This is an overview of the current state of Node.js. No
coding, nothing hardcore, just a high-level look at this super popular
runtime environment.
We have sent out a 34-question long survey and reached
285 developers.Here’s the first interesting fact: 267 of them use Node.js regularly in
52 countries.
When I saw the results of the
Stack Overflow Developer Survey, I know I had to go deeper
(insert Inception joke here). As the
marketing guy at RisingStack
I currently don’t do much programming, but I wanted to know more about
the possible use cases for Node. Since the Stack Overflow line-by-line
dataset wasn’t accessible to the public last week, I decided to run my
own survey to
get some insights and share them with you.
Let’s see the results!
Programming Experience
The average Node.js user is between 25-34 years old, according to the
results. Honestly, this wasn’t a huge surprise. Now let’s take a look
when did they start writing code:
What the heck, 1/3 of you have 10+ years of programming experience?
You were writing code years before even thinking about college or even
before high school? Well,
Harrison Ford was a carpenter until his 30s, so I guess I still have time to be an awesome developer beside doing my marketing things.
Education
The evergreen Bachelor’s. Nice to have, but happiness doesn’t require
a degree: almost all of you proved to be super enthusiastic about your
work with Node.
Node.js Technology Overview
JavaScript is not Java, we get it. And yet so many Node developers work with Java too.
Mongo and Express busted out, and the rest follows them.
Microservices
Let’s take a closer look at microservices. The question was what infrastructure do you use, and why are you using it?
It’s nice to see that more and more companies are building their infrastructure on microservices from the beginning.
They didn’t regret that decision.
On the other side, the monolithic architecture is just a
big old monster in a dark room that no one wants to open. Some developers even described it as
chaotic, and some didn’t know much about this emerging trend yet.
Work
One more reason to learn Node: the more you work with it, the more you love your job! I love statistics so much.
Obviously it doesn’t mean that you will automatically love your job
if you use Node, but it can definitely increase your chances to get a
better offer if you know a thing or two about it.
This one isn’t very surprising, but the chart can be a good tool to gain motivation if you are aiming for a promotion.
It could be interesting to dig deeper into the differences between
CTOs and other C-level executives: less stress? More fun? Or something
else? We can find out next year.
Node.js Activities
We took a look at what is Node.js used for at work.
One-third of Node developers don’t commute at all. Remote jobs are
heaven for some, but hell for others: it seems you like working outside
the office.
Developing new features was always on the table, but learning new skills is now more important than ever.
Companies using Node.js
It’s interesting to see the spike on education: and we are not
talking about universities or colleges here. Most of these companies are
offering a SaaS platform with recurring billing or making money with
direct sales in both B2B and B2C directions. Another evidence for the
rise of the
MOOCs.
I hesitated a lot until I decided to include this one or not since it
could be easily misinterpreted. Smaller companies hire approximately
the same amount of Node developers as the bigger ones do. This chart
only shows that if you want to be surrounded with Node developers, you
could be better off with a smaller firm instead of a bigger company.
(The X axis shows the number of developers at a company.)
Companies seem to be experimenting with Node.js. This overview shows
that they try it on a part of their architecture first, but then they
tend to build the entire infrastructure on it.
What is Node.js really used for
We have received many more unique answers on this one, including one developer who said
almost everything. Others mentioned
web apps and
web scraping.
I also wanted to find out the core reason to answer why developers
started using Node. Just like in marketing, saving money is important,
but it’s simply not the main reason to start using a new tool or
framework. The benefit of the new thing is the one that matters, and
performance is in the first place for a reason. When
Google experimented with displaying 30 search results instead of 10 with an extra
0,5 secondsloading time,
the site’s traffic dropped by 20%.
Developers are using Node.js because it’s insanely fast – both
talking about performance and go-to-market time. And – according to a
random answer –
because it’s hipster, of course.
Source: blog.risingstack.com
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