Did you take part? Do you find yourself in the pie charts?

Uhm, I would have taken part, but I missed it. It wouldn't have changed the numbers very much had I done so, it looks like I'm pretty average: more than 5 years experience with perl as main language, germany based company fulltime and fullstack, vim user etc etc. So not surprisingly I find myself in the pie charts, even if in others where appropriate; but mostly I'm in the first or second biggest pie.

It surprises me that so many name python as their main secondary language. I know enough python to dislike it, and not enough to like it. That said, job requirements make me program in python also if I can't avoid it. Most used secondary languages are bash (or sh) for some parts of the stack and JavaScript for others, several flavours of sql, C some obscure proprietary basic (shudder), then others. I wish my first secondary language was forth...

What most surprises me is the number of programmers in the mobile sector, given the little impact this sector has on PerlMonks. Or am I missing something? I wonder what kind of work folks are doing in there, and how many companies that sector comprises.

> Uhm, I would have taken part, but I missed it.

Me too. I was on holidays when hippo posted it here.

> What most surprises me is the number of programmers ...

I think the reach biased the result.

For instance I have the impression respondents from the anglo-sphere are over represented, most probably because they saw the survey more easily.

Let's see if it becomes better known in the future...

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}

Yes, I did take part (I was the one who posted the News item Perl Developer Survey 2017). Some of the results are unexpected and others (the mobile one in particular) gave some food for thought. I was a little surprised to see no mention at all of Padre in the IDE responses, given various monks' support for it here.

> I was a little surprised to see no mention at all of Padre in the IDE responses, given various monks' support for it here.

The pie-charts are strange, the text lists emacs as second most popular IDE but doesn't show in the graphics.

Additionally asking if they use the editor exclusively would have been nice.

From my personal experience most emacs user use it exclusively, while most VI(M) user I met mix it (depending on plattform and/or use case)

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}

> emacs were very popular in the other section, with 138 responses

I understand it as Emacs winning the "Other" section with 138/355 votes.

Another nice thing is the mention of data dumber as the favourite debugging tool.

($q=q:Sq=~/;[c](.)(.)/;chr(-||-|5+lengthSq)`"S|oS2"`map{chr |+ord
}map{substrSq`S_+|`|}3E|-|`7**2-3:)=~y+S|`+$1,++print+eval$q,q,a,
[download]

"I was a little surprised to see no mention at all of Padre in the IDE responses, given various monks' support for it here."

Just goes to shows that the support is very "fan boyish" and those fans are here. The important thing to note is how many DO NOT USE IDE's at all. You are only holding yourself back by using one. Seeing as how this place went from high quality to low quality, it is not a surprise, "given various monks' support for it here."

Survey was okay. Results seem overall positive. I was a bit irritated that “vim” and “Atom” were on the multiple choice for IDEs while things like “Emacs” and “TextMate” (and as hippo mentioned, “Padre”) were not. Indicative of the tone of the survey to me. A little overly guided with some questions open to subjective interpretation. Still, nicely presented results and always good to do publicity oriented / conversation starter stuff for Perl.

> I was a bit irritated that “vim” and “Atom” were on the multiple choice for IDEs while things like “Emacs” and “TextMate” (and as hippo mentioned, “Padre”) were not.

Already the order of choices can mess up a result, notwithstanding the absence.

There is this famous example of the US Census question for ancestry, where the numbers jump considerably depending on order.

I remember reading (hopefully correctly) that the number of "Croatian Americans" once doubled when it was the first choice.

Now guess the number of emacs users if it wasn't just a text to fill in for other choices.

> Still, nicely presented results and always good to do publicity oriented / conversation starter stuff for Perl.

Consequently the monastery should start serious polls in the voting booth with nice pie charts? :)

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}

Related answer order story. I wrote a CGI quiz maker for non-techies/trainers at Amazon that took a simply formatted plaintext file and turned it into a webform. I randomized answer order. But I actually did it out of concern for cheating, not fair presentation of options.

Still, nicely presented results and always good to do publicity oriented / conversation starter stuff for Perl.

You made my day. This is the reason why "Power Point" is called "Power Point". Hadn't got that bit before this.

perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'

> while things like “Emacs” and “TextMate” (and as hippo mentioned, “Padre”) were not.

Emacs is the Perl of the editor world.

Badmouthing and/or ignoring is considered acceptable among many.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}

Emacs is the Perl of the editor world.

TIMTOWTDI - there is more than one world to die in

*scnr*

perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'

"Emacs is the Perl of the editor world."

Wrong. Half of that belongs to Emacs and the other half to Vim.

Q2: We wanted to see how many developers are interested in this new language from the Perl family, to gauge how will Perl 6 transition to a more mainstream position and how much awareness and interest there is for it. 46.1%, the majority, have tried out Perl 6...

