Interesting facts about software development: statistics 2018
Tags: agilewebandappde, agileprojectmanage, automationtesting, jenkins
Published: 2018-07-10 06:53:39

---
title: Interesting facts about software development: statistics 2018
published: true
tags: Agile web and app de,Agile project manage,automation testing,Jenkins
canonical_url: https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/interesting-facts-software-development/
---

This year [Apiumhub](/) partnered up with [codignsans](https://codingsans.com/blog/software-development-trends-2018?msID=c04e1da2-6098-402f-b5f9-f5ec73da7f9c) and other software related companies like: [instabug](https://instabug.com/), [clutch](https://clutch.co/), [shippable](https://www.shippable.com/), [codegiant](https://codegiant.io/home), [stride](https://www.stridenyc.com/), [codeship](https://codeship.com/), [usersnap](https://usersnap.com/), [gitkraken](https://www.gitkraken.com/) and took part in a global software development research to find out how companies attract software developers, what are the most popular languages, what are the most frequent challenges, etc. We got more than 300 answers from different countries around the world and we really hope that you will find this report interesting. To get the full report with Interesting facts about software development, click [here](https://codingsans.com/blog/software-development-trends-2018?msID=c04e1da2-6098-402f-b5f9-f5ec73da7f9c).

 

## Sneak peek: interesting facts about software development

 

And now, let’s look at some of the data from the report to get an idea of what to expect from this report. Let me highlight that in this article you won’t find a detailed explanation of each graph and question. It is just a sneak peek.

As we all know, software development is a fast-changing field. Almost every year we see new languages, software architectures, containers, methodologies, etc. A tool or language that is highly used today might be obsolete next year. This year our intention is to take a snapshot of the current state of software development and make conclusions about where it’s heading.

This report has different chapters, the first part of the report is about the challenges software teams are facing and the solutions they try to implement. In this part, you will also find the most popular programming languages and project management tools.   
 The second part of the report is about hiring and retaining challenges and solutions. is among the biggest challenges tech companies are facing. And the last chapter focuses on performance management and code quality. You will see the causes of delivery problems from a developer and manager point of view.

To be honest, we are very excited to show you interesting facts about software development in 2018. We hope you will like it!

Ok, let’s start!

 

## Top interesting facts about software development

 

**1. Challenges in software development**

The biggest challenge tech companies are facing is related to capacity: delivering working software while the backlog is full and capacity is limited. This challenge is closely followed by hiring. We can say that attracting and retaining talent is a huge problem in software development. But what teams do to overcome the capacity challenge? The most popular solution is to optimize the team’s workflows. After that comes prioritization and increasing the number of people working on the project. Also, applying agile methods is a common way to tackle capacity challenges. And what do teams do to solve the hiring problem? The most popular way is to hire in-house recruiters or external headhunters to get in touch with potential candidates. Another method is launching internship programs. To see the graph and other solution, click [here](https://codingsans.com/blog/software-development-trends-2018?msID=c04e1da2-6098-402f-b5f9-f5ec73da7f9c).

 

**2.Programming languages**

What are the most used programming languages? And what languages will be used in 2019? The answers are here:**[![popular Programming languages](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.10.10.png)](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.10.10.png)**

_Source: [State of software development report](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018)_

As we can see the most widely used programming language is JavaScript, 60.73%.   
 What is curious is that 36.63% of the respondents said they’re not planning to use any new programming languages in the coming 12 months.

 

**3. Tools**

This report made it clear that teams use a wide variety of tools, especially when it comes to testing and project management. If you look at the graph, you will see that the “Other” category is way higher than anything else.

[![testing tools](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.17.33.png)](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.17.33.png)

 

_Source: [State of software development report](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018)_

To know more about the most popular tools for project management and communication, click [here](https://codingsans.com/blog/software-development-trends-2018?msID=c04e1da2-6098-402f-b5f9-f5ec73da7f9c).

 

**4. Hiring and retaining talent**

As we have seen, hiring is the second biggest challenge among software teams and the first one for managers. This chapter is about hiring practices of tech companies, including hiring methods, criteria, and attracting and motivating talent.

[![hiring criteria software development](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.20.21.png)](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.20.21.png)

_Source: [State of software development report](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018)_

 

From what we can see it is clear that there are 4 important areas tech companies focus when they’re hiring talent: willingness to learn, cultural fit, work experience and technical skill evaluation test.

What is curious is that now, very few companies look at degrees, it became something secondary. The most important one is a willingness to learn and it makes sense because we live in a rapidly changing world and people should be able to adapt to new circumstances and find new opportunities to do the job better.

