(banner: top 100 tags, proportional to their number of articles)
I am on dev.to for a while now, and I couldn't help noticing that most of the fea...
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I've noticed this too. Hackernews tends to have a more advanced backend/systems focus. While dev is mostly react and ts/js. I wish dev drew more interest from the backend/systems types because that's what I am more interested in and I like dev as a platform more than hackernews. Reddit is probably my favorite because it's a nice mix of everything.
I agree ! They launched community.ops.io a while back, but it is really focused on devsecops, not much room for backend devs either.
Can you recommend some subreddits?
It depends on what you're into. /r/rust /r/linux /r/nixos /r/programming /r/unixporn and /r/neovim are some of my favorites.
Nice job with the numbers ;)
I think we all know that, it was even discussed around last community survey, I think. And while I don't mind not being in mainstream (although it does not exactly encourage to write), I don't love association webdev == javascript, like nothing else exists.
It's interesting really. I migrated my personal blog posts over to here some years ago, and wrote a few posts for here, including a top 7, but since then I found most of the posts are beginner oriented and mostly web dev or top lists etc. More advanced subjects don't seem to really do well, which discourages old hats like myself from both posting, and reading. In fact, I only read dev.to posts now when I stumble upon them. As you say, fantastic for the newbies, resources like this didn't exist decades ago, but sadly, pushes out some of us older folks at the same time.
It's also because the more experienced you are, the more you will only look up complex articles when you're working on a project and have to solve that particular issue. It's rare for example to have fix emails for outlook 2003, or to fix SSL on a server within a load balanced network config, or to fix some specific API issue from some specific service. So articles aimed at specific things like that only get read when a dev needs it and googles for it.
Personally, i like reading random stuff, but unless it's a stack or tool i personally have a need for, i don't always read it either.
Politely, I disagree. My most hit site has to be HN, and I mostly look each day for interesting articles. When I see things like how the original Pong had no software, but was entirely hardware based, or when I see interesting articles talking about known AI methods being used for novel purposes, or when I see lists of advice from the older generation, the 1970s and 1980s programmers (with my being a 90s programmer), I love to read them. If anything, dev.to just isn't the right crowd for me. That's fine, that's totally okay, Ben is doing a great job here in providing for our new devs the things we didn't have all those years ago. Where we lived on IRC, now people have this modern internet, with such a wealth of resource: tutorials, blogs, comment sections, Twitter, a whole world of curated information and experience. So while dev.to doesn't really cater to folks like me, it is a great place, and I hope it continues to flourish.
Adam, why not share about the advanced stuff you discover here, cross-post, link do whatever and just put it here together with contributions like your comments above.
It makes you "a friendly approachable human" that from my point of view is someone worth looking more into. It might get more senior-dev folks interested and assisted as clearly is the need discussed here.
Even thouh many senior devs feel they don't want to write or blog a lot, which is all good,why not simply stroll in now and then, those article links on the "Dev.to coffee table" and say:
Hi!, look what I've found while looking for answers to X,Y,Z. I recommend you take a look if you ever run into A,B,C.
Us "kids" can then sneak in, have a look at all those "adult mags" and come asking questions in your "Note-posts" section. "So, Adam why should I use SOAP when linking my user auth to ... ? Wouldn't REST be easier? Everybody says SOAP is an archaic old-timer and should be avoided." ...
Just a thought.
Great analysis, not a surprising outcome ... I've bookmarked this article, but more for the techniques that you used to do the analysis than for the results per se.
Yes, obviously (but you proved it) dev.to is heavily skewed towards beginners, webdev, JS/CSS/HTML, React (I mean React is also HUGE on dev.to) ...
Then when you say "web dev" you overwhelmingly say 'frontend' ... and when you say frontend React is dominant, 'vanilla JS' is there, CSS is popular, stuff like Vue, Angular, much less so.
And if you say "backend" then most of the time you say "node.js" - a bit Python too, much less Ruby/Rails, PHP/Laravel, Golang, Rust etc.
Interesting analysis. Some posts in popular tags may touch upon the tag topic just enough to avoid tag removal by tag moderators, but are mostly about something else. Someone a while back posted about their strategies to reach more readers, and suggested including some connection in posts to webdev or javascript based on tag. I disagree with that strategy because ultimately it may just annoy those who do read it expecting something else. But if many use that approach, then popular tags become more popular due to their popularity.
This post isn't the one I was thinking of, but includes a quote related: "for nearly any article the #webdev tag is likely to fit": dev.to/grahamthedev/it-is-possible...
That is a good point, and I also strongly disagree with this technique. I used it for the first time on this post, but it was more for the joke.
