Stack Overflow Survey 2024: 5 Useful Takeaways
Summary
TLDRThe 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey reveals insights into coding habits, with 61% of developers using AI tools but distrusting their accuracy. Technical documentation is favored for learning to code, emphasizing its importance for developers. JavaScript remains dominant in web frameworks, with TypeScript gaining popularity. Entry-level roles like front-end and mobile development require less experience, while higher roles demand more expertise. Interestingly, only one in five developers are happy in their jobs, with most seeking improved code quality and learning opportunities.
Takeaways
- đ The 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey shows trends such as the popularity of Rust, Python, and JavaScript, and higher salaries in the US.
- đ The speaker offers a free report on the tech market in 2024, covering programming languages, technologies in demand, salaries, and career paths.
- đ Learning to code through technical documentation is highlighted as beneficial, with the speaker advocating for developers to become proficient in navigating documentation.
- đ§ The importance of understanding the basics from official tutorials and then delving into advanced concepts within documentation is emphasized for better programming skills.
- đ€ 61% of developers actively use AI tools, but 90% do not fully trust them, suggesting a need for caution when relying on AI-generated code.
- đ AI tools are recommended for less complex tasks like code conversion or bug detection, rather than for complex problem-solving.
- đ JavaScript remains prevalent across web development, with frameworks like React and Next.js being popular, and TypeScript is advised to learn alongside JavaScript.
- đŒ The survey indicates that roles like front-end developer and data analyst are good entry points for new developers with fewer years of experience.
- đ° Salaries are influenced by the role and experience, with back-end roles in the US offering high pay, and front-end and mobile development also being well-compensated.
- đ Only one in five professional developers report being happy in their current job, with individual contributors expressing less satisfaction than managers.
- đĄ The top reasons for dissatisfaction among developers include the desire to improve code quality and developer environments, and to learn and use new technologies.
Q & A
What are the key findings from the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey discussed in the video?
-The video discusses five key findings: 1) People are learning to code via technical documentation. 2) The accuracy of AI tools is still questioned by developers. 3) JavaScript remains prevalent in the developer community. 4) There is a correlation between experience, roles, and salary in the tech industry. 5) Only one in five professional developers are happy in their current job.
Why is learning to code from technical documentation considered beneficial according to the video?
-Learning to code from technical documentation is beneficial because it teaches developers to navigate and understand the source material, which is a critical skill when dealing with new technologies or when needing to recall specific details.
What is the general sentiment towards AI tools among developers as per the survey?
-61% of developers actively use AI tools, and 14% plan to, but 90% are unable to fully trust the output of these tools, indicating a significant level of distrust.
How does the video suggest using AI tools effectively in coding?
-The video suggests using AI tools for less complex or more menial tasks, such as converting JSON to YAML, providing starting templates, or helping locate bugs in code, rather than relying on them for complex tasks or copying and pasting code without understanding.
What is the significance of JavaScript's popularity in the developer community as mentioned in the video?
-JavaScript's popularity signifies its widespread use in web development, being the most popular language among professional developers and a top choice for those learning to code. It covers a significant part of the front-end spectrum and is often used in conjunction with frameworks like React and Node.js.
What advice does the video give for learning JavaScript and its ecosystem?
-The video advises to get an overview of the JavaScript ecosystem but to find a specific area within it to specialize in, such as becoming an expert in the React ecosystem, due to its vastness and complexity.
What roles are considered good entry points for new developers according to the survey results?
-Roles like front-end developer, mobile developer, data analyst, business analyst, and QA are considered good entry points as they require fewer years of coding experience and less material to learn.
How does the video describe the relationship between experience, roles, and salary in the tech industry?
-The video describes a clear correlation where roles that require more technology knowledge and hands-on experience, such as developer advocate and site reliability engineer, are associated with more years of experience and higher salaries.
What are the top reasons developers are unhappy in their jobs according to the survey?
-The top reasons for unhappiness among developers are the desire to improve the quality of code and developer environments, and the wish to learn and use new technology.
How does the video address the issue of job satisfaction among developers?
