DEV Community

Why I choose to devalue StackOverFlow Surveys

Mahesh K on April 13, 2019

Almost every developer forum that I visit these days is talking about the stackoverflow developer surveys. But I choose to ignore it. Why? There ar...
Collapse
 
perigk profile image
Periklis Gkolias

I agree that there is a lot of wishful thinking, though you cannot ignore 90000 people. After all, most of the results are reflected in job adverts too.

I prefer other surveys as well, like the skill-up from Packt but for different reasons.

Collapse
 
abeburnett profile image
Abe Burnett

I might suggest a visit to the Pluralsight Technology Index. I built it to solve for many of these complaints. It's early days yet, but I still think there's some value to our perspective. Rest assured we're working to improve every aspect of the PTI (more data sources, more refined filtering, etc.).

pluralsight.com/tech-index

Collapse
 
elasticrash profile image
Stefanos Kouroupis

I won't disagree with any of your conclusions but one thing I have I'll disagree is that, if you know how to read surveys properly your opinion is indeed hidden among those results. Maybe it's not visible to everyone but as far as it concerns me it's a well structured survey. Well structured surveys hide things beyond any nerd's surface

Collapse
 
steelwolf180 profile image
Max Ong Zong Bao

I think it might be useful as just a point of reference on new tools and you might want to pick up.

Other than that it will be totally really subjective in nature on what to use or not to use for your company.

Collapse
 
aldass profile image
Al Dass

It's obviously not perfection but, better than the alternative of "subjective feelings" from my limited sphere of tech ppl I gleen info from...like all surveys, they are useful only if taken with a grain of salt. For me they provide prospective outside of my sphere of tech influence as long as I always apply critical thinking to what's being peddled.

Collapse
 
brunoborges profile image
Bruno Borges

You should see this thread: twitter.com/brunoborges/status/111...

Collapse
 
johannesvollmer profile image
Johannes Vollmer

Not disagreeing with you, but have you ever tried both C++ and Rust? You shouldn't call recommending Rust over C++ brainwashing unless you know both languages, really.

Collapse
 
maheshkale profile image
Mahesh K

Yes, I tried both the languages. Rust is too early to call for this much level of preaching that it gets on stackoverflow. Same with Go lang. It's the fanboyish approach I hate because people are using those surveys as if it's reality, which it's not.

Collapse
 
johannesvollmer profile image
Johannes Vollmer

I certainly would not recommend using Rust in all situations, but maturing the language will only improve as more and more people start to use it.

Thread Thread
 
maheshkale profile image
Mahesh K

The thing is Rust and Go are yet to be matured to be adopted like say React in javascript. Do we see Rust being adopted by Intel to make all those performance and adoption claims? yet stackoverflow surveys are being quoted as if it's credible IEEE journal. That's my issue with stackoverflow, its like cult using their own propaganda on programming community.

Collapse
 
maheshkale profile image
Mahesh K

Totally agree.