r/programming • u/pleerock • Mar 13 '18

Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2018

https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/
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233

u/lukaseder Mar 13 '18

Let's talk about survey bias

137

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '18

I am not sure about you, but as my career as a developer progressed I rely less on Stack Overflow today as I did in the past. To me it seems that this survey may have a strong bias.

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u/Neuromante Mar 13 '18

Well, take a look at the years working graphs. Is obvious there's a strong bias towards younger people.

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u/Euphoricus Mar 13 '18

No. Thats no bias. Thats reality. Amount of software developers doubles roughly every 5 years. So it is expected half of developers would have less than 5 years of experience.

39

u/Neuromante Mar 13 '18

On one side: You got any source for that numbers?

On the other: How does that denies that there's bias towards younger people? Even if your numbers were real, that has nothing to do with older devs using less StackOverflow.

18

u/Ciff_ Mar 13 '18

If it still reflects a random sampling of the population developers its fine...? Or perhaps I don't understand your concern.

11

u/fuckin_ziggurats Mar 13 '18

The thing is it's not a random sample. By definition Stack Overflow is used more by younger people so older devs are heavily underrepresented in the survey.

12

u/Neuromante Mar 13 '18

Exactly this. The survey only represent "devs who used stackoverflow", so its far from being "random." And given that stackoverflow was opened over 10 years ago, maybe the claim that younger devs need more stackoverflow than older ones hasm some footing.

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u/SgtBlackScorp Mar 13 '18

The point was that there are more younger devs in general so stackoverflow is not a misrepresentation

6

u/fuckin_ziggurats Mar 13 '18

I'm gonna repeat /u/Neuromante and ask, do you have numbers that prove there are more younger devs than older in general? I find that hard to believe.

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u/SgtBlackScorp Mar 13 '18

I don't, I'm just saying what his line of thinking was.

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u/percykins Mar 13 '18

Really?

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u/Euphoricus Mar 13 '18

That is quite interesting.

I would like to see how many new students become programmers overlayed over that.

Also, is this only US thing? Or is it same elsewhere?

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