Please, do not use this article to pick the best tags for your articles, just keep writing and tagging what you love!
@derlin and @ben Can't the DEV.to team add something like a "priority tag" or "main-focus tag" to lift say Vue, Laravel, Node, Go or any other #tags out?
Like a high-lighter the post writer can use.
Yes it's about web dev, but it's Laravel-based and even more so Lumen microservice-based, discussing GraphQL API interfaces and using Vue for example?
And even use the order of the sub-tags from most relevant to least relevant to the specific post.
I haven't thought of it this way, very good points! The new expertise level features may help improve a bit the feed, let's see.
Since you work(ed) at dev.to, any idea about the discrepancies we see in the "XXX posts published" on the top tags vs tag page? I am curious.
This was a great read you produced Lucy @derlin!
Anyway, as a beginner I find these types of advanced posts, with a great practical example, as given here by you, fascinating, valuable to learn from and thus priceless. Thank you!
From my perspective the data is showing me that many beginners prefer to come here to DEV.to because they are not frowned upon when posting something from their learning-point of view. And even more so female devs and even non-devs feeling comfortable with appearing in public, accepted and welcomed without the type of scorn and toxicity found on places like Stackoverflow and even Reddit sometimes. The crap behaviour of many senior developer elitists is quite sickening.
So yes, the masses are moving to places where they feel safer and welcomed, regardless of their skill levels. The easiest entry-point into SW Dev is web-development so it makes sense.
In my opinion to get noticed or "shine" as a senior dev is when people like you and quite a number of others here are willing to come down to our level of existence,and:
All in a manner that we have no choice but to come running back with praise and thanks, or even more questions.
Now you will get noticed by the masses, your "magnetism" will "shine" and draw in other senior devs when they start seeing the results of "giving, before asking" and both junior and senior networks here will grow in a synergistic and accessible-to-all way.
Please do consider yourself followed and bookmarked!
Thank you again for the lesson of above and opportunity to speak from the bottom up.
Such a wonderful message you give us here, thank you!
It is true the dev communities may be harsh sometimes, and senior devs have a responsibility and a big part to play. Dev.to is currently a good example of non toxic environment, let's all work together to keep it that way.
And many (many) thanks for the kind words, I hope it will motivate other senior devs to post and comment more!
Thanks for your time, Lucy! And please do continue, we are here, ready and eager to sit our asses down to learn from you guys.
The more complex the article the fewer people have the resources to spare for reading and understanding it. It is much easier to write a short tutorial for beginners than a high level white paper. It is easier to do webdev and understanding it just by reading than other dev work.
All this is very normal. The only improvement I see is to focus on highlighting quality rather than reads and likes.
Thanks for collecting, analyzing and sharing! Some thoughts after a quick look at your findings:
After reading your post, I am even less interesting in the results of the upcoming State of JavaScript and StackOverflow survey results and what our profession's apparent mainstream seems to care about.
My own conclusion, as a web developer who once was a beginner: trying to learn and discuss something new and focus (even more) on the less popular hashtags when choosing what to write about in the future.
I am still not sure about the consequences and importance of the findings. Is it a bad thing, that DEV is for beginners and web developers? Does the popularity of these topics mean that there is nothing else, and if there is, can we filter topics and create bubbles of interest, if we want to?
I am guilty of using popular topics to gain more attention, writing some posts for beginners, and writing more about JavaScript than I would otherwise have done would it not be that popular. I also tried other deceptive patterns like including upcoming years ("for 2022") or emojis in the title, or watiting for a specific "lucky" time to release, holding back content instead of releasing immediately. While some of that might actually have helped, I would not follow that path any further.
So, besides JavaScript, what else will I possibly want to share and discuss? I already wrote about PHP, Linux, networking (both social networking between human beings, attending meetups, recommending coworking cafés, and solving problems connecting computers to local WiFi networks and the internet), career, and sustainability. I also engaged in the meta discussion about DEV, Mastodon, Twitter, and other social networks. I even wrote about "Web3", which I am mostly skeptical about, but I always want to be fair and open minded.
What else does your list of less popular hashtags has to offer?
After reading your post again and again, I come to the conclusion, that we should not take quantitative analytics too seriously. Just like most people seem to celebrate football (soccer), baseball, cricket, or whatever is the mainstream sports spectacle in your culture, we do not need to care just because everyone else does.
I don't think it is a bad thing, and hope my readers didn't take it this way. My main goal was to reassure writers like myself who write about other topics that they shouldn't interpret the lack of reaction (compared to other articles) as solely a judgment on quality. You got ten readers or a couple reactions on a more backend post? Celebrate it and keep going, that is amazing given the trend!
