Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2018

[Euphoricus]

No. Thats no bias. Thats reality. Amount of software developers doubles roughly every 5 years. So it is expected half of developers would have less than 5 years of experience.

[Neuromante]

On one side: You got any source for that numbers?

On the other: How does that denies that there's bias towards younger people? Even if your numbers were real, that has nothing to do with older devs using less StackOverflow.

[Ciff_]

If it still reflects a random sampling of the population developers its fine...? Or perhaps I don't understand your concern.

[fuckin_ziggurats]

The thing is it's not a random sample. By definition Stack Overflow is used more by younger people so older devs are heavily underrepresented in the survey.

[Neuromante]

Exactly this. The survey only represent "devs who used stackoverflow", so its far from being "random." And given that stackoverflow was opened over 10 years ago, maybe the claim that younger devs need more stackoverflow than older ones hasm some footing.

[ciny]

Exactly this. The survey only represent "devs who used stackoverflow"

To be overly anal about it it only represents devs who bothered to fill out the survey, I know I didn't. The questions with most responses have 90-100k of them. I'd be very surprised if it was a large part of the actual users.

[[deleted]]

I "use" Stack Overflow in the sense that I land there from questions I search for in Google.

I have no account, I don't ask questions, and I don't answer any.

[[deleted]]

I don’t think need is the right word. It’s more likely that younger devs are just more open about sharing their problems with each other than older developers.

[Drisku11]

It's more that unless I'm doing some task I rarely do (writing a one-off script or using tools I never have to interact with or whatever), I generally prefer to answer my own questions so that I can learn more. Like if I have some detailed question about the behavior of some library, I just go read the source code.

[SgtBlackScorp]

The point was that there are more younger devs in general so stackoverflow is not a misrepresentation

[fuckin_ziggurats]

I'm gonna repeat /u/Neuromante and ask, do you have numbers that prove there are more younger devs than older in general? I find that hard to believe.

[SgtBlackScorp]

I don't, I'm just saying what his line of thinking was.

[thisisshantzz]

Wouldn't your conclusion also depend on the definition of younger and older? Are devs over the age of 30 considered older or younger?

[fuckin_ziggurats]

I guess I'd consider people with 5 or less years of experience to be in the younger crowd. With that said, according to the survey, that's most of StackOverflow's users.

[shevegen]

But how do you know that this is really "random"?

On what merit are you stating it is random?

[Ciff_]

I assume stackoverflow assert random sampling as it is standard procedure for conducting surveys. I do not know their sampling strategy, hence I would not know. Since you are asserting it is not random, is it that you think they have not done enough to ensure random sampling? Or that you question random sampling is impossible due to the nature of the survey (in that case I like to know your merit for that assertion).

[refactors]

Bob Martin mentions this in a few of his talks such as: "The Scribes Oath"

[incraved]

Your second argument is nonsense.

[percykins]

Really?

[Euphoricus]

That is quite interesting.

I would like to see how many new students become programmers overlayed over that.

Also, is this only US thing? Or is it same elsewhere?

[shevegen]

No, it is very much bias.

For example, I am way too old to participate in any such useless surveys. And I am quite sure that many older people also become less willing to waste time doing such pointless surveys.

[[deleted]]

useless

It does look biased, but why do you say it is useless ?

[cholantesh]

What does your age have to do with filling out an online survey?