I know [INAUDIBLE] that C# there. 28:31
    But, where are you trying to go? 28:34
    Are you trying to do freelance? 28:36
    PHP is a great one, especially for people who wanna go freelance. 28:38
    That's one of the top ones I tell people, if you wanna do freelance. 28:42
    It's way easy to get started with PHP. 28:46
    So it's really more about what are you trying to accomplish and your goals than 28:49
    it is necessarily about reading a survey or finding the newest, latest, greatest 28:54
    thing to make sure that you kind of put this filter on things coming into you. 28:58
    >> Yeah. 29:03
    >> You just have to understand, 29:04
    everything has way more nuance than it looks like, right? 29:05
    >> Sure. >> Like you see the 25 at 32 or 29:07
    whatever the jump was on Python. 29:09
    You're like, wow. 29:11
    Python, right? [INAUDIBLE] But you have to realize, okay, 29:12
    yeah, but. 29:15
    It has all these little areas, right? 29:15
    >> If you want to go into corporate banking, probably learn Fortran. 29:17
    >> [CROSSTALK] >> Fortran 77 and COBOL, 29:20
    Smalltalk maybe like natural, all those mainframe languages. 29:23
    You will have a job for life. 29:28
    >> That's a good point that it's one survey. 29:29
    >> Yeah. >> And it's one survey in one year that 29:32
    we're looking at primarily, so don't give it too much weight. 29:35
    >> And it's a self selecting community as opposed to a National Census were 29:40
    everybody has to fill that out. 29:43
    >> Right, yep, that's a good point too. 29:43
    Okay Speed round. 29:48
    So I'm gonna ask you a series of questions. 29:49
    Some of these are gonna be pretty simple, straight-forward. 29:52
    But just try to keep it moving, short answers if you can. 29:54
    >> Okay. 29:58
    >> So, how do you pronounce. 29:59
    G-I-F, so that Graphics Interchange Format? 30:01
    >> That's what it is, yeah. 30:04
    >> I can't believe I actually remembered that. 30:05
    >> [LAUGH] >> How do you pronounce it? 30:07
    >> I know that it probably is supposed to be GIF, but I say animated GIF. 30:09
    >> [LAUGH] >> I do, I do, sorry. 30:12
    >> GIF. 30:15
    >> GIF. 30:15
    >> Yeah, I'm GIF. 30:16
    So we're split, 50/50. 30:17
    >> We're split down the middle. >> Which matches, I think, the results. 30:19
    >> [LAUGH] >> [CROSSTALK] 30:21
    >> What I loved about that question was 30:23
    there was an option that was something else. 30:25
    >> [LAUGH] >> That they say. 30:26
    Yeah, [INAUDIBLE]. 30:28
    Yeah. 30:29
    >> It was like GIF, GIF. 30:30
    >> G-I-F. 30:32
    >> Spell it out or something else. 30:34
    And it's like, what was the something else? 30:35
    How else could you say that? 30:37
    >> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] 30:38
    >> I will. 30:40
    Yeah, maybe that information is in the raw data. 30:40
    >> I would love to see that one. 30:43
    That's the only question I really want the raw data on. 30:44
    >> [LAUGH] All right next question, do you prefer to listen to music while coding or 30:45
    do you need it to be quiet? 30:50
    >> Absolutely music, absolutely without a doubt. 30:52
    >> Okay. >> [LAUGH] 30:55
    >> [LAUGH] 30:56
    >> It depends on what I'm doing. 30:57
    >> Interesting. 30:59
    >> I tend to, if I want to focus, I like sounds, that was one of their answers, 30:59
    if you like to listen to music or sounds. 31:03
    >> Right, like whale music, yeah. 31:05
    >> Or something like cello and piano music, the Piano Guys, 31:08
    really good, cello and piano, can't get much better than that. 31:13
    >> I'm the weird one, I guess. 31:17
    I listen to video game livestreams. 31:18
    >> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] Mostly from my friend Owen. 31:20
    He has a very calm, quiet voice. 31:22
    >> Do they narrate while they play? 31:24
    >> Yeah, so like they're playing and they're commenting. 31:26
    Usually it's just a lot of cursing. >> [LAUGH] 31:28
    >> As they die. 31:31
    >> That's insightful. 31:31
    >> So yeah, I'll have those on or sometimes it's music but 31:32
    most of the times, yeah, it's just video game live streams. 31:35
    >> I'm very much primarily music. 31:38
    There are times when I kinda just need to not listen to music. 31:40
    And then for me, within there is an interesting question too. 31:43
    Like what kind of music? 31:47
    Cuz I find myself needing different kinds of motivation musically at 31:49
    different times. 31:52
    >> All right, it's time to learn? 31:53
    Based upon what you saw in the survey, what would you like to learn? 31:58
    >> Wow. >> [LAUGH] 32:02
    >> [CROSSTALK] It's time to learn. 32:03
    >> Yeah, I'm looking for the end of that. 32:05
    >> Yeah, I guess I was definitely interested by the extreme, 32:07
