About this survey
Enjoying yearly programming puzzles at Advent of Code since 2015! Since 2018, a community-run (unofficial) survey has been held. Since 2021 the results are published here! The data is available under the ODbL license on GitHub.
Bar chart showing that the top 2 remains Python 3 (>40%) followed by Rust (>17%). Javascript is in third but closely trailed by C++ and C#. Python 2 is now at 0.7% (down from 7.0% in 2018). However, a ton of folks indicate using an "Other..." language: 23.5%! Expand the data table to see all the good stuff: folks using Excel or their own programming languages, or check out the biggest newcomer Uiua at 7 responses! Toggle data table for all the data.
Bar chart showing IDE's used. Up another couple percentage points but still below 50%, VSCode supremely sits on top. Surprise of 2023 is Neovim, which surpassed IntelliJ and Vim in popularity. The data table can be expanded for great stuff! There are interesting choices like game engines, impressive ones like "My own editor", to downright crazy choices. Toggle data table for all the data.
Bar chart showing a roughly unchanged situation for Operating Systems used over the years. WSL is a bit higher in 2023 but mostly because it became an explicit, separate option this year. Expand the data table to read some good stories and responses (shout out to the person using a Nintendo DS!!). Toggle data table for all the data.
⚠ Note: In 2023 'WSL' (along with 'Android', 'iOS', and 'IPadOs') became built-in options, heavily increasing their representation.
Bar chart showing "Reasons for participating": it's extremely curious and interesting that the top responses are this stable over the years! The value is not in the chart here, really: but in the data table. Toggle data table for all the data. And gasp at the heartwarming, disconcerting, pleasing, fun, and lovely responses folks wrote!
Note: "For Santa!" was not a default answer in the survey until 2020 onwards.
Bar chart showing a clear trend over the years: more respondents are "not interested" in global leaderboard participation, but less people seem to attribute this to the timezone being problematic. The individual responses in the data table below show a ton of interesting (as well as concerning) responses. Toggle data table for all the data.
Bar chart showing no big surprises: number of private leaderboards stays the same over the years. Most folks sit in 0 or 1 private leaderboard, about 15% in 2 leaderboards, 7% in 3 leaderboards, 2% in 4 leaderboards, and 3% in 5 or more leaderboards. Toggle data table for all the data.
This stacked bar chart clearly shows that (logically) this survey is biased towards people who participate in 2023 in December itself. This year each question had a link to your stars for that year, so data might be a little more accurate. It's fun to see that more folks went back to do 2015 than 2016 and 2017: "you've gotta start at the beginning"?
Line chart with 2023 highlighted, showing the number of survey responses per day (cumulative). We did not reach 2021 or even 2022 numbers, but still have a respectable 3000+ responses. Thank you to everyone filling out the survey, you're the best!!
Bar chart showing feelings survey respondents felt aligned with. About 62% of y'all indicate not using AI at all. The tongue-in-cheek option "Ugh, not again with the AI" attracted a whopping 41% of y'all. Almost 10% of you "Will submit to our new AI Overlords". On the more serious end the subject is polarizing, but still weighing a tad towards "it's bad for AoC". Toggle the data table to be amazed at the hundreds of custom responses folks gave!
Note: brighter color indicate the "stronger" responses. Yellow are neutral responses, red negative, green positive, and blue "other".