This is a blog post of our Code Reading Wednesdays from Codacy (http://www.codacy.com): we make code reviews easier and automatic.
We launched Codacy for private beta a week ago with a simple value proposition: save time on code reviews by offloading what can be automated. This resonates with people concerned with code quality that also need to ship product asap.
As a team trying to launch a code-centric product, we obsess with the question: What are the programming languages that people need support the most?
For us, answering this questions enables us to better serve our coders.
And so we asked via email: “What programming language do you use?”.
A really engaged and helpful group of developers answered by providing details of their current reality and the tools they use.
Here’s the breakdown:
We conversed with more than 50 developers who amicably shared their stories.
We can see that Javascript leads the most requested language list.
The second programming language — Java — was a surprise to us, since we consider it to have a great support and community tools.
However, after engaging in discussions we discovered that, although most Java developers have great quality set ups in place, they are constantly looking for ways to improve. Furthermore, Java is still one of the predominant players in terms of use.
On the other hand PHP was quite expected. Prior to our launch, we extensively researched tools and systems to analyze code and found PHP to be lacking (in comparison, for instance, with Java). So, discovering that the need for PHP testing exists within the PHP community was an expected outcome.
By the end of this week we will also announce our next two supported programming languages which will reflect a lot what we’ve listened and learned.
Conclusion and Gratitude
This was a very short summary on our first findings of our journey through automated code reviewing.
We’re seeing a lot of pain and a lot of curiosity in making things more efficient.
Overall, there’s also one thing: developers are the most helpful and collaborative users. We’ve been complemented and supported by a big community of people wanting to be better at their jobs and wanting to provide more value for their products. This not only amazes as it humbles us.
A big thank you for everyone that signed up and shared their story
We’re building this for you and this helps us a lot.
If I have yet to reach out to you, a very big apology and I will this week.
Next time we would love to share some statistics about what’s hurting developers and what you can do about it.
Edit: We just published an ebook: “The Ultimate Guide to Code Review” based on a survey of 680+ developers. Enjoy!
About Codacy
Codacy is used by thousands of developers to analyze billions of lines of code every day!
Getting started is easy – and free! Just use your GitHub, Bitbucket or Google account to sign up.