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Out of 1000 respondents: > 70% of programmers today are Windows based, 16% use Ubuntu/CentOS or other Linux, and 14% use Mac OS Is this a skewed survey toward

by pclark 16y ago

Out of 1000 respondents: > 70% of programmers today are Windows based, 16% use Ubuntu/CentOS or other Linux, and 14% use Mac OS Is this a skewed survey towards Microsoft orientated people, or is this the normal for the developer industry? (hard to say when you are in a bubble/niche of web startups)

gecko 16y ago
This is probably skewed. We did our best to make sure we were getting a wide swath of respondents by also running the survey on StackOverflow, but even there, our choice of which tags to advertise the survey with probably biased the results. I'd take the OS distribution not as an indication of who in general developers for which OS, but rather just as information on which percentage of respondents were on which OS. I.e., it tells you about the survey, not about developers in general.
- technomancy 16y ago
  Stackoverflow itself seemed pretty Windows-centric last I looked at it. Makes sense considering it was launched by two prominent Windows developers.
  - statictype 16y ago
    For some time, when Apple had its goofy NDA on the iPhone SDK when it was first released, Stackoverflow was probably the best site to get CocoaTouch related help. It's still a pretty decent resource for iPhone development.
- streeter 16y ago
  I'm not as convinced this is terribly skewed away from the normal. Outside the Bay Area, the large organizations that hire thousands of programmers primarily use Windows for development. For example, go to any Defense Contractor (Lockheed, Northrop, etc) in the country and sample the computers they use for dev work. Each developer probably has a Windows box they do everything on. There might be some Linux boxes mixed in, but those will probably be headless. Or the developer runs Linux in a VM on top of Windows. While in the Bay Area, we might think these are skewed because everywhere we go we see Mac laptops, in reality, the employees at big corporations are going to outnumber us.
  - zwieback 16y ago
    I can confirm this (working at mega-corp) and can also add that a lot of specialized and embedded tools are primarily hosted on Windows. Even high-end CAD and modelling tools are primarily on Windows where I've worked.
    - andrewem 16y ago
      High-end CAD tools used to be run almost entirely on Unix systems (Solaris, SGI, HP/UX, etc.). Back in the 1990s Windows systems couldn't handle these tools the way Unix workstations could, but once that changed there was no reason to spend far more money on a workstation. Perhaps if Linux had become popular a few years sooner the transition in high-end CAD would've been from proprietary Unix to Linux. See for instance http://www.ptc.com/partners/hardware/current/support.htm http://www.ptc.com/partners/hardware/current/support.htm where support for various *nix are being phased out by Parametric Technology, Linux included.
      - zwieback 16y ago
        Yeah, I remember those days well, we had Unix boxes for CAD and 386s with Win3 for office work side-by-side. I think you're right - the transition to Linux would have been an obvious choice if the timing had been better.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    I suspect that the survey is skewed in other directions when it comes to large corporations, though. I would expect to see much more Perforce if the big not-primarily-computer-companies were included, because for many years Perforce was pretty much the only game in town for large, multi-million-line codebases. I still can't imagine Lockheed running their sourcebase off Subversion or VSS; even when I interned at a mid-sized (~100 person) government contractor, we used Perforce. I think the survey is representative of the geographically-distributed, Joel-on-Software reading, micro-ISV crowd, and not much else. Micro-ISVs often develop on Windows (because that's what their founders are used to) and use Subversion (because it's fairly easy to setup and generally adequate for 1-10 devs). I suspect you'd get very different numbers at YCombinator or Google or Lockheed, though.
yannickmahe 16y ago
Worked for three different (non-startup) companies in the last 2 years, never left Windows XP. I'm thinking it's normal for the developer industry. I asked why at my first job interview. Stated reason was that as our end users use XP (standard at their company), we should use XP. Makes sense. I guess the cost of mac vs pc explains why macs aren't more popular in regular companies. As for Linux, well, I think it's just about it being easier to buy PCs with windows than with Linux preinstalled.
- umjames 16y ago
  Never underestimate a company's reluctance to change. Usually, the bigger they are (or the more clueless the decision-makers are), the greater the reluctance.
  - jerf 16y ago
    I don't do Windows (not necessarily by ideology, I just don't do it anywhere I'd learn about IT issues), so this is an honest question: Assuming a decent IT policy that closes off the worst of the security issues in other ways, and which won't change even if you upgrade, and assuming you're not a Windows development shop, what is the big business advantage of moving your company from XP to Windows 7?
    - joe_bleau 16y ago
      We've had to wait longer for cheap computers from places like Dell if ordered with XP than with win7. If you're in a hurry and just need a basic desktop for someone, it's something to consider. At least that's how we ended up with a mix of 2k, XP, and win7.
    - winthrowe 16y ago
      IMO, Laptops. Supporting XP on recent laptops is an exercise in frustration due to drivers, and in my situation is compounded by the lack of standardization on a small number of models.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
michael_dorfman 16y ago
The article said: "We asked subscribers to our developer newsletter (788 respondents) and professional developers via StackOverflow (169 respondents)" I imagine that the FogCreek developer newsletter is going to skew reasonably heavily toward Windows developers.
umjames 16y ago
My guess is that a lot of that 70% represents the OS these people use professionally at work. I'd be more interested in seeing the split between OS used professionally and OS used personally.
MatthewPhillips 16y ago
That would be the corporate world. Not only web startups need programmers ;)
- astrodust 16y ago
  You can flash your cereal box MCSE and get a job in the corporate world, but usually start-ups are far more discriminating.
peterb 16y ago
In my neck-of-the-wood it is probably higher, more like 85-90% Microsoft. Programmers use Windows in the Enterprise, Banking, Insurance, old media, etc. Startups and Web-dev are on other platforms, but they are in the minority. I've used Windows at work for my last two gigs. At home I use OSX and Linux (both desktop and server). My wife and kids use Windows (what can I say? She's the boss).

