Surveys give a company an idea on what people are thinking. The developer survey 2017 is no different. It was designed to bring out the thoughts of all developers and coders. This year more developers answered far more questions than any other year. From full stack developers, 6,800, to mobile and front end developers, 1900 & 1200 respectively, to farmers, 2, and an assortment of others, 12,000, these people gave their opinion. Over 26,000 people participated in the survey. One reason for this turnout is because code is just about everywhere these days and just about everyone uses some form of stack overflow.
This survey was conducted because every day more people are finding great careers in stack overflow systems. This survey was designed to help us better understand what is going on in the community as well as help the community understand itself a lot better. We made sure the survey was well known as we advertised it over stack overflow, meta stack overflow and social media for two weeks prior to conducting the survey. We wanted a large segment of the developer population to participate and give us their opinion on a variety of topics offered by those 45 questions.
Unfortunately, even large surveys meticulously handled like the developer 2017 version is not without some bias. These biases can be found in different formats like language and selection but those do not really influence the total result. Only some problems will influence the outcome. This was the most comprehensive survey conducted in years and it was about the only one that asked any questions about which are more important- tabs or spaces.
Surveys help a company address its weaknesses and pinpoints where they can improve. They all do not have to be like the developer 2017 but it helps. The more information the better the ability to analyze what is good or bad about a company.
