ESRI has posted a PDF with summary stats of the Dev Summit pre-conference survey results. I think it’s very cool that they have released this information, and there are a few interesting nuggets in there…
Importance of Blogs as a Resource
I find this pretty suprising, since I believe that if you asked the same question to the much broader .NET developer community, blogs would be in the top 5 – mainly because of the positive impact that the Microsoft developer blogs have had. Since 97% of respondents said that “Developer Resources” are important, I believe that this result simply reflects slow adoption within the GIS community. Despite this result, I hope that ESRI increases blogging by the product teams and professional services.
Developer Technologies
Three things stand out on this one…
ASP.NET SupremacyASP.NET seems to be pretty important to almost 80% of the respondents. Since I’m pretty sure that there are still an awful lot of people writing code for desktop, it makes me think that there is a tight correlation between ArcGIS Server developers and a willingness to take on-line surveys.
Visual Basic 6 beats Python, Java….
This suprised me. I loved VB6 when it was the only tool we had to work with, but it’s just so painful compared to using .NET – and the transition to VB.NET is about a smooth as can be – and you can get the Free Express Editions – why why why are you still writing VB6? (I can understand support & maintenance) The fact it beat out Python and Java makes me think that there are not many Python/Java/Perl etc. developers out there. REST? What’s a REST?
While this is still a fermenting concept, REST architecture is a great way to do simple “servicey” things. I’m glad that ESRI included it on the list, and I think it will move up as more people start grokking it.
Advertisement
