Git User's Survey 2009 partial summary, part 2 - from first 10

From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 17, 2009, 10:24 UTC
Message-ID: <200908171224.44686.jnareb@gmail.com>

Git User's Survey 2009 partial summary, part 2 - git difficulty, proficiency, uses, install, OS, editors.

It more than a month since Git User's Suvey 2009 was started (it was started on 15 July 2009), which is a half of planned duration time of the survey.

So I think this is time for second part partial summary of Git User's
Survey 2009.  The previous part can be found at
  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/124599
  Subject: Git User's Survey 2009 partial summary, part 1 -
           - announcing survey, participation
  Message-Id: <200907312246.12134.jnareb@gmail.com>

You can see summary of Git User's Survey 2009 responses (and make your own analysis) at the following URL:

  http://www.survs.com/shareResults?survey=2PIMZGU0&rndm=678J66QRA2
  http://tinyurl.com/GitSurvey2009Analyze

After the survey ends (or earlier, if it is requested) the raw data would be published on GitSurvey2009 page on Git Wiki in CSV and XLS formats (like for GitSurvey2008).

We have currently (at the time I have checked this) around 3089 responses, as compared to 3236 individual responses (including 21 responses in 'test' channel) for survey in 2008, 683 individual responses in 2007, and around 117 responses in 2006.

Below there is analysis of few questions from this survey; note that results might do not add to 100% because of replies during using live analysis tool, and the rounding.

3) Have you found Git easy to learn?
4) Have you found Git easy to use?
   (Choice - Single answer)

================================================ Answer | to learn [%] | to use [%] ------------------------------------------------ Very easy | 4% | 9% Easy | 20% | 36% Reasonably easy | 55% | 45% Hard | 19% | 8% Very hard | 2% | 1% ------------------------------------------------ Total respondents | 2942 | 2959 ================================================

As you can see the myth that Git is hard to learn was busted ;-) Not.

When analyzing this data you should take into account that somebody considering or finding Git to hard to learn wouldn't be probably Git user, and thus wouldn't fill this survey. So because it is *Git User's* Survey we should consider that results can be skewed towards lower value (easier).

What's interesting is comparing (percentage) results for questions
3. and 4.; how hard is git to learn versus how hard is to use.  It
seems like Git is reasonably easy to learn, and reasonably easy to
easy to use.  So it looks like Git just have somewhat steep learning
curve, and the difficulty to learn pays in being more powerful to
use.

6) Rate your own proficiency with Git:
   (Choice - Single answer)

You can think of it as 1-5 numerical grade of your proficiency in Git.

================================================
Proficiency               | resp [%] | resp [n]
------------------------------------------------
1. novice                 |       4% |      114
2. casual, needs advice   |      17% |      520
3. everyday use           |      38% |     1138
4. can offer advice       |      34% |     1020
5. know it very well      |       6% |      192
--------------------------+---------------------
Total respondents         |                2984
Skipped this question     |                 105
================================================

As you can see most responders know Git enough for everyday use, or can even offer some Git advice. If we treat possible answers as a proficiency grade, the average proficiency is around 3.2.

Either Git users don't stay novices long, or survey announcement(s) didn't reach novice users.

This data could be useful later to be able to check how it differs git usage for novices and for gurus (what commands they run, what features they use at different levels of proficiency).

7) I use Git for (check all that apply):
   (Choice - Multiple answers)

Note that above choices are neither orthogonal nor exclusive. One might want to check multiple answers even for a single repository.

============================================ Answer | resp [%] | resp [n] -------------------------------------------- work projects | 79% | 2366 unpaid projects | 80% | 2391 ............................................ work and unpaid | 66% | 1960 only work | 14% | 407 only unpaid | 15% | 432 not answered | 6% | 190 -------------------------------------------- proprietary projects | 37% | 1108 OSS development | 69% | 2054 private code | 77% | 2315 -------------------------------------------- code (programming) | 87% | 2591 web app | 43% | 1274 configuration files | 34% | 1010 personal data | 33% | 972 documents | 32% | 956 static website | 29% | 881 -------------------------------------------- frontend to other SCM | 32% | 971 sharing data or sync | 22% | 645 backup | 24% | 722 backend for web app | 9% | 263 ............................................ -------------------------------------------- other | 3% | 84 ============================================ Total respondents | 2989 Skipped this question | 104 ============================================

The answers in the table above are in slightly different order than in original, i.e. in the survey. Analysis of correlations was done here only for work / unpaid part of answer (see table above).

This question joins together (to reduce number of questions in the survey) few separate issues:

 * Whether one use Git for work, or for unpaid projects: this survey
   results shows that the amount of paid and unpaid projects are about
   the same, and that most of people (most of responders) us Git for
   both work (paid) and free (unpaid) projects.

 * The question of openess / license: whether one uses Git for
   proprietary projects or for FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source
   Software), or perhaps for private code (not covered by license).
   Here OSS development and private code/data dominates over using Git
   for proprietary code, with around twice as much answers.  This may
   be caused by the fact that Git is / feels more suited to opensource
   (like) development (proprietary code can use proprietary SCM), but
   it might be that announcement didn't make it to people using Git
   for proprietary works.