-The video highlights that only one in five professional developers are happy in their current job and invites viewers to share their thoughts on why there is such a high level of dissatisfaction.
What additional resource is offered by the video for those interested in the tech market in 2024?
-The video offers a free report on the tech market in 2024, which includes an analysis of programming languages, technologies in demand, viable career paths, and salary insights.
Outlines
đ Emphasis on Learning to Code via Technical Documentation
The video discusses the 2024 Stack Overflow developer survey, highlighting the importance of learning to code through technical documentation. It differentiates between two types of learning methods: one where the teacher presents themselves as the source of truth and another that encourages learners to refer to official documentation. The speaker advocates for the latter, as it builds the ability to navigate documentation, a crucial skill for developers. They also suggest starting with introductory tutorials from official sources to understand the basics and then familiarizing oneself with the structure of the documentation for deeper understanding. The video emphasizes the value of wrestling with code issues directly from the documentation, which leads to a deeper understanding and better programming skills compared to relying on third-party solutions or AI-generated code without full comprehension.
đ€ AI Tools in Development: Trust and Utility
This paragraph delves into the use of AI tools among developers, noting that while 61% actively use them and 14% plan to, there's a significant distrust in the accuracy of AI outputs, with 90% unable to fully trust them. The video warns new developers against blindly copying AI-generated code due to the potential for misunderstanding and further complications. It suggests that AI is more useful for less complex tasks, such as code conversion or bug locating, rather than for solving intricate programming challenges. The paragraph also touches on the general sentiment that AI does not pose a job threat, providing some reassurance to developers.
đ JavaScript's Dominance and TypeScript's Rise
The speaker addresses the prevalence of JavaScript in the development world, noting its popularity among professional developers and its widespread use in web frameworks. JavaScript is also identified as a desired language and a key component in various frameworks. The paragraph emphasizes the importance of learning TypeScript alongside JavaScript, given its adoption in many companies. It also provides a brief on the evolution of the JavaScript ecosystem, from simpler times with vanilla JavaScript to the current complexity with libraries like React, which now offer more than just interactivity, including server components. The advice given is to gain an overview of the JavaScript landscape and then specialize within a specific area, such as becoming proficient in the React ecosystem.
đŒ Experience, Roles, and Salary Insights
This section of the video script examines the correlation between experience, job roles, and salary, using data from the survey respondents. It suggests that roles like front-end developer, mobile developer, data analyst, and business analyst are good entry points due to the relatively fewer years of coding experience required. In contrast, roles such as developer advocate and site reliability engineer demand more experience and technical knowledge. The paragraph also discusses the salary differences, noting that in the US, back-end developers earn significantly more, while front-end and mobile developers earn more than full-stack developers. The video script ends with a surprising statistic that only one in five professional developers are happy in their current job, with the top reasons for dissatisfaction being the desire to improve code quality and developer environments.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄStack Overflow Developer Survey
đĄTechnical Documentation
đĄAI Tools
đĄJavaScript
đĄTypeScript
đĄWeb Frameworks
đĄCareer Paths
đĄSalaries
đĄJob Satisfaction
đĄDeveloper Advocate
đĄDevOps
Highlights
2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey results indicate that Rust, Python, and JavaScript remain popular among developers.
Developers in the US make more money on average compared to other regions.
The presenter offers five personal insights from the survey, potentially valuable for viewers.
A study of the tech market in 2024 is available, covering programming languages, technologies in demand, and salary insights.
Learning to code via technical documentation is increasingly common and beneficial for developers.
Navigating documentation is a critical skill for developers, especially when learning new technologies.
The importance of understanding introductory tutorials and documentation for programming languages or frameworks.
Developers should use documentation as a primary resource rather than relying on third-party sites or AI for coding solutions.
AI tools are widely used by 61% of developers, but there is a significant lack of trust in their accuracy.
For complex coding tasks, AI is not yet reliable enough for professional developers.
AI is better suited for less complex or repetitive tasks, such as code conversion or bug detection.
Most developers are not concerned about AI being a threat to their jobs.
