Stack Overflow Developer’s Survey is one of the most important resources available to understand the new trends on software development. I just read the report and decided to share the biggest insights I got from it. Here, in order to focus on the discussion and what really matters for this sub, I will just focus on the main points that relate to AI.

The first insight I could grasp from the report is that people are willing to use AI as a tool for helping them learn how to code:

The first section where AI is mentioned on the report is Online resources to learn how to code. Although most of the respondents still rely on the technical documentation, it is very interesting to see that almost 40% of them stated that they use AI to help them learn. And I have to say that I am a developer who is constantly using AI to learn how libraries, frameworks and snippets of code work. I truly believe that AI will become an indispensable resource for learning programming in the next years.

ChatGPT is by far the most used AI Tool for developers and the use of AI Tools for development is right on the path to becoming mainstream:

In the section AI tools in the development process we can see that less than 25% of the respondents don’t plan to use AI on their development process. Taking into account that some of them can be motivated by having fear that AI can take their job or simply are just used to their work this way and don’t wanna change, it is quite impressing that something that didn’t even existed two years ago is now either used or considered by 3 in each 4 of the developers who answered the survey.

Learning and Productivity are the main benefits expected from AI Tools but developers still don’t trust 100% on AI Tools:

One thing is very interesting to note on the section Accuracy of AI tools. Although the majority ( 40.3% ) of the respondents stated that somewhat they trust AI Tools just a minority of them ( 2.7 % ) stated that they highly trust them.

This means that we still have a lot to improve on these tools. People want AI Tools, but they are not yet completely satisfied with what they have today! This is a huge opportunity if you are an entrepreneur thinking of targeting this industry.

This is also highlighted again on the section AI tools’ ability to handle complex tasks where we can see that, again, just a minority ( 3.3% ) of the respondents consider the AI Tools they use very good at handling complex tasks!

Today the need of writing better code is driving the developer's demand for AI Tools but this will probably change in the future:

In the section AI in the development workflow we can see that the vast majority of the respondents are using AI Tools to help them with writing the code. To be fair this is quite expected since the output of the work of a developer are lines of code. Not saying that there is no brain work in there, but in the end, you get things done only the moment your code is shipped to production. Search for answers is also a strong use case among the developers who answered the survey. I use AI Tools in development a lot to help me find the best libraries, frameworks, architecture or approach to a specific problem. I pretty much started to skip Google when I need answers about a topic for my job as a software engineer. This also highlights how AI can be a threat to traditional search engines, who are now running to incorporate AI in their products.

In the section AI tools next year we have something very interesting. Although most of the respondents stated their are using AI Tools to help them write code and search for answers, when asked where they think AI will be used more in the next year, the majority answered Documenting and Testing code. I relate 100% with that because I HATE documenting and testing stuff ( honest take: I almost never do this ). It can be a waste of time Documenting and Testing code because people who like building products want to create features and see their users using them to solve problems. Documenting and Testing is a necessary step but one that most of the developers would gladly skip to focus on the tasks that will create value for the users. I recognise that maintaining a huge code base and quality control of an app is extremely important, but this is a job I would gladly delegate to an AI Tool.

It was a good amount of data to analise and I have tried to be more objective as possible and also to contribute with my professional experience working with AI on B2B powered SaaS. If you want to read the full post with more insights and information about it, here is the link.

Stack Overflow Developer’s Survey is one of the most important resources available to understand the new trends on software development. I just read the report and decided to share the biggest insights I got from it. Here, in order to focus on the discussion and what really matters for this sub, I will just focus on the main points that relate to AI.

The first insight I could grasp from the report is that people are willing to use AI as a tool for helping them learn how to code:

The first section where AI is mentioned on the report is Online resources to learn how to code. Although most of the respondents still rely on the technical documentation, it is very interesting to see that almost 40% of them stated that they use AI to help them learn. And I have to say that I am a developer who is constantly using AI to learn how libraries, frameworks and snippets of code work. I truly believe that AI will become an indispensable resource for learning programming in the next years.

ChatGPT is by far the most used AI Tool for developers and the use of AI Tools for development is right on the path to becoming mainstream:

In the section AI tools in the development process we can see that less than 25% of the respondents don’t plan to use AI on their development process. Taking into account that some of them can be motivated by having fear that AI can take their job or simply are just used to their work this way and don’t wanna change, it is quite impressing that something that didn’t even existed two years ago is now either used or considered by 3 in each 4 of the developers who answered the survey.

Learning and Productivity are the main benefits expected from AI Tools but developers still don’t trust 100% on AI Tools:

One thing is very interesting to note on the section Accuracy of AI tools. Although the majority ( 40.3% ) of the respondents stated that somewhat they trust AI Tools just a minority of them ( 2.7 % ) stated that they highly trust them.

This means that we still have a lot to improve on these tools. People want AI Tools, but they are not yet completely satisfied with what they have today! This is a huge opportunity if you are an entrepreneur thinking of targeting this industry.

This is also highlighted again on the section AI tools’ ability to handle complex tasks where we can see that, again, just a minority ( 3.3% ) of the respondents consider the AI Tools they use very good at handling complex tasks!

Today the need of writing better code is driving the developer's demand for AI Tools but this will probably change in the future:

In the section AI in the development workflow we can see that the vast majority of the respondents are using AI Tools to help them with writing the code. To be fair this is quite expected since the output of the work of a developer are lines of code. Not saying that there is no brain work in there, but in the end, you get things done only the moment your code is shipped to production. Search for answers is also a strong use case among the developers who answered the survey. I use AI Tools in development a lot to help me find the best libraries, frameworks, architecture or approach to a specific problem. I pretty much started to skip Google when I need answers about a topic for my job as a software engineer. This also highlights how AI can be a threat to traditional search engines, who are now running to incorporate AI in their products.

In the section AI tools next year we have something very interesting. Although most of the respondents stated their are using AI Tools to help them write code and search for answers, when asked where they think AI will be used more in the next year, the majority answered Documenting and Testing code. I relate 100% with that because I HATE documenting and testing stuff ( honest take: I almost never do this ). It can be a waste of time Documenting and Testing code because people who like building products want to create features and see their users using them to solve problems. Documenting and Testing is a necessary step but one that most of the developers would gladly skip to focus on the tasks that will create value for the users. I recognise that maintaining a huge code base and quality control of an app is extremely important, but this is a job I would gladly delegate to an AI Tool.

It was a good amount of data to analise and I have tried to be more objective as possible and also to contribute with my professional experience working with AI on B2B powered SaaS. If you want to read the full post with more insights and information about it, here is the link.