Sitepoint THE STATE OF WEB DEVELOPMENTeal Results Preview: August 2006 2006/2007 Summary of Results from a survey of 5,000 web developers and internet professionals conducted during the summer of 2006
2006/2007 Summary of Results from a survey of 5,000 web developers and internet professionals conducted during the summer of 2006
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 by David Aponovich, Lachlan Donald, Nick Langmaid, Matthew Magain, Ian Mu and Kevin Yank Copyright C 2006 SitePoint Pty Ltd and Ektron, Inc Technical Editor: Matthew Magain Editor: Hilary Reynolds Technical Director: Kevin Yank Cover Designer and Illustrator: Alex Walker Printing History First Edition: October 2006 Notice of Rights All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, or uses allowed under the license agreement under which this report was purchased Notice of Liability The authors and publisher have made effort to ensure the accuracy of the information herein. However, the information sold in this report is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors and Site Point Pty Ltd, nor Ektron Inc nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages to be caused either directly or indirectly by the instructions ontained in this report, or by the software or hardware products described herein. Trademark Notice Rathe indicating every occurrence of a trademarked name as such, this report uses the names only in an editorial fashion to the benefit of the trademark owner with no intention of infringement of the trademark. ≌ a sitepoint Published by SitePoint Pty Ltd 424 Smith Street Collingwood VIC Australia 3066 ed:wWw.sltepoint.com Email: business@sitepoint
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 by David Aponovich, Lachlan Donald, Nick Langmaid, Matthew Magain, Ian Muir, and Kevin Yank. Copyright © 2006 SitePoint Pty Ltd and Ektron, Inc. Technical Editor: Matthew Magain Editor: Hilary Reynolds Technical Director: Kevin Yank Cover Designer and Illustrator: Alex Walker Printing History: First Edition: October 2006 Notice of Rights All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, or uses allowed under the license agreement under which this report was purchased. Notice of Liability The authors and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information herein. However, the information sold in this report is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors and SitePoint Pty Ltd, nor Ektron Inc., nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages to be caused either directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this report, or by the software or hardware products described herein. Trademark Notice Rather than indicating every occurrence of a trademarked name as such, this report uses the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Published by SitePoint Pty Ltd 424 Smith Street Collingwood VIC Australia 3066. Web: www.sitepoint.com Email: business@sitepoint.com
The state of Web development 2006 2007 published by Site Point Pty Ltd and Ektron, Inc. This preview include evelopment 2006/2007 report, Thank you for downloading this free preview of The State of Web O background information about the survey a summary of our findings a sample graphs and commentary from the"Tools of the Trade"section, covering three of the 15 questions from the survey Q citation policy and license information a full glossary of terms The full version of the report includes: a 54 pages of results, analysis and expert commentary on the state of web development in 2006/2007 Q raw results dataset from over 5,000 survey participant a a full correlation spreadsheet tool to help with your own analysis Blogs, podcasts, AJAX, server platforms, content management systems, industry best practices, and CSS louts are just some of the areas analyzed in depth in this report This complete, yet easy to digest, almost"conversation style"report will bring you and your organization up to speed with the state of the web development industry in 2006/2007, with a look at what challenges lie ahead Downloadthefullreportnowfromhttp://www.sitepoint.com/launch/surveyo6/ Executive Summary We believe that this report reflects the largest survey of professional web developers to date This report taps the experience of 5,000 web developers to answer 15 important questions. The questions covered a range of topics, including the demographics of respondents what roles they play in the industry, and how they rank the most important questions of the tools of the trade which productivity tools are favored by web developers, which server technologies are being de- ployed, and what the expectations are for the next 12 months lesign practice in the real world what web developers are doing about adopting methodologies and best practices in software desig web technology adoption how web developers are encountering hot new technologies such as blogs and podcasting, and how they anticipate working with them over the next 12 months
