DevRel Best Practices Part 2 – Webinar Information and Links

During the DevRelate November webinar we’ll be covering Part 2 of our series focused on Developer Marketing and Developer Relations Best Practices. In this blog post you’ll find additional information and links for topics covered in the webinar. Bookmark this page and come back during November for additional updates.

Webinar Agenda

  1. Reasons for Joining and Staying in a Developer Program
  2. Developer Relations Best Practices Part 2
  3. Q&A

 

Best Practices Areas Covered in Part 2

  • Events & Activities
  • API Sandboxes, Virtual Labs, Cloud Instances
  • App Stores & Application showcases
  • Community Chat Systems
  • Training & Certification
  • Popular Blogging Topics
  • Programming Languages to Support

 

Popularity of Programming Languages

  • Tiobe Index – Updated once a month, the Tiobe Index is calculated by using multiple search engines looking for the number of skilled engineers, courses and third party vendors. You can read more about how the Tiobe Index is computed on their website.
  • Redmonk Programming Language Rankings – The Redmonk ranking appears bi-annually and appears on Stephen O’Grady’s blog. The latest version, “The RedMonk Programming Language Rankings: January 2017” appeared on his blog on March 17, 2017. The ranking is based on code on GitHub and discussions on Stack Overflow. The ranking correlates programming language discussions and usage on these two popular sites.
  • PYPL: PopularitY of Programming Language Index – This index is created by analyzing how often programming language tutorials are searched using Google. The index page says “If you believe in collective wisdom, the PYPL Popularity of Programming Language index can help you decide which language to study, or which one to use in a new software project.”
  • Indeed Job Trends – Using the Indeed search system you can get some trending results for Job Postings and Job Seeker Interest. Using the interface, you can string together a query based on adding a series of programming languages.
  • Programming Languages used in Elementary and High Schools – In the US the College Board’s AP Computer Science exam uses the Java programming language. Previously programming languages including C++, Modula-2 and Pascal were used. You can also find other programming languages used in secondary education to prepare students for college and work force placement. The languages used in elementary and high schools can often depend on the skills of the teachers and will normally include the use of  Python, Scratch, JavaScript, Alice and others. The ACM Model Curriculum for K-12 Computer Science gives guidance for schools but does not push a specific programming language.
  • Programming Languages Taught in College Computer Science – Different college computer science departments choose programming languages that are used as the first course and some focus on a language in the core computer science classes. Stanford University used to teach Java but recent news articles report that Stanford has moved from Java to JavaScript for their introduction to programming course. While C++, Java, JavaScript and other programming languages are taught in schools, most universities also cover a wide range of programming languages, algorithms, data structures and technologies to help prepare graduates for their move into industry, research and teaching.

 

OPENAPI and Swagger

With the Swagger YAML and/or JSON files you can use Swagger’s CodeGen tool to create bindings for more than 20 server side languages and more than 40 client side languages.

 

Evans Data Tactical Marketing Reports

Evans Data reaches out to its global developer panel to produce two annual tactical marketing reports: Developer Marketing Survey Report and Developer Relations Survey Report. The Developer Marketing Survey contains software developers’ attitudes about marketing tools and programs used to promote and sell products to them. This report provides invaluable insight for your developer marketing campaigns. The Developer Relations Survey examines issues and elements of developer programs. This report provides invaluable insight for your developer program and advocacy.

 

DevRelate Webinar Nov 16 & 28 : Developer Relations Best Practices (Part 2)

Back in January 2017 we presented the first in a series of Developer Relations Best Practices, “Developer Relations Best Practices and Tools of the Trade“, focused on several aspects you’ll find in a well run developer outreach program. In that webinar we covered seven developer program best practices including: Social Media, Blogs, Newsletters, Webinars, Videos, Documentation and Answers.

In Part 2 of the Developer Relations Best Practices webinar series we’ll cover: events & activities, API sandboxes & virtual labs, app stores & application showcases, community chat systems, training & certification, popular blogging topics, and the programming languages you should support.

The developer relations best practices webinar content is supported by Evans Data Tactical Developer Marketing (Developer Marketing 2017 Survey and Developer Relations 2017 Survey) research results.

Agenda

1) Reasons for Joining and Staying in a Developer Program
2) Developer Relations Best Practices Part 2
3) Q&A

Dates and Times

This webinar is offered multiple times on Tuesday, November 16th and Tuesday, November 28th. Select the date and time that works best for you. Use the pull down date/time box on the GoToWebinar registration page to select the session you want to attend. Register here!

