Alistapart "The Survey for People Who Make Websites" 2008

Here it is !
This time I’ll be in time to participate :
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/survey2008

If there are open questions I’ll sure mention MODx in it
Done ! Added it in "other comments" at the end, not many open questions...

Maybe I’m just in a grouchy mood, but it seemed like an incredibly lame survey to me (no offense, I hope, to davidm who didn’t create it ).

I can think of dozens of questions I’d like to ask web professionals about CMS use, version control, use of tables, browser compatibility, workflow, fixed versus liquid design, programming languages, open source vs commercial software, etc., etc., and they’re asking dopey things like what race and gender are you, how old are you, how did you get into web programming, and how long have you been doing it.

My interest in the results of the survey is pretty minimal and the notion that I’d want to put a banner on my site bragging about having finished it is laughable.

Well, I did, because I see the point of their survey because to some extent the things they asked have affected me in the pursuit of my "career". Of course, if you’ve never been called "butch" because you like IT stuff, or been denied a job or openly sneered at or harassed because of your gender, national origins or level of formal education (irrespective of your proven capabilities in the field), you might not see the point.

And the very last question is an "open" comments box, in which I mentioned that I exclusively work with MODx.

Quote from: sottwell at Jul 30, 2008, 05:49 AM

Well, I did, because I see the point of their survey because to some extent the things they asked have affected me in the pursuit of my "career". Of course, if you’ve never been called "butch" because you like IT stuff, or been denied a job or openly sneered at or harassed because of your gender, national origins or level of formal education (irrespective of your proven capabilities in the field), you might not see the point.

And the very last question is an "open" comments box, in which I mentioned that I exclusively work with MODx.

Good points. I’ll be shocked and amazed if anyone’s use of MODx shows up when they publish the results, though.

I did the first survey and will do this one as well. I enjoy this process and think that it helps to understand our industry in other terms besides focusing only on the techno mumbo jumbo that we are surrounded with. The human aspect gets overlooked often when discussing our business, it is a nice relief to see some consideration being given to this.

ALA has a huge following and much respect in the industry, if this was some other institution I might not even consider the survey.

I think that the worst that I have been called is a nerd, which in my generation was not the compliment it is today. Specially in my social circle of long haired drop-outs (still not sure how I went from a ’granola head’ to a ’tech head’).

Took the survey and mentioned MODx as well

The Survey is an industry document that I think Alistapart and HappyCog use to find out what’s going on in the competitive marketplace. While I did the survey I realize that it has no impact on me as a freelance/self-employed business owner as financial remuneration does not necessarily translate across the global marketplace. I may charge less than someone in a large urban center but my over head is tiny compared but higher than a coding shop in India, Romania, Czech Republic etc.

Didn’t mention MODx as I didn’t think about it.

Cheers David for the idea!

Jay

Well, when I posted this, I had not started to complete the survey already, but I figured ALA would do something great as usual...

Never thought that mentionning MODx would give any published results, but you never know what people will mention in the comments box. Maybe they’ll talk about the tools they use, I sure couldn’t avoid mention MODx People who work on this survey probably also publish @ALA and raising their awereness about MODx can’t hurt

Anyway, while the survey is pretty focused on key socio-economic factors - not on the technical side of the job, and when I read the results last year it would seem that the analysis is of some value as it tracks down how those items evolve and that says something about the profession.