JavaScript continues to be the most popular language among professional developers and in web frameworks.
TypeScript is recommended as an addition to JavaScript, with many companies adopting it.
The JavaScript ecosystem is vast and evolving, with new features like server components.
Roles like front-end developer, mobile developer, and data analyst are good entry points for new developers.
Experienced roles such as developer advocate and site reliability engineer require more years of experience and expertise.
Salaries vary greatly depending on the role, with back-end developers in the US earning significantly more.
Only one in five professional developers report being happy in their current job, indicating potential job dissatisfaction.
Improving code quality and learning new technologies are top priorities for both happy and unhappy developers.
Transcripts
the 2024 stack Overflow developer survey
results are out I look through it and
much of it is more or less the same
stuff people love rust python JavaScript
are popular devs make more money in the
US stuff like that and there are a
number of videos out there already
analyzing it all but a few people have
asked me for my thoughts on it so in
this video I want to share five findings
from it that I think are interesting and
we can learn from and before we get
started I do want to mention that we've
put together our own study of the tech
Market in 2024 from how we got here
where we're headed what programming
languages and Technologies are in demand
a look at salaries viable career paths
and what's to come in the next few years
I'm going to put a link below where you
can grab this free report for yourself
so be sure to check that out now let's
get started number one people are
learning to code via technical
documentation this is good now a lot of
developers learn to code on udemy and
other sites like that there's nothing
wrong with this but there really are two
types of courses out there there's one
where the teacher teaches you the coding
language or framework out of thin a as
if you're supposed to remember it all
they give you the definitions and the
examples as if they are the source of
Truth like you need to come back to
their course if you forget something the
other teaches you from the documentation
maybe they don't actually open the
documentation but they are teaching you
from it and pointing you to it the best
courses will teach you the material from
the source so that you can also visit
there when you can't remember content
from the 79 hours you just watched being
a developer who can navigate
documentation overall is a superpower
and I say overall because you'll often
be asked to use new technology of some
sorts and feeling confident to jump into
documentation and make it work from
there is critical however when new
developers look up documentation there's
a tendency to become completely confused
ditch it and just Google the answer from
some third party site or now chat GPT
but forcing yourself to use technical
documentation will pay off in multiples
first many programming languages or
Frameworks have some sort of
introductory tutorial that covers the
basics that walks you through using it
and its most common features and terms
do that first if you're new to it take
time to understand that complete that
first for example let's say you're
learning goang their site has tutorials
Labs guided Journeys that will teach you
Hands-On specific features of that
language from The Source or a framework
like d jeno has a poll application that
teaches you all the basics of Jango to
get your feet wet and the links in that
tutorial will take you straight to the
documentation once to learn Docker same
thing react well react has a Tic-Tac toe
game as a tutorial it also has an entire
set section called learn react that
really helps with the technical ideas of
the library and some of these tutorials
may seem Elementary or even boring but
taking time to understand these Concepts
from the official documentation instead
of from third party blogs is invaluable
and then after you get through the
basics take a few minutes to look at how
the docs are structured so that you can
reference more deeper advanced concepts
as you need them years ago I was
determined to get good at react I
decided to create a note-taking
application using only the documentation
and I got stuck again and again and had
to really wrestle with why my code was
performing the way it was things like
why is use effect being called multiple
times or how can I cach the result of a
calculation between renders or how can I
control all these multiple layers of
props that I'm passing around and
usually the documentation goes into
depth on all these things and when you
wrestle with these issues and are forced
to read how these particular Concepts
work it gets burn deeper into your
memory and it makes you a better
programmer overall and this is much
better than coming across a solution on
stack Overflow saying to use the use ref
hook and copying and pasting it without
really understanding what it does
instead let the stack Overflow answer
lead you to how the documentation
defines us ref all right second finding
accuracy of AI tools 61% of developers
actively use AI tools and 14% plan to
and most were favorable to it however
like 90% are all together not able to
trust it fully even down here in the
challenges section 66% just don't trust
the answer or output that it gives at
face value and this is from professional
developers so based on this distrust by