by pclark 16y ago

gecko 16y ago

This is probably skewed. We did our best to make sure we were getting a wide swath of respondents by also running the survey on StackOverflow, but even there, our choice of which tags to advertise the survey with probably biased the results. I'd take the OS distribution not as an indication of who in general developers for which OS, but rather just as information on which percentage of respondents were on which OS. I.e., it tells you about the survey, not about developers in general.

technomancy 16y ago
Stackoverflow itself seemed pretty Windows-centric last I looked at it. Makes sense considering it was launched by two prominent Windows developers.
- statictype 16y ago
  For some time, when Apple had its goofy NDA on the iPhone SDK when it was first released, Stackoverflow was probably the best site to get CocoaTouch related help. It's still a pretty decent resource for iPhone development.
streeter 16y ago
I'm not as convinced this is terribly skewed away from the normal. Outside the Bay Area, the large organizations that hire thousands of programmers primarily use Windows for development. For example, go to any Defense Contractor (Lockheed, Northrop, etc) in the country and sample the computers they use for dev work. Each developer probably has a Windows box they do everything on. There might be some Linux boxes mixed in, but those will probably be headless. Or the developer runs Linux in a VM on top of Windows. While in the Bay Area, we might think these are skewed because everywhere we go we see Mac laptops, in reality, the employees at big corporations are going to outnumber us.
- zwieback 16y ago
  I can confirm this (working at mega-corp) and can also add that a lot of specialized and embedded tools are primarily hosted on Windows. Even high-end CAD and modelling tools are primarily on Windows where I've worked.
  - andrewem 16y ago
    High-end CAD tools used to be run almost entirely on Unix systems (Solaris, SGI, HP/UX, etc.). Back in the 1990s Windows systems couldn't handle these tools the way Unix workstations could, but once that changed there was no reason to spend far more money on a workstation. Perhaps if Linux had become popular a few years sooner the transition in high-end CAD would've been from proprietary Unix to Linux. See for instance http://www.ptc.com/partners/hardware/current/support.htm http://www.ptc.com/partners/hardware/current/support.htm where support for various *nix are being phased out by Parametric Technology, Linux included.
    - zwieback 16y ago
      Yeah, I remember those days well, we had Unix boxes for CAD and 386s with Win3 for office work side-by-side. I think you're right - the transition to Linux would have been an obvious choice if the timing had been better.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  I suspect that the survey is skewed in other directions when it comes to large corporations, though. I would expect to see much more Perforce if the big not-primarily-computer-companies were included, because for many years Perforce was pretty much the only game in town for large, multi-million-line codebases. I still can't imagine Lockheed running their sourcebase off Subversion or VSS; even when I interned at a mid-sized (~100 person) government contractor, we used Perforce. I think the survey is representative of the geographically-distributed, Joel-on-Software reading, micro-ISV crowd, and not much else. Micro-ISVs often develop on Windows (because that's what their founders are used to) and use Subversion (because it's fairly easy to setup and generally adequate for 1-10 devs). I suspect you'd get very different numbers at YCombinator or Google or Lockheed, though.

yannickmahe 16y ago

Worked for three different (non-startup) companies in the last 2 years, never left Windows XP. I'm thinking it's normal for the developer industry. I asked why at my first job interview. Stated reason was that as our end users use XP (standard at their company), we should use XP. Makes sense. I guess the cost of mac vs pc explains why macs aren't more popular in regular companies. As for Linux, well, I think it's just about it being easier to buy PCs with windows than with Linux preinstalled.

umjames 16y ago
Never underestimate a company's reluctance to change. Usually, the bigger they are (or the more clueless the decision-makers are), the greater the reluctance.
- jerf 16y ago
  I don't do Windows (not necessarily by ideology, I just don't do it anywhere I'd learn about IT issues), so this is an honest question: Assuming a decent IT policy that closes off the worst of the security issues in other ways, and which won't change even if you upgrade, and assuming you're not a Windows development shop, what is the big business advantage of moving your company from XP to Windows 7?
  - joe_bleau 16y ago
    We've had to wait longer for cheap computers from places like Dell if ordered with XP than with win7. If you're in a hurry and just need a basic desktop for someone, it's something to consider. At least that's how we ended up with a mix of 2k, XP, and win7.
  - winthrowe 16y ago
    IMO, Laptops. Supporting XP on recent laptops is an exercise in frustration due to drivers, and in my situation is compounded by the lack of standardization on a small number of models.
  - kenjackson 16y ago

michael_dorfman 16y ago

The article said: "We asked subscribers to our developer newsletter (788 respondents) and professional developers via StackOverflow (169 respondents)" I imagine that the FogCreek developer newsletter is going to skew reasonably heavily toward Windows developers.

umjames 16y ago

My guess is that a lot of that 70% represents the OS these people use professionally at work. I'd be more interested in seeing the split between OS used professionally and OS used personally.

MatthewPhillips 16y ago

That would be the corporate world. Not only web startups need programmers ;)

astrodust 16y ago
You can flash your cereal box MCSE and get a job in the corporate world, but usually start-ups are far more discriminating.

peterb 16y ago

In my neck-of-the-wood it is probably higher, more like 85-90% Microsoft. Programmers use Windows in the Enterprise, Banking, Insurance, old media, etc. Startups and Web-dev are on other platforms, but they are in the minority. I've used Windows at work for my last two gigs. At home I use OSX and Linux (both desktop and server). My wife and kids use Windows (what can I say? She's the boss).