HACKER Q&A
📣 nologic01

How do developer surveys influence your tech choices


There are now various regular surveys (github, stack overflow, jetbrains etc) that poll thousands of developers about what technologies they use or they would like to use etc.

In turn the results are seen by thousands more of developers, so the question is what has been the effect of that information flow in the way people chose technologies and stacks?

One obvious hypothesis is that it makes people chase the same "popular" technologies. Everybody want to be part of the "winning team".

But the surveys also surface less known and "loved" technologies which migh attract attention that they otherwise wouldn't.

Its not clear which effect is stronger.


  👤 gregjor Accepted Answer ✓
Not at all. I've never understood the point of language or IDE popularity contests, or framing them as some kind of competition.

I use the tools and languages I can make money with. Most often that means whatever my customer already chose. If I get to choose I stick with the mainstream so I can easily find people with expertise and experience.