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 Thank you for downloading this free preview of The State of Web Development 2006/2007 report, published by SitePoint Pty Ltd and Ektron, Inc. This preview includes: ❑ background information about the survey ❑ summary of our findings ❑ sample graphs and commentary from the “Tools of the Trade” section, covering three of the 15 questions from the survey ❑ citation policy and license information ❑ full glossary of terms The full version of the report includes: ❑ 54 pages of results, analysis and expert commentary on the state of web development in 2006/2007 ❑ raw results dataset from over 5,000 survey participants ❑ a full correlation spreadsheet tool to help with your own analysis Blogs, podcasts, AJAX, server platforms, content management systems, industry best practices, and CSS layouts are just some of the areas analyzed in depth in this report. This complete, yet easy to digest, almost “conversation style” report will bring you and your organization up to speed with the state of the web development industry in 2006/2007, with a look at what challenges lie ahead. Download the full report now from http://www.sitepoint.com/launch/survey06/. Executive Summary We believe that this report reflects the largest survey of professional web developers to date. This report taps the experience of 5,000 web developers to answer 15 important questions. The questions covered a range of topics, including: the demographics of respondents what roles they play in the industry, and how they rank the most important questions of the moment tools of the trade which productivity tools are favored by web developers, which server technologies are being deployed, and what the expectations are for the next 12 months design practice in the real world what web developers are doing about adopting methodologies and best practices in software design web technology adoption how web developers are encountering hot new technologies such as blogs and podcasting, and how they anticipate working with them over the next 12 months
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 resources and learning how web developers are preparing to meet the challenge of new technologies, where they look for information on these technologies, and what they re trying to find out about right now the future of the web capturing a broader view of where web developers think the technologies might be headed over the longer term The picture that emerges is one of a diverse industry. On one hand, we have the adventurous souls who intend to take the technology as far as it can go, as quickly as possible. Their goal is to create as many opportunities as they can. On the other hand, we have the cautious types who prefer to let others take the risk of exploring uncharted territory, but watch carefully to make sure they don' t get left behind. This report is a guide for both camps, as well as for those who need to know which direction the industry is taking, and want their understanding to be based on real data, not just guesswork. In addition to the graphs and interpretation provided in this report, we also provide supporting inform- ation in the form of the raw data and analysis tools so that customers can test their own views of the future against the data collected by this survey. About the survey The State of Web Development 2006/2007 is the product of a joint research initiative conducted by SitePoint Pty Ltd and Ektron, Inc. These two organizations have been actively advocating for and helping web developers, designers, and other online professionals for almost a decade SitePoint began in 1997, around the start of the Internet's first major growth cycle. sitepoint. com remains one of the most highly trafficked and respected sites today, delivering information, commentary and resources to an active and involved community of web developers and designers Ektron, Inc, founded in 1998, has established itself as a technology and market leader in web content management software and web authoring tools with its CMS400 NET and eWebEditPro product lines Along the way, Ektron's software has empowered tens of thousands of web professionals to harness the Web as an effective platform for communication and interaction The partnership of these two organizations, and their support for the community of web professionals led to an idea in early 2006: leverage the critical mass of web developers and other web professionals associated with these organizations to take a"snapshot in time"and quantify the state of web development tools, technologies, techniques, and trends In all, 5,000 web professionals participated in this survey between June 15 and July 15, 2006. We believe this to be the largest survey of web developers to date. We also hold it to be one of the most insightful, reflecting both current realities and changes in the wind As a result of the size and depth of audience response, we decided to package the data, along with detailed interpretations and critical discussion, in this report. Even though the original intent of the survey was not to gather data for reporting purposes, the value of the information this survey captured is undeniable. Some interpretation has been necessary with pieces of the data, revealing a truly insightful picture of the industry as it stands today The period 2006-2007 will remain widely recognized for seeing so much progress: the new wave of online investment; the emergence and growth of newer web technologies and techniques; the growth in adoption of web standards; and the rise (and fall) of new business models that harness the power of the web like never before Copyright o 2006, Site Point and Ektron. Purchase the full report today!
