FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS OF

STACK OVERFLOW DEVELOPER

SURVEY DATA IN 2019

PREPARED BY:
Resza Tania Putri
DATA ANALYST

DATE: MAY 15, 2023

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OUTLINE
❑ Executive Summary

❑ Introduction

❑ Methodology

❑ Results

▪ Visualization – Charts
▪ Dashboard
❑ Discussion

▪ Findings & Implications

❑ Conclusion

❑ Appendix 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

❑ IT solutions are evolving and developing at a rapid pace in today's world and
determining which solutions and skills are needed to keep pace with
competititors is challenging for today’s digital society.

❑ This report aims to reveal the current and future trends expected in the
marketplace as it relates to programming languages, databases and
webframes/ The analysis provides:
❑ Most popular programming languages in 2019
❑ Predictions reflecting which programming languages will rise in future popularity
❑ Demographics of the respondents

❑ This analysis and report findings will be of interest to current and

aspiring programmers, policy-makers, educators and hiring
managers of businesses.

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INTRODUCTION ❑ The principle of this project is to answer one key question — “What are current and
future trends of programming skills?”

❑ The audience: HR and staffing managers, policy makers, educational institutions &
current and future programming developers

❑ The online knowledge sharing platform known as Stack Overflow conducts an annual
survey where the primary objective is to gather respondent data regarding
technology use and programming trends by developers. My analysis uses a subset of
the 2019 dataset to extrapolate trends (subset dataset: n = 11,398 responses, full
dataset: n ~90k responses).

❑ In order to gain insights and make recommendations on current and future trends in
IT solutions, my first task was to collect reliable and accurate data on the top
programming skills from a variety of sources including:
❑ Job Postings
❑ Training Portals
❑ Surveys

❑ With the data collected it was necessary to wrangle and clean the data to prepare it
for analysis using a variety of standard methods. I needed the data formats to be
consistent and without missing values or errors.

❑ The next task was to apply statistical methods and techniques to analyze the data 4
and gain insights that provide clear observations.
METHODOLOGY • Data collection methods included:
• Using WebAPI’s in Python to pull job postings from GitHub
• Using WebScraping methods in Python to pull in survey data related to
Programming Languages Annual Salarys
• Using SQL query to pull in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2019
data in .csv format
• Using two modified subsets of the Stack Overflow data set, .csv files
were uploaded into Cognos Dashboard Embedded(CDE) to prepare for
analysis.
• Data Wrangling, Munging and Normalization were applied:
• Standard techniques in Python and Excel were used to clean and prepare
the data for analysis
• Tasks such as identifying and removing duplicate rows or columns, find
and imputing missing values, discovering data outliers and evaluating
their impact and normalizing the data through regression
• Exploring the data for correlations and insights was performed:
• The next step involved extensive and detailed reviews of the data sets to
identify the data distribution, removing disruptive outliers, exploring the
correlation between features in the datasets using a variety of
histograms, box plots and bar charts.
• Data visualization through IBM Cognos Analytics
• Finally, the datasets were used to create dynamic visual dashboards that 5
can be interactively used to display the findings in an easy-to-read
format.
RESULTS

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 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE TRENDS

Most Popular Languages in 2019 Desired Languages in Next year

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PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE TRENDS - FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS
Findings
• JavaScript and HTML/CSS are the two
most popular languages reported by
survey respondents and remain so in
the next year.
• Python language popularity increases
from the 5th most popular to the 3rd
most popular next year.
• SQL popularity drops slightly next year
but remains steady in the middle of the
top 5.
• Bash/Shell drops sharply in popularity
in the future
• TypeScript , not in the top 5 today,
breaks into the top 5 next year due to a
rise in popularity
Implications
• JavaScript and HTML/CSS’ continued
popularity year over year implies that
web development language remain
dominant, however TypeScript’s sharp
rise in popularity may signal a chase for
it to catch up and rival.
• Python’s increase in popularity reflects
the demand for an easier to learn
general purpose language and may be a
bellwether of the anticipation of ML
and AI developments.
• SQL remains steady as the preferred
language to support data querying and
Big Data and there are no apparent
reasons why it won’t continue to be in
high demand. 8
 DATABASE TRENDS