Thursday (November 16, 2017)

  • 7am Pacific Standard Time (9am CST, 10am EST, 3pm GMT, 4pm CET)
  • 1pm Pacific Standard Time (3pm CST, 4pm EST, 9PM GMT, 10pm CET)
  • 5pm Pacific Standard Time (9am CST Beijing November 17, 12noon AEDT Sydney November 17)

Tuesday (November 28, 2017)

  • 7am Pacific Standard Time (9am CST, 10am EST, 3pm GMT, 4pm CET)
  • 10am Pacific Standard Time (12pm CST, 1pm EST, 6pm GMT, 7pm CET)

 

Presenter

David Intersimone “David I”, Vice President of Developer Communities, Evans Data Corporation

Who Should Attend

  • Managers & Directors of Developer Programs
  • Technology & Developer Evangelists
  • Business Development Managers & Directors
  • Product Marketing Managers & Directors
  • Marketing Managers
  • Corporate Communications Managers
  • Heads of Developer Marketing
  • ANYONE who deals with developers!

The insights provided in this webinar stem from years of experience and the direct input from a global panel of software developers about what works for them and what doesn’t.

Whether you are starting a new developer relations program or enhancing a current one, you deserve all of the help you can get! Register Now!

 

Tracking Industry Dashboards to Align your DevRel Outreach

As part of keeping developers up to date on your company’s products and services, your developer relations program staff should keep track of what is happening with the operating systems that developers use for desktop, server, and mobile platforms. A great way to keep up to date is to bookmark some of the following dashboards that report version usage patterns for users, developers, devices, desktops and platforms.

Evans Data Developer Surveys – tracking host/target OS

 

Evans Data Corporation was created to fill the demand for market research, market intelligence, and strategic planning in the software development industry. Since then we have become the industry leader in market intelligence focused on all areas of development from software to hardware to mobility.

At EDC we have in-depth and focused experience working with high-tech professionals, and we specialize in conducting market research in the IT and development community. We are experts in analyzing technology trends and attitudes. We know how to speak the language and ask the right questions and more importantly, we can understand the answers.

You will find host and target operating system developer usage and plans for the future in the bi-annual Global Development Survey. Evans Data’s other developer surveys can also help you target your products and services for versions of databases, cloud systems, IoT devices, AI and more. Click on the image below to see the list of EDC research and how it can help you in your developer relations outreach efforts.

Most developers will use a Windows based PC for their development even though they may be targeting Windows and other operating systems and devices. Developers target a variety of operating systems running on desktop/laptop PCs, Smartphones, Tablets, Cloud, and Embedded devices. The top two target areas are desktop/laptop PCs and Smartphones.

You will find additional research results for these host and target systems in the EDC bi-annual survey reports.

 

 

Development Related Industry/Platform Dashboards

In addition to the Evans Data developer research, as a developer myself, I also keep track of additional dashboards covering desktop/laptop PC use, mobile OS version use and programming language trends.

There are several operating system, platforms and device based version dashboards that you can also use to track adoption and impact on developers. Most notable are the Google/Android and Apple mobile operating system adoption dashboards.

 

bmw-1399427_640

Are there other Dashboards that you Use?

If you use additional, publicly available dashboards to track developer, platform, smartphone, device, etc. trends, send me an email and I will update this blog post.

David I Facebook Avatar

David Intersimone “David I”
Vice President of Developer Communities
Evans Data Corporation
davidi@evansdata.com
Blog: https://www.devrelate.com/blog/
Skype: davidi99
Twitter: @davidi99
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidi99/

 

Which programming language(s) should your developer platform support?

Depending on the products and services your company provides that are supported by your developer relations program, you will find a large number (or a short list) of programming language you should consider. Of course, you can’t always support every programming language that developers might want to use. Each language choose to support will come with costs including: API interfaces and documentation, source code examples, articles and videos to create, developer tools to test with, developer support, training and more. At the same time, supporting more languages can also extend the developer reach for your company resulting in increased revenue and reputation.

So, how do you decide which programming languages to support? You can look inside your own company, review the Evans Data developer surveys, check out programming language popularity sites, see what developer positions are listed on job boards, look at the programming language popularity on Stack Overflow, searching GitHub projects, factor in the leading platforms and technologies, search for what the top computer science and software engineering schools are teaching and read what tech industry luminaries, bloggers and press write about. If that isn’t enough sources for guidance, you can also use dart and Ouija boards, magic 8-ball and D&D dice (just kidding).

Programming Language(s) Popularity

Here are a few places where you can find information about popular programming languages and programming language rankings.

You Can Support any Programming Language if …

A great benefit of using industry standards for APIs, REST/JSON for example, is that just about every programming language in use today can make REST calls and pass parameters and receive results using JSON. If you are using SOAP, CORBA or some other RPC (probably for legacy systems), you should defintely add support for REST and JSON. Some companies are also exploring the use of Apache Thrift and GraphQL for some of their service APIs. If you interested in microservices for your developer platforms, check out this article “Microservice Showdown – REST vs SOAP vs Apache Thrift (And Why It Matters)“. Also check out this recent article about GitHub adding a GraphQL API “Just Because Github Has a GraphQL API Doesn’t Mean You Should Too“.

Let me know what Programming Language(s) your developer program supports

What programming languages do you support for your developer program and platform? Send me an email!

David I.

davidi@evansdata.com

Twitter: @davidi99