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 resources and learning how web developers are preparing to meet the challenge of new technologies, where they look for information on these technologies, and what they’re trying to find out about right now the future of the Web capturing a broader view of where web developers think the technologies might be headed over the longer term The picture that emerges is one of a diverse industry. On one hand, we have the adventurous souls who intend to take the technology as far as it can go, as quickly as possible. Their goal is to create as many opportunities as they can. On the other hand, we have the cautious types who prefer to let others take the risk of exploring uncharted territory, but watch carefully to make sure they don’t get left behind. This report is a guide for both camps, as well as for those who need to know which direction the industry is taking, and want their understanding to be based on real data, not just guesswork. In addition to the graphs and interpretation provided in this report, we also provide supporting information in the form of the raw data and analysis tools so that customers can test their own views of the future against the data collected by this survey. About the Survey The State of Web Development 2006/2007 is the product of a joint research initiative conducted by SitePoint Pty Ltd and Ektron, Inc. These two organizations have been actively advocating for and helping web developers, designers, and other online professionals for almost a decade. SitePoint began in 1997, around the start of the Internet’s first major growth cycle. sitepoint.com remains one of the most highly trafficked and respected sites today, delivering information, commentary and resources to an active and involved community of web developers and designers. Ektron, Inc., founded in 1998, has established itself as a technology and market leader in web content management software and web authoring tools with its CMS400.NET and eWebEditPro product lines. Along the way, Ektron’s software has empowered tens of thousands of web professionals to harness the Web as an effective platform for communication and interaction. The partnership of these two organizations, and their support for the community of web professionals, led to an idea in early 2006: leverage the critical mass of web developers and other web professionals associated with these organizations to take a “snapshot in time” and quantify the state of web development tools, technologies, techniques, and trends. In all, 5,000 web professionals participated in this survey between June 15 and July 15, 2006. We believe this to be the largest survey of web developers to date. We also hold it to be one of the most insightful, reflecting both current realities and changes in the wind. As a result of the size and depth of audience response, we decided to package the data, along with detailed interpretations and critical discussion, in this report. Even though the original intent of the survey was not to gather data for reporting purposes, the value of the information this survey captured is undeniable. Some interpretation has been necessary with pieces of the data, revealing a truly insightful picture of the industry as it stands today. The period 2006-2007 will remain widely recognized for seeing so much progress: the new wave of online investment; the emergence and growth of newer web technologies and techniques; the growth in adoption of web standards; and the rise (and fall) of new business models that harness the power of the Web like never before. Copyright © 2006, SitePoint and Ektron. Purchase the full report today! 2
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 The data reflected in this report shines a light on this evolution About site Point SitePoint is a fast-growing online media company and information provider targeting the web profes- sional market-specifically web developers and de esigners SitePoint's web site, sitepoint. com, is currently ranked as the number one web site in the world in the Web Design and Development News and Media category-and in the top 300 web sites globally-by Alexa. com. sitepoint. com has a daily reach comparable to web sites operated by many mainstream media corporations The SitePoint forums boast more than 135.000 registered users. Its newsletters mail to half a million subscribers every month. The company has over 70,000 customers in 174 countries, and its sample products are enjoyed by 620,000 registered users. The company has six major revenue streams: advertising and sponsorship, content-based products both online and in retail, software, and more recently, streaming video subscriptions, classified listings, and industry reports About ektron Ektron,Inc.(http://www.ektron.com/)wasfoundedin1998,andhassinceestablisheditselfasatech market leader in web content management software and web authoring tools with it CMS400. NET and eWebEditPro product lines Along the way, Ektron's software has empowered tens of thousands of web professionals to harness the Web as an effective platform for communication and interaction. Ektron's web content management and authoring solutions are affordable for any organization and simple enough for anyone to use, yet offer webmasters, designers, and developers all the tools they need to create, deploy, and manage interactive web sites, intranets, and extranets in one platform. with Ektron CMS400. NET, companies can do what they want on the Web: develop rich sites for personal two-way communication with visitors; build community through memberships, blogs, and forums; and attract more repeat visits using rSs feeds and web alerts in order to increase business opportunities An open API allows for easy customization and extension Ektron is based in Amherst, New Hampshire, and has more than 15,000 customer implementations worldwide, including Unilever, Intel, and Pfizer About the Authors Aponovich David Aponovich is Ektron's Director of Marketing, driving a range of initiatives to increase awareness and adoption of Ektron's web content management software. He alsowritestheWebinsightsblogonEktron.com. David previously served as senior web editor at Aberdeen Group, a technology market research and consulting firm; earlier, he web editor at internet com / earthweb (now JupiterMedia), where he covered emerging web and business technology. Previ ously, he was business editor for a daily newspaper David graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Journalism Copyright o 2006, Site Point and Ektron. Purchase the full report today!
