A Brief Rundown of the 2018 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results

After the large-scale effort from Stack Overflow to survey and to collect data from developers around the world, the results bring expected and thoughtful conversation to the tables of those who are looking to understand some of the issues, ideas, and opinions primarily surrounding back-end, full-stack, and front-end developers. To highlight a few of the outcomes of the 2018 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results, it was noted that:

• With little surprise, JavaScript is still one of the most commonly used programming languages, just eking out the use of HTML. It should be noted, however, that Python has climbed the ranks to surpass languages like C#, PHP, and C+ to settle in just below Bash. It's likely that with the surge in machine learning positions and development, as also noted in the survey and further down in this article, developers are preferring the wide gamut of Python's libraries to tackle big data solutions and aspects within the data science field.  
• There are a range of robust opinions on the ramifications and the considerations that developers will encounter when dealing with artificial intelligence and critical decision-making skills being left to algorithms. A few sections had large divergences in thought, pointing out that while developers have concerns over AI use, there's overwhelming excitement at the possibilities AI offers and how it will impact future technology. And, while there was some gray area as to whom should be responsible for the AI, the developers came into agreement that those creating the algorithms should be held responsible with governmental bodies stepping in as a next resort.  
• After discussion of AI, it correlates to the survey data where it can be noted that the need for data scientists and machine learning specialists is on the rise. With the machine learning specialists, they are now commanding a higher salary, coming in around $60,000 USD, with DevOps specialists and engineering managers at the salary forefront.  
• In the vein of ethical responsibility, it appears that developers were reticent to write unethical code. Most respondents declared that they would refuse to write code if it were unethical with 58.5% in favor of that decision. Notably, the survey had about a third, 35.7%, of the developers respond that they would consider writing unethical code depending on what it was and assuming it fit into their own sense of ethics.  

Overall, the survey underscored some of the obvious static trends within the developing world but also revealed shifts that are undoubtedly going to become more prominent within the coming years. While here at Infragistics, we continually pride ourselves on foresight and forward-thinking, as we have aligned to the larger coding trends and have worked to craft experiences that will encourage incoming developers and those looking for better business solutions. Take some time to look at our impact with Ignite UI for JavaScript which currently boasts the fastest jQuery grid on the market, and be sure to check our pages periodically for news and updates on our products and pieces from our thought-leaders.