As for the retaining talent, let’s look at the graph to find out what are the main factors that companies use to make talents stay with them:

 

[![tacktics to attract software developers](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.22.06.png)](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.22.06.png)

_Source:_ [_State of software development report_](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018)

 

It turns out that challenging work and great team culture are the most popular ways to keep developers motivated.

 

**5. Software Outsourcing**

Since dealing with capacity issues is one of the biggest challenges along with hiring talents, outsourcing could be a quick fix. Let’s see what companies think about the idea of doing outsourcing:

[![software outsourcing statistics](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.23.53.png)](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.23.53.png)

_Source: _[_State of software development report_](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018)

Well, as we can see most of the people who outsourced software development services stayed somewhat satisfied. This can be a good solution for the capacity problem.

 

**6. Performance management**

In this section of the report, we will look at how software teams measure performance and what causes delivery problems. This part also uncovers how developer teams ensure code quality.

[![metrics to measure software developers' performance](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.25.28.png)](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.25.28.png)

_Source: _[_State of software development report_](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018)

 

As we can see working software, completed tasks and code readability are the most important factors for project managers to measure developers performance.

As for the success criteria: working software and on-time delivery are on top of the graph, which you can find [here](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018).

And the number one cause of failure for most of the project manager is unrealistic expectations, followed by estimation and lack of clearly defined deliverables.

[![top delivery problems for software teams](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.27.48.png)](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screen-Shot-2018-07-06-at-14.27.48.png)

_Source: _[_State of software development report_](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018)

 

And peer review and CI + TDD are the top choices of developers to ensure code quality. Other ways you may find [here](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018).

 

## Conclusion: global software development situation

This article featured just a small slice of all the data we gathered from the [survey](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018). If you want to see the full report, just follow this link and download it. Feel free to share this post or report with anyone you think might be interested. But don’t forget that this data is relevant only for this year. Excited to see what will be different in 2019. Do you have any ideas?

Again, big thanks to [Codingsans](https://codingsans.com/blog/software-development-trends-2018?msID=c04e1da2-6098-402f-b5f9-f5ec73da7f9c) for this initiative and for making it happen together with [Instabug](https://instabug.com/), [Clutch](https://clutch.co/), [Shippable](https://www.shippable.com/), [Codegiant](https://codegiant.io/home), [Stride](https://www.stridenyc.com/), [Codeship](https://codeship.com/), [Usersnap](https://usersnap.com/), [GitKraken](https://www.gitkraken.com/).

To see the full report, click [here](http://codingsans.com/state-of-software-development-2018).   
 Enjoy!

 

If you would like to get more interesting facts about software development, I highly recommend you to subscribe to our monthly newsletter by clicking [here](http://eepurl.com/cC96MY). 

 

## And if you found interesting facts about software development useful, you might like…

 

[Scala generics I: Scala type bounds](https://dev.to/apium_hub/scala-generics-i--scala-type-bounds-38)

[Scala generics II: covariance and contravariance](https://dev.to/apium_hub/scala-generics-ii-covariance-and-contravariance-in-generics-5dib)  

[Scala generics III: Generalized type constraints](https://dev.to/apium_hub/scala-generics-iii-generalized-type-constraints-58km)

[BDD: user interface testing](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/user-interface-testing/)

[F-bound over a generic type in Scala](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/f-bound-scala-generics/)

[Microservices vs Monolithic architecture](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/microservices-vs-monolithic-architecture/)

[“Almost-infinit” scalability](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/almost-infinite-scalability/)

[iOS Objective-C app: sucessful case study](https://dev.to/apium_hub/protected-ios-objective-c-app-cornerjob-successfull-case-study-89e)

[Mobile app development trends of the year](https://dev.to/apium_hub/mobile-app-development-trends-of-the-year)

[Banco Falabella wearable case study ](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/banco-falabella-wearable-ios-android/)

[Mobile development projects](https://apiumhub.com/software-projects-barcelona/) 

[Viper architecture advantages for iOS apps](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/viper-architecture/) 

[Why Kotlin ? ](https://dev.to/apium_hub/why-kotlin-language-android-why-did-google-choose-kotlin--639)

[Software architecture meetups](https://dev.to/apium_hub/apiumhub-software-architecture-meetups-in-barcelona-31df)

[Pure MVP in Android](https://dev.to/apium_hub/pure-model-view-presenter-in-android-1736) 

 

 

The post [Interesting facts about software development: statistics 2018](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/interesting-facts-software-development/) appeared first on [Apiumhub](https://apiumhub.com).