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 The data reflected in this report shines a light on this evolution. About SitePoint SitePoint is a fast-growing online media company and information provider targeting the web professional market—specifically web developers and designers. SitePoint’s web site, sitepoint.com, is currently ranked as the number one web site in the world in the Web Design and Development > News and Media category—and in the top 300 web sites globally—by Alexa.com. sitepoint.com has a daily reach comparable to web sites operated by many mainstream media corporations. The SitePoint Forums boast more than 135,000 registered users. Its newsletters mail to half a million subscribers every month. The company has over 70,000 customers in 174 countries, and its sample products are enjoyed by 620,000 registered users. The company has six major revenue streams: advertising and sponsorship, content-based products both online and in retail, software, and more recently, streaming video subscriptions, classified listings, and industry reports. About Ektron Ektron, Inc. (http://www.ektron.com/) was founded in 1998, and has since established itself as a technology and market leader in web content management software and web authoring tools with its CMS400.NET and eWebEditPro product lines. Along the way, Ektron’s software has empowered tens of thousands of web professionals to harness the Web as an effective platform for communication and interaction. Ektron’s web content management and authoring solutions are affordable for any organization and simple enough for anyone to use, yet offer webmasters, designers, and developers all the tools they need to create, deploy, and manage interactive web sites, intranets, and extranets in one platform. With Ektron CMS400.NET, companies can do what they want on the Web: develop rich sites for personal, two-way communication with visitors; build community through memberships, blogs, and forums; and attract more repeat visits using RSS feeds and web alerts in order to increase business opportunities. An open API allows for easy customization and extension. Ektron is based in Amherst, New Hampshire, and has more than 15,000 customer implementations worldwide, including Unilever, Intel, and Pfizer. About the Authors David Aponovich David Aponovich is Ektron’s Director of Marketing, driving a range of initiatives to increase awareness and adoption of Ektron’s web content management software. He also writes the WebInsights blog on Ektron.com. David previously served as senior web editor at Aberdeen Group, a technology market research and consulting firm; earlier, he was a web editor at internet.com/EarthWeb (now JupiterMedia), where he covered emerging web and business technology. Previously, he was business editor for a daily newspaper. David graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Journalism. Copyright © 2006, SitePoint and Ektron. Purchase the full report today! 3
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 Lachlan donald Lachlan Donald is Lead Developer for SitePoint,'s web development team, which is responsible for building and deploying solutions for businesses. He works on a daily basis with dynamic languages on a variety of platforms, and specializes in building accessible content management applications Lachlan completed his Bachelor of Computer Science with Honours, as the top-scoring student of the year. Prior to joining SitePoint, he worked in a variety of positions, in- cluding consulting roles at the Bureau of Meteorology, James Cook University, and Nick Langmaid Nick Langmaid started in the information technology industry in 1976 as a mainframe systems programmer In the 30 years since, he has worked for many companies, large and small, designing and implementing systems to satisfy their business needs Nick is the principal consultant at Solution Space, and specializes in requirements management and software system design. In addition to working with the SitePoint team, Nick is currently working with one of Australia's largest companies to use web technologies to extend and modernize its retail point-of-sale operations Nick lives with his wife Anne and two children. When time and weather permit-which is all too rarely-he enjoys flying light aircraft. Matthew Magain Matthew Magain holds a Master of Engineering degree and one half of an Associate Diploma in Graphic Design, qualifications that reflect his love for both the creative and technical aspects of the Web. His first taste of web programming came during a research posting at the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and he has been jumping back and forth between client-and server-side projects ever since Matthew has worked as a consultant for IBMs Business Consulting Services, as a freelance web developer, and as an English teacher in Japan. Since joining SitePoint as a Technical Editor he has edited several books, including lan Lloyd's Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML 8 CSS, commonly accepted as the best beginner's web design book on the market Matthew lives with his wife Kimberley and their daughter Sophia lan muir Ian Muir is Ektron's go-to web guy. a web developer by trade, he is also a web content management and Ektron CMS400 NET evangelist. Ian develops and teaches Ektron's Certified Developer Training Program, works with customers and partners deploying web sites, and cultivates the company's growing user community Ian is the architect of the Ektron DevCenter, a site dedicated to providing web de- relopers, designers, and webmasters with a range of resources to support them in building web sites, intranets and extranets, and applications. /books/html/ Copyright o 2006, Site Point and Ektron. Purchase the full report today!