    I'm gonna fall for it, the extreme love for trust. 32:11
    >> Yeah, yeah. 32:15
    >> I think that's it. 32:16
    >> I think it's time to learn. 32:16
    I think that's really what the, what it- >> Stop there. 32:18
    >> Stop there, I mean that's I think what the survey showed. 32:20
    >> I was asking you personally though, was there anything you saw that was like, 32:24
    that's interesting maybe I should check that out? 32:27
    >> I don't know that something specific stood out like that. 32:29
    I do think it really stood out that you have to keep learning. 32:33
    And those people that had the degrees and they're still learning 90% and they go on. 32:37
    Yes, you have to keep learning, 32:40
    there's lots of different technologies out there, learning. 32:42
    >> Okay. 32:44
    >> Learning. 32:45
    >> Kenneth? 32:46
    >> I'll do C# just to give you a bump. 32:46
    >> [LAUGH] >> My answer's a little odd because I 32:48
    didn't see the thing that I wanted to confirm to myself. 32:53
    Elm, I was looking for Elm in there. 32:57
    And so I actually started learning Elm this week because I've been wanting to 32:59
    do that. 33:03
    >> Despite the survey. >> Despite the survey. 33:04
    >> Despite the survey. 33:05
    All right, last question. 33:07
    I predict that in next years survey, [LAUGH] 33:08
    >> That we are going to see 33:11
    diversity numbers grow up, way high. 33:14
    Everything we want to see is gonna be there. 33:18
    >> Yes. >> [LAUGH] 33:20
    >> Because people are gonna be more open 33:21
    and Stack Overflow community is gonna change into a place where it's welcoming. 33:22
    >> Yeah. >> And that's. 33:25
    >> Excellent. Elena? 33:28
    >> [LAUGH] I would really like to see that. 33:29
    >> I'd love to see that. 33:32
    >> It'd be amazing. 33:33
    >> I wonder how we can promote that? 33:34
    >> [LAUGH] >> The only clip we're gonna have 33:35
    is that one. 33:38
    [LAUGH] >> I don't know. 33:38
    I would like to see that. 33:40
    We could be positive and go with Craig's, let's see this, and 33:40
    the diversity numbers trice. 33:44
    But I do think I would like to see that. 33:45
    I would still predict that it will probably be low. 33:47
    But I would also predict that we'll see an increase in the diversity numbers. 33:49
    And I'm going to say that they're still going to be a lot of conflict. 33:54
    >> Okay. 33:58
    Kenneth? 33:59
    >> I think we will start to see stuff pull away a bit more. 34:00
    Cuz it seems like the top four or five, six languages were fairly close in usage. 34:04
    I think we'll start to see JavaScript, Python, 34:07
    React, cuz I know they have that kind of separate thing. 34:11
    I think we'll start to see those pull away because we are getting into more of 34:15
    a data heavy world. 34:18
    Maybe you'll start to see things listed as Hadoop or 34:18
    some of the other deep learning tensor flow, right? 34:21
    Those will start being way higher and we'll start to see a drop off of the more 34:24
    traditional languages, even though they're just as good as the others. 34:28
    I think that's probably what what we'll start to see over the next- 34:32
    >> I would like to see more deep learning. 34:36
    I would say we'll probably see more deep learning on a survey next year. 34:38
    >> That's definitely gonna, so I'm part of a conference, and 34:41
    we just finished our call for papers. 34:45
    We have an inordinate number of papers for things like Graph QL and 34:47
    Tensor Flow and all these deep learning things. 34:51
    So I think that's going to really be a big area over the next couple of years. 34:53
    >> Cool. 34:57
    That'd be exciting to see. 34:58
    >> I imagine that there will be something on the dreaded list that didn't 34:59
    exist before. 35:02
    >> [LAUGH] >> Written in JavaScript. 35:03
    >> Maybe it's up to us to create that thing that's going to be the most dreaded. 35:05
    >> Right. >> A new flavor of VB, possibly. 35:08
    >> Hopefully. 35:12
    >> [LAUGH] >> VB JavaScript. 35:12
    >> Hopefully, next year, we will see that they have applied deep learning 35:14
    technologies to the survey results so 35:17
    that we're not left with all of these ambiguities. 35:18
    >> There we go. 35:20
    >> Yeah, excellent, great. 35:21
    >> Well Craig, Elena, Kenneth, thanks for joining me to 35:23
    talk about the Stack Overflow survey results, this has been fun. 35:25
    >> Thanks for having us, [INAUDIBLE]. 35:28
    >> Thanks for having us. >> This was great. 35:30
    >> So be sure to check the show notes for links to additional resources, and 35:31
    let us know how we're doing. 35:35
    Be sure to rate this video. 35:36
    Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time. 35:37
    >> Bye. 35:39

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