Most Popular Databases in 2019 Desired Databases in Next year

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 DATABASE TRENDS - FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS
• SQL databases dominate as the most
popular in 2019, with MySQL at the top
and still remains in the top 4 in the next
year.
• PostgreSQL takes the lead in popularity
next year as it continues to gain favor
with respondents.
• MongoDB continues a steady rise in
popularity being in the top 5 currently
and rising just below the top spot next
year.
• Oracle’s popularity plummets in the
future year, while Elastisearch and
Redis’ popularity is worth noting as it
makes a rise into the top 5 next year.
• Current and future data analyst who are
forward looking should prioritize
developing competency in SQL
database programs as they show no
signs of slowing in popularity.
• Open-source database structures are
trending upward in popularity among
developers.
• Oracle databases dominated the
markets in the 1990’s and is still
embedded in very large organizations,
however their decline in popularity
might signal a move away from the
platform for the small database markets
and is worth exploring further.
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DASHBOARD

⯈ The URL below allows any user to view and interact

with the shared dashboard in IBM Cognos Analytics

⯈ https://dataplatform.cloud.ibm.com/dashboards/6
e6d31f4-86d9-4f5b-a128-
47a7fa710090/view/1911e21562b428e263c8c4e40
7cc245579652d0bb2bb8b0789827b4906637997a8
61139 5c828180cd3160266f3b81a509c

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DASHBOARD – CURRENT TECHNOLOGY USAGE

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DASHBOARD – FUTURE TECHNOLOGY TREND

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DASHBOARD – DEMOGRAPHICS

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DISCUSSION

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 Findings OVERALL FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS
• Javascript, HTML/CSS are the most widely used
languages currently and look to remain popular in
the future.
• Python and Typescript are growing in popularity in
the future year.
• SQL is the dominate database used by respondents
in the survey, with MySQL being the current most
popular but PostgreSQL looks to be the most
popular next year.
• Concerning Platforms being preferred, Windows &
Linux, were listed as the most popular now, but
next year sees Linux, Docker and AWS holding the
top spots in popularity.
• jQuery is currently the most popular Web Frame
but for the future, React.js easily becomes the
preferred Web Frame
• Of respondents, nearly 94% were men with only
6% being women and most respondents were
between 20 -42 years of age.
• Of respondents, the overwhelming majority were
from North America, followed by India with sharp
drop-offs for the rest of the world.
Implications
• HR, hiring managers, policy makers, higher
education institutions and employers should work
to address the gender under-representation in the
programming fields for women and to promote
diversity throughout the world by including other
nations.
• Web developers continue to be in high demand
and those wishing to launch into those careers
should consider acquiring skills in Javascript,
HTML/CSS, and Typescript as a differentiator.
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning on the
horizon is worth preparing for now by developing
skills to handle Big Data and SQL appears to be the
steady favorite to do that.
• The desired trends for the future year are:
• Language: Javascript, HTML, Python, SQL
• Databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis
• Platforms: Linux, Docker, AWS, Windows
• WebFrames: React.js, Vue.js, Angular.js
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 CONCLUSION
➢ We examined a large subset of the data contained from the Stack
Overflow Developer Survey from 2019.
➢ Current programmers and their employers should recognize the
evolving trends presented in this report as a key indicator that in
order to remain competitive and in-demand they should pivot their
current skills to keep pace with changing popularity in languages,
databases, platforms and webframes.
➢ Employers should evaluate whether the option to “up-skill” and
train their current programmers to meet the new demands fits their
business strategy best versus the option to outsource projects that
demand the higher popularity languages and databases to a third-
party vendor already skilled in those.
➢ The recommendations illustrated in this report and supported by
the data analysis should serve as a resource to aspiring
programmers, current programmers, hiring managers, university
recruiters, and policy makers who should address the stark gender
gap revealed in the survey along with the international implications 17
of the lack of diversity worldwide with respondents.
APPENDIX

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 APPENDIX A : JOB POSTING TOTALS BY TECHNOLOGY

Data source: job posting data used above was collected using GitHub API from file “github-job-postings.xlsx”
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 APPENDIX B : POPULAR LANGUAGES BY AVERAGE ANNUAL SALARY

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Data source: data collected using web scraping from IBM link to a file titled “popular-languages.csv”