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 Lachlan Donald Lachlan Donald is Lead Developer for SitePoint’s web development team, which is responsible for building and deploying solutions for businesses. He works on a daily basis with dynamic languages on a variety of platforms, and specializes in building accessible content management applications. Lachlan completed his Bachelor of Computer Science with Honours, as the top-scoring student of the year. Prior to joining SitePoint, he worked in a variety of positions, including consulting roles at the Bureau of Meteorology, James Cook University, and Channel 9. Nick Langmaid Nick Langmaid started in the information technology industry in 1976 as a mainframe systems programmer. In the 30 years since, he has worked for many companies, large and small, designing and implementing systems to satisfy their business needs. Nick is the principal consultant at Solution Space, and specializes in requirements management and software system design. In addition to working with the SitePoint team, Nick is currently working with one of Australia’s largest companies to use web technologies to extend and modernize its retail point-of-sale operations. Nick lives with his wife Anne and two children. When time and weather permit—which is all too rarely—he enjoys flying light aircraft. Matthew Magain Matthew Magain holds a Master of Engineering degree and one half of an Associate Diploma in Graphic Design, qualifications that reflect his love for both the creative and technical aspects of the Web. His first taste of web programming came during a research posting at the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and he has been jumping back and forth between client- and server-side projects ever since. Matthew has worked as a consultant for IBM’s Business Consulting Services, as a freelance web developer, and as an English teacher in Japan. Since joining SitePoint as a Technical Editor he has edited several books, including Ian Lloyd’s Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS, commonly accepted as the best beginner’s web design book on the market.1 Matthew lives with his wife Kimberley and their daughter Sophia. Ian Muir Ian Muir is Ektron’s go-to web guy. A web developer by trade, he is also a web content management and Ektron CMS400.NET evangelist. Ian develops and teaches Ektron’s Certified Developer Training Program, works with customers and partners deploying web sites, and cultivates the company’s growing user community. Ian is the architect of the Ektron DevCenter, a site dedicated to providing web developers, designers, and webmasters with a range of resources to support them in building web sites, intranets and extranets, and applications. 1 http://www.sitepoint.com/books/html1/ Copyright © 2006, SitePoint and Ektron. Purchase the full report today! 4
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 lan is a promoter of open source projects in ASP. NET, and of collaborative events such as BarCamp. He has extensive experience with PHP, Cold Fusion, C#f, and VB. NET. He graduated from the University of Maine with a Bachelor of Arts degree in New Media Kevin Yank Kevin yank is the technical director of sitepoint and oversees all of its technical publications-books, articles, newsletters, and blogs. He has written over 50 articles for Site Point on technologies including PHP, XML, ASP. NET, Java, JavaScript, and CSS Kevin writes the SitePoint Tech Times, SitePoint's biweekly technical newsletter for web developers, which has 120,000 readers worldwide. He is also a sought-after speaker, presenting regularly at conferences such as Web Directions and Fundamentos Web. However he is best known for his book Build Your Own database driven website Using PHP MySQL. Kevin enjoys performing improvised comedy theater and flying light aircraft Our Findings The State of Web Development Survey 2006 informed this report, to provide us with insight into current and important developments in the world of the Web. Much of the data reinforces our ideas about what is happening but some questions have uncovered new trends within the developer community. This report presents the raw data from the survey, interpreted via expert analysis and commentary to present some thought-provoking ideas about what it all really means findings. A glossary of abbreviations and terms is provided at the end of the repo and a precis of our We provide a brief breakdown here of the subjects covered by the 15 questions who responded The survey received an enormous response from both the Ektron and SitePoint developer communit ies. Just over 50% of the survey participants are actively employed in the Internet industry, and the rest work with the Web in varying capacities within other industries Of the former, 40% are freelance developers or owners of web design/development companies, and 12% work for a web design/development company Of the remaining 48%, about 30% administer or manage a company's or organization's site, with 5% managing their own ecommerce sites. The remaining 18% is almost evenly split between students at 8%, and the ever-popular"other"category at 10%. This distribution shows that a good cross-section of web professionals participated in the survey, rather than just one specific group. design practice in the real world There aren' t a whole lot of surprises emerging from the questions about standards compliance and standards-based design. About 17% of the people surveyed use pure CSs to lay out their pages while 69% mostly use CSS and only occasionally resort to table-based layouts in the sites they build Almost 78% of respondents validate their markup, with 25 of developers going the extra mile to maintain 100% standards-compliance with their code. A promising trend is evident-developers across the board are recognizing and implementing web standards. Data from some of the other questions also supports the contention that more web professionals are creating sites to meet web 2http://www.sitepoint.com/books/phpmysqll/ Copyright o 2006, Site Point and Ektron. Purchase the full report today!
