SAN FRANCISCO, March 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 30 percent of developers are spending more time developing mobile and cloud-based applications, according to data from a new joint study from Dr. Dobb's and Forrester Research. The Global Developer Technographics® Survey, Q3 2012 analyzes results from a survey of more than 500 platform-agnostic, programming-language-independent developers from Dr. Dobb's audience base that collectively represent the full software development community. Respondents were queried about the types of applications they are writing and how they are writing them and about the state of application development.

The survey turned up trends that could have major implications:

• 35% of developers surveyed are spending more time developing mobile and cloud-based apps. This growing number shows that mobile and cloud are rapidly getting traction in all businesses and that developers are increasingly being asked to adapt their software to new client front ends and cloud back ends. This trend demonstrates how much IT will change in the future -- with both ends of its processing pipeline shifting to new platforms -- and how organizations' reliance on developers will only increase.
• 84% of developers use open source software (OSS) products. The greatest adoption rate was in infrastructure, such as operating systems (56%), web servers (52%), and relational databases (47%). Development tools were the next largest categories, with IDEs (41%), SCM (33%), and build tools (22%) being the most popular categories. Surprisingly, open-source NoSQL databases (such as Apache Hadoop and MongoDB) were used by 13% of developers, suggesting that the NoSQL phenomenon is real and not just hype. With nearly one in seven developers currently using NoSQL, it's likely to become a standard part of enterprise software development going forward.
• 75% of developers program outside of their work responsibilities. This not only proves that programmers have a genuine love for programming, but indicates that their motivation for programming on their own time is to explore new technologies. Developers must continually learn about cutting-edge technologies and the new ways to use existing products because the rate of change in their industry continues at a rapid pace.

"This survey shows the great passion Dr. Dobb's readers bring to their trade, and their great enjoyment in exploring new tools and technologies both at work and on their personal projects," said Andrew Binstock, Editor in Chief of Dr. Dobb's.

"We're at an industry inflection point as developers move to modern application architectures that include mobile and tablet front ends, public cloud infrastructure, and connect to big data frameworks for predictive analysis. Modern applications allow businesses to move fast, make better decisions in real time, and stay three steps ahead of their competitors," said Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst Jeffrey Hammond. "The developers who build modern applications are the life blood of the companies they work for and they represent a new generation of practice. They use more and different programming languages, adopt open source because of its fit with elastic infrastructure, and they're taking control of their careers and the technologies they want to work with. It's a great time to be a developer."

For more information or to schedule a meeting to review how the results impact developer marketing, please contact Dr. Dobb's at iwkmarketing@ubm.com.

About Dr. Dobb's (http://drdobbs.com)

Dr. Dobb's is the most respected development-focused brand helping application and software development professionals. Dr. Dobb's provides deep content that challenges developers to think of new and dynamic ways to create applications while balancing "what can be developed" with practical, real-world analysis on how architectures, platforms and languages can be brought together to deliver optimal solutions. Dr. Dobb's gives today's developers the breadth and depth of content they need to make smart decisions, confer with peers, engage with experts, and understand deep technical information by focusing on the tools, technologies, people, products and services that are transforming the software development marketplace.

About UBM Tech (http://www.ubmtechweb.com)

UBM Tech is a global media business that provides information, events, training, data services, and marketing solutions for the technology industry. Its media brands and information services inform and inspire decision makers across the entire technology market— engineers and design professionals, software and game developers, solutions providers and integrators, networking and communications executives, and business technology professionals. UBM Tech's industry-leading media brands include EE Times, Interop, Black Hat, InformationWeek, Game Developer Conference, CRN, and DesignCon. The company's information products include research, education, training, and data services that accelerate decision making for technology buyers. UBM Tech also offers a full range of marketing services based on its content and technology market expertise, including custom events, content marketing solutions, community development and demand generation programs. UBM Tech is a part of UBM (UBM.L), a global provider of media and information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

SOURCE UBM Tech