professional developers if you're new
and you don't know how to code well or
understand the code it's generating for
you or you just plan to copy and paste
whatever it generates it may just get
you into more trouble than it will help
you I've heard so many people say I
tried such and such and I couldn't
figure it out so I went to Chad gbt and
tried all the things it said and I
regenerated the answer a bunch of times
to get something different but I still
can't get it to work well that kind of
hints that you don't really know what
you need to get done here learn to code
first such that you can at least
evaluate properly what it generates on
the other hand if you can code well and
at least discern what it spits out then
I think it can help you out it has
helped me out from time to time also the
same sentiment is felt when it comes to
complex tasks AI just isn't there yet
for the more difficult things like 75%
here are on the fence about this
capability so a better use case for it
for now is for Less complex or more
menial tasks like converting a lot of
Json to yaml or to provide starting
templates that save you initial steps or
outlines to certain functions or
repetitive coding tasks or to help
locate a difficult to pinpoint bug in
your code things like that and by the
way menial or boring or repetitive work
is a great thing for AI to replace
people in call centers they hate their
work they hate calling people and they
hate getting yelled at all day sure it's
a job but it's one that really will make
you a miserable person just let AI do it
and then finally most aren't concerned
about AI being a threat to their jobs
that's good to know number three
JavaScript is still absolutely
everywhere it's the most popular for
professional developers it's third on
the list for those learning to code it's
the most popular in web Frameworks with
no JS being number one react number two
jQuery number three nextjs number four
and then Express angular onto view it's
also the second most desired language
and the top Frameworks on the desired
list there's react node next View and so
forth and it's not really the language
itself it's the usage of it it's in
everything and used everywhere and it
covers much of the entire front-end
Spectrum alone and typescript follows
right behind it in popularity and I
would definitely recommend learning
typescript to add to your JavaScript as
many if not most companies are using it
don't let the whole squabble that
happened 6 months or so ago make you
think otherwise I have a brief video
that highlights the benefits if you're
new to it I'll link to it above now be
warned that the JavaScript ecosystem is
quite vast when I first learned it it
was largely vanilla and jery when I
learned react it was a great library
that allowed easier interactivity in
state handling and you could easily just
add it to your app but now it's much
more than an interactive Library we now
have server components and to me this
whole thing has become muddy so my
suggestion in learning it is to get an
overview of it all of course but find
your footing somewhere specific within
it like becoming an expert in the react
ecosystem all right number four
experience versus roles versus salary so
here's a good reminder for where you may
want to enter into this Market if you're
new from the respondents here all 65k or
however many there were roles like
front-end Dev mobile Dev data analyst
business analyst QA are probably the
best entry spots as these positions have
fewer years of coding under their belt a
less amount of material is needed to be
learned though I may be a bit hesitant
on the mobile Dev part now developer
Advocate developer experience srre these
are jobs that require you to know more
technology and to have real hands-on
experience to perform thus these roles
have responded with more years under
their belts a site reliability engineer
will need to know how to code how to
manage servers automate setup monitoring
and proper Incident Management that
takes years then roles like full stack
data engineer and devops are in the
middle I would say devops is a bit more
advanced because they are literally
asked to do everything and then of
course when we look at salaries the
order is almost exactly the same except
in the US things are a little different
back end is making big bucks and front
end is making more than full stack and
mobile is making even more than backend
we have Healthcare cost issues but make
good money here in the US while other
places have great Healthcare benefits
but make way less money what to do and
then number five only one in five
professional developers are actually
happy in their current job and this is
individual contributor not people
manager though the latter is only about
7% better first of all I don't see this
in last year's survey is this new to
this year if not it would be interesting
to see if this is a drastic difference
or not in the top reasons being out of
100 points improve improving quality of
code in developer environments that's 21
points and then learning and using new
tech that's 19 points and this one's
weird because the top five for happy
points are also the top five for unhappy
points so what are your thoughts on why
80% of developers are unhappy in their
jobs I'd love to hear about it below if
you found this video helpful give it a
thumbs up if you haven't subscribed to
the channel consider doing so and I'll
see you in the next video
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