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 Ian is a promoter of open source projects in ASP.NET, and of collaborative events such as BarCamp. He has extensive experience with PHP, ColdFusion, C#, and VB.NET. He graduated from the University of Maine with a Bachelor of Arts degree in New Media. Kevin Yank Kevin Yank is the Technical Director of SitePoint, and oversees all of its technical publications—books, articles, newsletters, and blogs. He has written over 50 articles for SitePoint on technologies including PHP, XML, ASP.NET, Java, JavaScript, and CSS. Kevin writes the SitePoint Tech Times, SitePoint’s biweekly technical newsletter for web developers, which has 120,000 readers worldwide. He is also a sought-after speaker, presenting regularly at conferences such as Web Directions and Fundamentos Web. However, he is best known for his book, Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL.2 Kevin enjoys performing improvised comedy theater and flying light aircraft. Our Findings The State of Web Development Survey 2006 informed this report, to provide us with insight into current and important developments in the world of the Web. Much of the data reinforces our ideas about what is happening, but some questions have uncovered new trends within the developer community. This report presents the raw data from the survey, interpreted via expert analysis and commentary to present some thought-provoking ideas about what it all really means. We provide a brief breakdown here of the subjects covered by the 15 questions, and a precis of our findings. A glossary of abbreviations and terms is provided at the end of the report. who responded The survey received an enormous response from both the Ektron and SitePoint developer communities. Just over 50% of the survey participants are actively employed in the Internet industry, and the rest work with the Web in varying capacities within other industries. Of the former, 40% are freelance developers or owners of web design/development companies, and 12% work for a web design/development company. Of the remaining 48%, about 30% administer or manage a company’s or organization’s site, with 5% managing their own ecommerce sites. The remaining 18% is almost evenly split between students at 8%, and the ever-popular “other” category at 10%. This distribution shows that a good cross-section of web professionals participated in the survey, rather than just one specific group. design practice in the real world There aren’t a whole lot of surprises emerging from the questions about standards compliance and standards-based design. About 17% of the people surveyed use pure CSS to lay out their pages, while 69% mostly use CSS and only occasionally resort to table-based layouts in the sites they build. Almost 78% of respondents validate their markup, with 25% of developers going the extra mile to maintain 100% standards-compliance with their code. A promising trend is evident—developers across the board are recognizing and implementing web standards. Data from some of the other questions also supports the contention that more web professionals are creating sites to meet web 2 http://www.sitepoint.com/books/phpmysql1/ Copyright © 2006, SitePoint and Ektron. Purchase the full report today! 5
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 standards. Just over 39% of developers list accessibility as a topic they want to learn about, 33% would like to see more resources available, both online and offline for learning XhtMl CSS tools of the trade The information gathered about server platforms is more unexpected. At 68%, PHP is by far the most common language being used by developers, but what we find interesting is that about half of the PhP developers surveyed also work with at least one other language. When developers were asked what server platforms they planned to learn about in the next 12 months, Ruby (at 24%)and ASP.NET 2.0(at 22%)were the most popular choices. These results suggest that many web developers might get started with PHP, then move on to object oriented languages such as Ruby, NET, and JSP It's also surprising that classic ASP is still the most common of the Microsoft languages, but as mentioned previously, there's a growing interest in learning ASP. NET 2.0 resources for learning Several of the survey questions related to the trends that developers are following. Respondents most commonly cited best practices and design as the areas of web development that they wanted to learn about Search engine optimization and usability were the next most popular choices. When web developers were queried about the technologies for which they'd like to see more resources 47%nominated AJAX. Next up was the XHTML/CSS combination, followed by JavaScript and JavaScript libraries ontent management When queried about the type of content management system(CMS) they were using, respondents were split fairly evenly between those who use a home-grown CMS, those who have acquired an external CMS (open source or commercial), and those who use no CMs at al adoption of web technologies In addition to an increase in the use of AJAX/Java Script, the survey's respondents show an interest in using more community-oriented tools. In response to the question of which technologies they plan to use in the next 12 months, 37% of developers intend to use blogs in their development projects, 25% aim to use podcasting, and 20% mean to use wikis. Another question asked respondent to indicate the kinds of resources they use to stay up to date. Of the respondents, 96% use online articles, but 60% also use forums, and 55% also use blogs. While articles are respondents'main source of information, less formal communication tools, such as blogs, forums, and wikis, are be- coming increasingly important resources the future of the web The survey revealed some very interesting trends in how the Web is evolving. Developers and de signers are placing more emphasis on creating rich user interfaces, using AJAX and Flash. Standards compliance is a concern for the majority of web professionals. Finally, creating object oriented code and working with languages that provide solid frameworks on which functionality can be developed rapidly-such as Ruby and ASP. NET-are on the horizon for most developers. The Web is clearly moving in a direction that is both improving the user experience and creating more efficient code Copyright o 2006, Site Point and Ektron. Purchase the full report today!
