Research study: How C# developers adopt new language features?

[Volodymyr Havryliuk]

Are you a C# programmer? Do you improve the way you code? Regardless if you feel comfortable with trying new things or you rather prefer to work what you already know and have mastered, it is you we are lookng for!

C# is one of the fastest developing mainstream programming languages. Its new revisions deliver new features that help programmers in writing more concise and more expressive code. However, we see that not all new features are used in the same way. We want to understand how these features are adopted by developers in practice, what are the drivers that motivate them to do so, and which personal or professional traits could be associated with it.

Our research project comprises three steps:
(i) automated analysis of several github repositories, to retrieve instances of the new features and provide quantitative data about their adoption
(ii) survey aimed at C# developers, to understand who they are and their motivations for adopting new features in their professional activities
(iii) in-depth interviews (30 mins) with some of the survey respondents, to discuss some specific apsects of their decisions

We invite you to fill the survey; if you would like to participate in the interview, please leave your email address in the survey form.

Research study: How C# developers adopt new language features?

Many thanks in advance for your help and contribution!

 

[Skydiver]

Why do you assume that people will have their code in Github? Some developers maybe using new features in in-house code that they are not allowed to publicly share. If you only look at the publicly available repos, then your research maybe (will be?) skewed.

Have you also considered the fact that a lot of the newer language features are tied to specific versions of the .NET Framework and/or .NET (Core)? Your study will be further skewed by people who can put their code in containers, or isolated servers, or are allowed to deploy large .NET (Core) self-contained packages to client machines so they can be at the bleeding edge as opposed to other people who are constrained by the target platforms they will be deploying to.

Have you also considered that most developers don't work in isolation? They can't be a lone cowboy coder. They need to work in a team and the team will have their coding standards. Those coding standards may not be moving at the same pace as the language features are released.