Q17: This question also had a majority in the other section, going beyond the standard options (46%).

I just want to know where all of these Perl jobs in Canada are! ;)

If you look at the total respondents for Q15 (the editor) question it must be 1102 not 849, the percentages in the chart make sense then. (ie 519/1102 = 0,47 for VIM and so on)

BUT the other questions before seem to have accurate totals around ~840.

Sorry, this isn't very likely, if you ever conducted a poll yourself you'd know that people tend to get tired quickly, a question in the middle wouldn't suddenly attract 30% more respondents.

Probably an over motivated user added 253 responses here, (most likely for the evil editor. ;-)

edit

Already the third phrase of this blog entry says: We have received 849 responses from developers from all over the world.

update

also Q23 (produced apps) and Q17 (web frameworks) have anomalies

update

this makes sense, if Q17 was manipulated consequently Q23 must be also.

Looks like a fanboy for web-apps and editors was active here.

PS: see also Re^4: Perl Developer Survey 2017 results are available (wrong math)

Come on, the math is not hard here. The question allowed multiple responses and in one case the division was done using the number of responders instead of using the number of responses.

And you got your conspiracy exactly backward. The result was to artificially inflate the percentage reported for emacs.

 $ say '85+65+78+519+355'
1102
 $ say '85/11.02,65/11.02,78/11.02,519/11.02,355/11.02'
7.71324863883848
5.8983666061706
7.07803992740472
47.0961887477314
32.2141560798548
 $ say 138/11.02
12.5226860254083
[download]

So just drop emacs' popularity from the reported 16.25% to the correct 12.5%.

All that is left is to figure out if the mistake was motivated by the preparer being an emacs fan or because they felt sorry for emacs fans and whether it was intentional or accidental. q-:

Update: Oh, and the percentages reported for Notepad++, Eclipse, and VisualStudio might well also be inflated by x1.3 (hard to say for sure since the counts were not reported for them).

Update: Though, I kind of find the 30% higher percentages more accurate. The problem was probably that they put the counts into the graph software and it is what provided the percentages. Makes me wish for a "Venn diagram" chart where the area of each shape is proportional to the number of people who chose that option and the areas of the overlaps between shapes is also proportional (to the number of people who chose all of the corresponding options).

- tye        

Hi Tye

welcome back to the monastery! :)

I figured that out already, and I'm not such a fanboy that I care about the results of a bad survey.

But I care about bad math and fake news. Nowadays more than ever.

My theory is that the questions were single choice, but the other option allowed free text were multiple editors were inserted.

Anyway a decent survey would at least

• avoid opinionated choices
• publish the original data
• keep a snap shot of the original survey online
Otherwise we'll never know, that's why I give up.

Regarding venn diagram, this wouldn't be possible in many cases.

Imho the best representation is a hasse diagram.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}

Additionally I also identified the web framework question as contradictory.

I don't know how good this survey site can defy bots only responding for 3 questions.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}

Or maybe that question allowed respondants to provide multiple responses.

If that is the case, the results are presented in a very bad way.

Several numbers are contradicting and percentages are taken from different totals.

And the gap - the supposed multiple votes - at all 3 questions is always about 30%.

I might have a theory what happened but I'm tired now.

Let's hope the next survey is better prepared.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}

You act like numbers mean something or are absolute values. They are just an invention of Western society to hold down the… blah, blah, blah… Bonk! Bonk! On the head!

It’s long established that vi vi vi is the editor of The Beast. :P

It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse. As Epictetus says, Men are not influenced by things, but by their thoughts about things.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860): The Wisdom of Life

I think that is visible especially in nowaday's politics…

> vi vi vi is the editor of The Beast.

Bless St IGNUcius, holy holy holy! =)

On a more serious note: I don't care about the real percentages of editors or web-frameworks.

I care about manipulated truth!

30% of all responses covered only 3 out of 31 questions without being noted?

Seriously?

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}

Joking aside now: this must have been a multiple-choice question. All we know is that some people use more than one IDE, while 596+ respondents only use one.

hmm ... at least Your Mother and Hippo should know, it's not online anymore.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}

"I'm afraid, it looks like the results were doctored."

I'm afraid you have no qualifications and as such, have no legs to stand on. You simply don't LIKE the results.

All it takes for evil to Trump is for good men to do nothing. -- Abraham Lincoln

:wq

I'm intimidated by the fear of being average. –Adolf Hitler

Rumor has it he was also terrified of misattributing historical quotes.

XKCD: Hottest Editors

Bonus points for anyone who links to "Hottest Redditors". :-)

Q4 Is Perl 5 your main language?

It is, my mother-tongue of programming. But current, paid work is mainly in Python. So, this question confused me. After going through later questions I realized that the survey is concerned only about role of Perl in paid work.