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 standards. Just over 39% of developers list accessibility as a topic they want to learn about, and 33% would like to see more resources available, both online and offline, for learning XHTML and CSS. tools of the trade The information gathered about server platforms is more unexpected. At 68%, PHP is by far the most common language being used by developers, but what we find interesting is that about half of the PHP developers surveyed also work with at least one other language. When developers were asked what server platforms they planned to learn about in the next 12 months, Ruby (at 24%) and ASP.NET 2.0 (at 22%) were the most popular choices. These results suggest that many web developers might get started with PHP, then move on to object oriented languages such as Ruby, .NET, and JSP. It’s also surprising that classic ASP is still the most common of the Microsoft languages, but as mentioned previously, there’s a growing interest in learning ASP.NET 2.0. resources for learning Several of the survey questions related to the trends that developers are following. Respondents most commonly cited best practices and design as the areas of web development that they wanted to learn about. Search engine optimization and usability were the next most popular choices. When web developers were queried about the technologies for which they’d like to see more resources, 47% nominated AJAX. Next up was the XHTML/CSS combination, followed by JavaScript and JavaScript libraries. content management When queried about the type of content management system (CMS) they were using, respondents were split fairly evenly between those who use a home-grown CMS, those who have acquired an external CMS (open source or commercial), and those who use no CMS at all. adoption of web technologies In addition to an increase in the use of AJAX/JavaScript, the survey’s respondents show an interest in using more community-oriented tools. In response to the question of which technologies they plan to use in the next 12 months, 37% of developers intend to use blogs in their development projects, 25% aim to use podcasting, and 20% mean to use wikis. Another question asked respondents to indicate the kinds of resources they use to stay up to date. Of the respondents, 96% use online articles, but 60% also use forums, and 55% also use blogs. While articles are respondents’ main source of information, less formal communication tools, such as blogs, forums, and wikis, are becoming increasingly important resources. the future of the Web The survey revealed some very interesting trends in how the Web is evolving. Developers and designers are placing more emphasis on creating rich user interfaces, using AJAX and Flash. Standards compliance is a concern for the majority of web professionals. Finally, creating object oriented code, and working with languages that provide solid frameworks on which functionality can be developed rapidly—such as Ruby and ASP.NET—are on the horizon for most developers. The Web is clearly moving in a direction that is both improving the user experience and creating more efficient code. Copyright © 2006, SitePoint and Ektron. Purchase the full report today! 6
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 Tools of the trade hese questions dealt with the development environments that people use, and the server technologies they are developing for. We asked participants about both the technologies they use currently, and the technologies that they expect to start using over the next 12 months Dreamweaver remains the most-used development environment, with over 40% of respondents naming it as their primary environment On the server front, PHP is the technology of choice, with 67% of respondents saying that they develop for this platform. However, significant numbers of respondents expect to start using Ruby (24%)and Microsofts ASP. NET(22%)over the next 12 months. None of these statistics are overly surprising but, as we'll show in the next few pages, our analysis re vealed some sub-trends that may be less obvious Question 2: What is your primary development environment? As may have been expected, the responses to this question(shown in Figure 1)indicate that Dreamweaver is the most popular choice for building web pages, with over 40% of respondents indicating that it was their primary development environment. More surprising is that"text editor"was the second highest choice, at 30%! Figure 1. Breakdown of respondents' primary development environment 日 Other.1374% 2%% 日 Text Editor,3046% 63%日Dme404% 2% 445 ■ Dreamweaver aVisual Studio or Visual Web Developer Express 口 Zend studio aText Editor(Note Page, Ultra Edit, etc. 口 Other Copyright o 2006, Site Point and Ektron. Purchase the full report today!
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 Tools of the Trade These questions dealt with the development environments that people use, and the server technologies they are developing for. We asked participants about both the technologies they use currently, and the technologies that they expect to start using over the next 12 months. Dreamweaver remains the most-used development environment, with over 40% of respondents naming it as their primary environment. On the server front, PHP is the technology of choice, with 67% of respondents saying that they develop for this platform. However, significant numbers of respondents expect to start using Ruby (24%) and Microsoft’s ASP.NET (22%) over the next 12 months. None of these statistics are overly surprising but, as we’ll show in the next few pages, our analysis revealed some sub-trends that may be less obvious. Question 2: What is your primary development environment? As may have been expected, the responses to this question (shown in Figure 1) indicate that Dreamweaver is the most popular choice for building web pages, with over 40% of respondents indicating that it was their primary development environment. More surprising is that "text editor” was the second highest choice, at 30%! Figure 1. Breakdown of respondents’ primary development environment Copyright © 2006, SitePoint and Ektron. Purchase the full report today! 7
