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 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￾brella. 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 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 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 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