What Developers Want in 2020: Pandemic Shifts, Cloud Choices, and Emerging Tech
The 2020 Q3 Slashdata developer survey reveals how the pandemic reshaped work preferences, highlights the rise of JavaScript, Python and Kotlin, explains price‑driven cloud adoption decisions, outlines who practices DevOps, shows what developers value in open‑source projects, and spotlights emerging technologies such as AR/VR, edge computing and machine vision.
1. Extra Needs During the COVID‑19 Pandemic
40% of developers say they need more flexible working hours and workload.
Collaboration tools and platforms are the top technical demand.
Freelancers and small‑business developers report fewer additional needs.
Developers in larger enterprises seek self‑management tools, collaboration support, and mental‑health resources.
2. Refresh of Language Community Status
JavaScript remains the most popular language with 12.4 million developers worldwide.
Python now has 9 million users, surpassing Java in early 2020 after adding 2.2 million new developers last year.
Kotlin is the fastest‑growing language community, having doubled in size since the end of 2017.
3. Reasons Developers Adopt or Reject Cloud Technologies
Price and support/documentation are the decisive factors when adopting cloud services; price alone drives most rejections.
Vendors can differentiate by offering orchestration features that developers value beyond price.
If a cloud solution meets minimum requirements, developers pay little attention to feature sets or performance.
Developers reject technologies that do not provide a satisfying development experience; community access and proper support are crucial.
4. Who Practices DevOps?
Over 80% of professional developers have participated in DevOps practices to some extent.
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) are the most common DevOps activities, yet only a quarter have fully automated their workflows.
Programmers are eager to use CI/CD but less likely to adopt operational practices such as production monitoring.
Large, experienced software teams are far more inclined to embrace DevOps.
5. What Developers Value Most in Open‑Source Projects
Interaction and collaboration with the open‑source community are prized more than direct code contributions.
Western European developers place the highest importance on open‑source across all dimensions.
South Asian developers highly value contributing to open‑source, positioning the region to lead the next wave of open‑source development.
6. Emerging Technologies
AR/VR technologies have not yet fully embraced OSS principles.
Adoption rates for many emerging techs are low, indicating DevOps has reached maturity.
Fog/edge computing is gaining interest among professionals, though overall participation remains modest.
Machine vision is maturing, with a growing number of developers learning the topic and increasing adoption rates.
Some advanced technologies show fatigue in participation, yet adoption continues to rise among the committed developer segment.
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