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 Commentary Lachlan Development tools have almost religious significance for developers! The task of convincing a developer to adopt a new development environment is not one to be tackled lightly. The strong negative correlations that the raw data shows between types of development environ- ments make this apparent-few people choose to use more than one environment. That said, the tools do influence developers' perceptions of the development task For ex ample, Dreamweaver users tend to say they don,'t use CSS for layout-presumably they rely on Dreamweaver to translate their work into"web standards"without their having to inter- vene. Most users of visual development tools are content to let the tools handle the underlying code for them There are some interesting contradictions in the responses. For example, Zend Studio de- velopers are enthusiastic about learning best practices, yet claim they aren' t interested in learning about design. This correlation could be because these developers have, largely speaking, pigeonholed themselves as developers, and therefore don't feel that they need to educate themselves about other best practices that could be grouped under the design um- It seems that Visual Studio users aren't interested in other editors or in seo, cSs. or access- ibility. This trend may be due to the fact that Visual Studio is mostly used to develop applic ations for use within larger companies; it might also indicate that developers who fall under he"corporate"stereotype that we introduced in the previous section commonly ignore the semantic nature of the Web. Table-based layouts are still popular in this area of the market, which suggests that competing at a search engine level is not a huge consideration for these respondents Matt It works the other way too. Those living on the bleeding edge-the"gurus"-aren't interested in using tools that are mainstays for more conservative developers. Despite recent advances in industry support for standards, code completion, and other productivity-enhancing features the survey shows that developers who are actively using"Web 2.0"technologies are typically using a text editor or Zend Studio) to write their code The relationships in the data are obvious: ASP. NET developers tend to use Visual Studio as their coding tool; ColdFusion developers commonly use Dreamweaver to write their code; PHP, Perl, Python and ruby developers prefer to write code in a text editor It's interesting to note the positive correlation between developers who use a text editor and those who use CSS for layout. This correlation indicates that developers who like clean valid markup prefer to do things "by hand, " despite the recent growth in web standards support provided by tools like Dreamweaver. However, it may also be the case that respond ents who indicated that they "primarily use CSS for layout"aren,t working on large pro jects-operating with a text editor and producing markup that validates is a lot easier when the number and size of files being edited is small Compare this with the negative correlation between respondents' use of Dreamweaver and their adoption of CSS for layout. This correlation supports the theory that the majority of Dreamweaver users come from a design background but, though theyre beginning to brave the world of CSS, haven't fully embraced it yet A similar negative correlation exists between the usage of Visual Studio and a tendency not to validate markup, although in that case it may be the case that the AsP. NET world isn't generally concerned with, or aware of, web standarc Copyright o 2006, Site Point and Ektron. Purchase the full report today!
The State of Web Development 2006/2007 Commentary Lachlan Development tools have almost religious significance for developers! The task of convincing a developer to adopt a new development environment is not one to be tackled lightly. The strong negative correlations that the raw data shows between types of development environments make this apparent—few people choose to use more than one environment. That said, the tools do influence developers’ perceptions of the development task. For example, Dreamweaver users tend to say they don’t use CSS for layout—presumably they rely on Dreamweaver to translate their work into “web standards” without their having to intervene. Most users of visual development tools are content to let the tools handle the underlying code for them. There are some interesting contradictions in the responses. For example, Zend Studio developers are enthusiastic about learning best practices, yet claim they aren’t interested in learning about design. This correlation could be because these developers have, largely speaking, pigeonholed themselves as developers, and therefore don’t feel that they need to educate themselves about other best practices that could be grouped under the design umbrella. It seems that Visual Studio users aren’t interested in other editors, or in SEO, CSS, or accessibility. This trend may be due to the fact that Visual Studio is mostly used to develop applications for use within larger companies; it might also indicate that developers who fall under the “corporate” stereotype that we introduced in the previous section commonly ignore the semantic nature of the Web. Table-based layouts are still popular in this area of the market, which suggests that competing at a search engine level is not a huge consideration for these respondents. Matt It works the other way too. Those living on the bleeding edge—the “gurus”—aren’t interested in using tools that are mainstays for more conservative developers. Despite recent advances in industry support for standards, code completion, and other productivity-enhancing features, the survey shows that developers who are actively using “Web 2.0” technologies are typically using a text editor (or Zend Studio) to write their code. The relationships in the data are obvious: ASP.NET developers tend to use Visual Studio as their coding tool; ColdFusion developers commonly use Dreamweaver to write their code; PHP, Perl, Python and Ruby developers prefer to write code in a text editor. It’s interesting to note the positive correlation between developers who use a text editor and those who use CSS for layout. This correlation indicates that developers who like clean, valid markup prefer to do things “by hand,” despite the recent growth in web standards support provided by tools like Dreamweaver. However, it may also be the case that respondents who indicated that they “primarily use CSS for layout” aren’t working on large projects—operating with a text editor and producing markup that validates is a lot easier when the number and size of files being edited is small. Compare this with the negative correlation between respondents’ use of Dreamweaver and their adoption of CSS for layout. This correlation supports the theory that the majority of Dreamweaver users come from a design background but, though they’re beginning to brave the world of CSS, haven’t fully embraced it yet. A similar negative correlation exists between the usage of Visual Studio and a tendency not to validate markup, although in that case it may be the case that the ASP.NET world isn’t generally concerned with, or aware of, web standards. Copyright © 2006, SitePoint and Ektron. Purchase the full report today! 8