I also hope this post will inspire some to "rebel" against this, by participating more on less trendy topics.
I would be so happy to re-run the analysis in a year, and see a different, more balanced curve. You seem to be one of them, thank you!
This is the right attitude!
I will!
Great job!
(See last paragraph for tl;dr)
I thought there was such a bias. It's good to have numerical confirmation. :) The whole site was a bit of a surprise to me because, 6 years ago, I had successfully cloistered myself away from flashy pushy software which gives me a headache and, quite unscientifically, from technologies associated with it, especially javascript. The topic which brought be here was balanced ternary computers. (They didn't use binary numbers.) Dev.to was a modern site, but I hadn't really noticed that modern sites (and apps) were starting to move beyond flashiness and pushiness.
My self-cloistering was not unique to myself, and not really confined to just the "flashiness and pushiness" aspect. I surrounded myself with people more intelligent than myself, but these people had even less respect for Web 2.0. We wanted straightforward and simple code and standards because we felt complexity wasted our time, increased bugs, and gave us unnecessary headaches. We didn't realise that simplicity itself is a surprisingly complex subject, but I still think we weren't entirely wrong.
And we weren't the only ones. Valuing simplicity is common (though by no means universal) amongst systems developers. Ken Thompson of Unix fame was particularly keen on simplicity. And while Hacker News is not in his league, it's particuarly interesting for this discussion. As @siph points out, "Hackernews tends to have a more advanced backend/systems focus," yet its web design and coding is intentionally primitive. Launched at a time when the hate for tables was already entrenched, Hacker News uses tables for layout. Why? Because they're simple and straightforward. It's implemented in a form of Lisp which eschews Lisp's traditional
long-compound-namesin favour of short abbreviated names. It's widely understood that short names limit code clarity, but they're fine if the language has a limited vocabulary -- limited scope. A limited scope is intrinsically simple to understand and to use for its intended purpose. Hacker News very publically posted both of these facts about its implementation at its launch, and it quickly developed a community of backend and systems engineers.Does anyone else remember when mobile browsers would simply rearrange table elements, stacking all the cells in a vertical run, sizing them to the screen width horizontally and to fit the contents vertically? I was more comfortable then. I found more sites were accessible then than they are now, because now users are almost entirely dependent on site coders understanding the full range of users needs. Far less than half of the sites I visit were coded with such understanding. I also recall the Opera browser in the early 2010s making other little accessiblity/quality of life improvements such as taking containers which were wider than the screen and wrapping text to the screen margin rather than the full width of the container. That was a very big help, but it and all the other little conveniences have been swept away with the tide. And, as someone who would like to again have a site of my own, I can no longer rely on these things. I'd have to do all the accessibility work myself or rely on a big site provider with their flashy, pushy UIs, though again, they're not really so flashy and pushy any more.
Sooo... have I got off topic? I guess I have. I was trying to explain that some deep coders prefer "Web 1.0" sites or even more primitive technology, but looking at the big picture, I think Hacker News caught a lot of deep coders early on and network effects keep it that way. Others prefer smaller more focused communities, Reddit has been mentioned by others, but I think a really big one for deep coders is Stack Exchange. It doesn't carry the same sort of content, but it is a coding community and if you spend hours on one community every day, you're not going to have time for others.
Very interesting research!
Great article Lucy.
I feel like part of the reason that dev.to is mostly used by frontend, web & beginner developers is that backend / full-stack developers are much more likely to set up their own blogging solution and integrate it to their personal website.
As time progresses, I'm curious to see how the nature of our discussions might evolve. It's a natural progression, isn't it, that those who are just starting out on their journey in the Dev.to community won't always remain at the beginner level.
They're bound to grow and develop their skills. With that in mind, do you think we'll witness a gradual shift in the topics we delve into here, moving towards more advanced and complex subjects? It would be fascinating to observe such a transformation, especially among readers who continue to engage and grow with the Dev.to community.
I noticed this long time ago. For example, my article 7 interesting deprecated JavaScript features is the most popular one compared to all others and right after it comes the In defense of TypeScript. Both are catered more towards beginners and are related to JS / TS.
I would like to see more advanced content on the site but I understand there is a small audience interested for that.
What about medium.com?
Medium has amazing content, but I dislike the limited access and the writing experience is awful. Having to use gists to get proper code formatting is soo annoying!
Medium is for a general purpose, dev is more related to programming.
What sites are focused on backend then?
For real
There is a lot of great information on this site for beginners.
you forgot that it is also for spambots
We can see the beginners tags daily, and this data prove it. Good job!