 * Whether one uses Git for code (for something it was created for),
   or for other things like documents etc.  Here code dominates,
   having around twice as many replies as the next in turn, 'web app'
   (which is also code, but a special case, and not only code).

 * next is UGFWIINI part: using Git for what it was not intended.
   Well, except perhaps using Git as frontend or fat-client for other
   SCM (e.g. git-svn for Subversion).  Using Git for other SCM
   dominates with 32%, next are using Git for sharing, and for backup
   (both with around 23% of responses).

 * The "other (please specify)" is not yet analyzed (nor even began
   analysis so far).

8) How do/did you obtain Git (install and/or upgrade)? 
  (Choice - Multiple answers)

Explanation: binary package covers pre-compiled binary (e.g. from rpm
or deb binary packages); source package covers things like deb-src and
SRPMS/*.src.rpm; source script is meant to cover installation in
source-based distributions, like 'emerge' in Gentoo.

Automatic update (apt, yum, etc.) in most cases means binary package install; unless one uses source-based distribution like Gentoo, CRUX, or SourceMage, where automatic update means using source package (or source script).

The option named "preinstalled / sysadmin job" means that either you didn't need to install git because it was preinstalled (and you didn't upgrade); or that you have to ask system administrator to have git installed or upgraded.

Note that this question is multiple choices question because one can install Git in different ways on different machines or on different operating systems.

================================================== Answer | resp [%] | resp [n] -------------------------------------------------- binary package | 71% | 2118 source package or script | 24% | 704 source tarball | 20% | 588 pull from repository | 18% | 527 preinstalled / sysadmin job | 6% | 185 other - please specify | 4% | 123 ----------------------------+--------------------- Total respondents | 2975 Skipped this question | 118 ==================================================

Most people (71%) use ready binary packages, which was kind of expected; that is the easiest way.

9) On which operating system(s) do you use Git?
   (Choice - Multiple answers)

On Unix-based operating system you can get the name of operation system by running 'uname'.

============================================================ Operating system | resp [%] | resp [n] ------------------------------------------------------------ Linux | 88% | 2623 MacOS X (Darwin) | 44% | 1304 MS Windows/Cygwin | 9% | 279 MS Windows/msysGit (MINGW) | 21% | 625 *BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc.) | 7% | 213 OpenSolaris | 3% | 101 other Unix | 2% | 60 Other, please specify | 2% | 46 ......................................|..........|.......... MS Windows (any) | 27% | 820 --------------------------------------+--------------------- Total respondents | 2991 Respondents who skipped this question | 102 ============================================================

Most common used operating system is Linux, next is MacOS X, and then MS Windows (on MS Window dominates msysGit version). This is quite understandable, as Git was created on Linux and for Linux, and it works best there.

The "other" answer include Solaris, AIX, HP-UX (other Unix), GNU/Linux (Linux), Debian, NixOS (Linux distributions), none (?); iPod, OpenVMS, QNX, Hurd and "my toaster" (?). And some commentaries and clarifications.

10) What do you use to edit contents under version control with Git?
    What kind of editor, IDE or RAD you use working with Git?
    (Choice - Multiple answers)

* "simple text editor" option includes editors such as pico, nano,
  joe, Notepad,

* "programmers editor" option includes editors such as Emacs/XEmacs,
  Vim, TextMate, SciTE (syntax highlighting, autoindentation,
  integration with other programmers tools, etc.)

* "IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and RAD (Rapid Application
  Development)" option includes tools such as Eclipse, NetBeans IDE,
  IntelliJ IDE, MS Visual Studio, KDevelop, Anjuta, Xcode,
  Code::Blocks but also tools such as Quanta+, BlueFish or Screem (for
  editing HTML, CSS, PHP etc.), and Kile or LEd for LaTeX.

* "WYSIWYG tools" option includes word processors such as MS Office or
  OpenOffice.org, but also tools such as Adobe Acrobat (for PDF) or
  GIMP (for images), or WYSIWYG DTP tools such as QuarkXPress,
  PageMaker or Scribus, or WYSIWYG HTML editors such as FrontPage,
  Dreamweaver or KompoZer.

Most popular kind of tool is programmer's editor with very strong 88% lead. Next in turn are IDE or RAD with 32%, followed by simple text editor, with 25%. The WYSIWYG tools are last, with very small 5% of replies; also people who use WYSIWYG tools also use other kind of tools to edit (presumably to edit commit message at least).

>From browsing through "other tool" responses it seem like there should

be included 'web interface' among possible tools (written as: wiki frontend, GitHub editor, <textarea>). Other responses include Xournal (note taking application for graphic tablet, using stylus), Tinderbox (also note taking application), Git GUI tool: GitX (?), custom git-aware CMS (probably also 'web interface'), scripts and oneliners, command line and 'On occasion, Unix text manipulation tools'. Also there is "audio editors" answer (which probably should fall under "WYSIWYG tool)...

Many answers in 'other tool' falls in one of ready categories; perhaps they are clarification?

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Git User's Survey 2009: http://tinyurl.com/GitSurvey2009