As every other year the Stack Overflow survey is out and it has some great insights that we would like to share with you all in our blog today.
We will touch upon some of the most interesting aspects of the survey that caught our attention so you don’t have to dig through the whole survey to find them. So let’s begin!
Docker emerges as the go-to developer tool
Kubernetes may have stopped using Docker internally but that has had little to no impact on Docker’s popularity among professional developers.
The survey states that over the 54 thousand developers surveyed almost 59% of them prefer Docker over other tools.
If you ask developers then the reason would be Docker’s ability to create consistent, portable environments that work seamlessly across different stages of development. By simplifying dependency management and providing easy scalability, Docker ensures that applications run reliably from local machines to production servers. Its popularity is further fueled by its ease of use, robust isolation features, and the ability to version control environments, making it a favorite among developers for both collaboration and reproducibility.
Rust wins a lot of admirers
Languages like JavaScript, Python, and SQL may never lose their popularity Rust on the other hand is swiftly gaining new followers with a hefty 83% score in the most admired programming language.
But why the admiration? Developers particularly appreciate its strict compiler checks, which catch errors early and ensure robust, reliable code. Additionally, Rust’s modern syntax and growing ecosystem make it both powerful and enjoyable to work with, which is why it’s gaining such a strong following.
Ruff gives tough competition
The category for other frameworks and libraries that have been used by developers for extensive development in the last couple of years has been dominated by Ruff which has scored a good 84% when asked developers how they feel about it: they love it and want to keep using it in the future.
This favourability for Ruff comes from its efficiency which is the priority for any developer. Not just that but Ruff is often described as a modern Python linter for error-free and maintainable code.
Erlang emerges as the highest-paying language
Erlang emerged as the highest-paying job with surveyed developers earning an average of $100,636 annually. The next few languages that follow are Elixir, Clojure, Nim, and Ruby thus making them the top five highest-paying languages for developers.
But what makes these languages stand out? Their specialized use cases and the demand for niche expertise.
Erlang and Elixir, for example, are known for their concurrency and fault-tolerant systems, making them ideal for telecommunications and distributed systems.
Clojure’s functional programming paradigm appeals to companies focused on data-intensive applications. Nim offers a mix of performance and expressiveness, while Ruby’s simplicity and productivity make it popular for web development.
The scarcity of skilled developers in these languages drives up demand, leading to higher salaries.
AI rising in popularity
Out of the 60,907 people surveyed 76% of all respondents are using or are planning to use AI tools in their development process this year which is a 6% increase from last year where only 70% of the people surveyed expressed the same sentiments.
And as for developers using AI tools for their development processes: 62% which is a steep increase from last year’s 44%.
This is indicative of how AI needs to evolve for developers specifically for it to be more efficient for their specific workflows.
To AI or not to AI is the question
Among the respondents, a significant 72% view AI tools for development favorably or very favorably. However, this marks a 5% decrease from last year. This decline may be attributed to the subpar results many users experience from AI-generated answers.
This has been a huge problem with AI in all space. Everyone enjoys the new technology that has brought a change to the technology landscape but the erroneous and often hilariously inaccurate answers that AI provides make a lot of its users from being vary about trusting the technology.
AI as developers’ helping hand?
AI has emerged as the go-to tool for increasing developer’s productivity with 81% of the surveyed developers agreeing with the sentiment. However, increasing productivity doesn’t cut it with developers as 31% of developers are skeptical about the accuracy of AI while 43% are good about accuracy.
But when it comes to complex tasks almost half (45%) of professional developers believe AI tools are bad or very bad at handling complex tasks.
So when it comes to workflow almost 82% of developers are using AI tools to write code.
Amongst the AI debate, 70% of professional developers do not perceive AI as a threat to their jobs because over 79% of developers have an ethical concern with the results of AI that contain misinformation and disinformation.
Who’s the highest-earning of them all?
When it comes to job roles the creme de la creme amongst developers are site reliability and cloud infrastructure engineers.
But to earn well in the development field you must be one of the top executives to earn the highest pay cheques. According to the survey the top 5 highest earning job roles include:
| Job roles | Salary |
|---|---|
| Senior Executive | $127,388 |
| Dev Advocate | $124,203 |
| Manager | $115,999.5 |
| Dev Experience | $109,483 |
| SRE | $99,099 |
Parting words
The Stack Overflow survey has been deemed a fairly reliable data source for trends in the developer landscape, and the 2024 edition is no exception.
This year’s insights reveal a lot about the evolving preferences and priorities of developers worldwide.
As we move forward, it’s clear that the development landscape will continue to be shaped by both emerging technologies and the enduring preferences of developers.
We hope this blog gave you insights into the Stack Overflow survey and we hope that someday JDoodle too gets featured on the survey!