Samples from SitePoint's "State of Web Development 2006/2007" Paper

The SitePoint State of Web Development 2006/2007 report is a 53-page report based on a survey of 5,000 web developers in which they were asked these 15 questions:

  1. What best describes your primary involvement with the Web?
  2. What is your primary development environment?
  3. Which server platform(s) do you develop for?
  4. What server platform(s) are you not developing for, but expect to in the next 12 months?
  5. How extensively are you using CSS for layout?
  6. Do you validate your markup?
  7. Which do you practice in your web development work?
  8. For your web projects, what is the primary type of content management system you use?
  9. Which technologies do you or your organization use in current web projects?
  10. Which technologies are you or your organization planning to use in your future web projects (over the next 12 months)?
  11. Do you personally maintain a blog?
  12. What resource(s) do you use to keep your skills sharp and your knowledge timely?
  13. What technologies do you wish had more resources available on the Web and in print?
  14. Aside from specific technologies, what do you want to learn more about in the next 12 months?
  15. What will be the next big thing on the Web?

This article on SitePoint provides a brief overview of the survey, takes a look at how they reached their conclusions based on the survey data and gives a taste of what the full report looks like. A good chunk of the article is devoted to their analysis methodology; those of you who are stats gurus should find it enjoyable reading.

Here's an interesting tidbit revelaed in the article: the developers surveyed seemed to form four distinct clusters, which they named and described as follows:

  • The Guru: Technical excellence. Actively tracks new technological trends, and is interested in learning how to use them to improve the quality and functionality of web sites.
  • The Entrepreneur: Building and retaining an audience. Less interested in using technologies just because they're new.
  • The Designer: Timely delivery of visually appealing web sites that meet the business requirements of clients.
  • The Corporate: Reliable, stable performance. Works in a larger organization, and faces the unique mixture of constraints and opportunities that the corporate environment offers.

The report is full of other interesting correlations, such as these ones about PHP developers, who are:

  • likely to be using, or are planning to start using, Python and/or Ruby on Rails
  • less likely to be planning to start using ASP .NET
  • more likely to be using a home-grown or open-source CMS
  • very much less likely to be using a commercial CMS

The following charts are available in the free preview of the report:


Source: The State of Web Development 2006/2007, SitePoint Pty Ltd. and Ektron, Inc., August 2006


Source: The State of Web Development 2006/2007, SitePoint Pty Ltd. and Ektron, Inc., August 2006


Source: The State of Web Development 2006/2007, SitePoint Pty Ltd. and Ektron, Inc., August 2006


Source: The State of Web Development 2006/2007, SitePoint Pty Ltd. and Ektron, Inc., August 2006

The report isn't cheap: we're talking US$795 for a single user license, US$1995 for an intranet (single organization) license and $2950 for a license that lets you use excerpts and charts in your marketing and media documents.

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