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State of Web Development 2010 Results

Looking for just the results to each of the ques­tions in this year’s State of Web Development sur­vey You’ve come to the right place.

Or, if you’re look­ing for the full details, head over to our in-​​depth report.

Table of Contents

• About the Survey
• The Audience
• Operating Systems and Browsers
• Markup
• CSS and Presentation
• JavaScript and the DOM
• Rich Media
• Server tech­nolo­gies
• The Cloud
• Conclusions and predictions

Part 1: Respondents

Question 1: In which coun­try do you live?

CountryCountArgentina4Australia318Austria6Azerbaijan1Belarus2Belgium30Bosnia and Herzgovena1Brasil7Bulgaria2Canada91China3Columbia1Costa Rica1Croatia5Czech Republic4Denmark2El Salvador1UK77Estonia2Finland5France21Germany14Greece11Hong Kong2Hungary3Iceland1India8Indonesia2Ireland3Israel3Italy9Japan6Latvia1Lebanon2Luxembourg3Malaysia1Mexico1Myanmar1Netherlands15New Zealand20Nigeria1Norway9Pakistan1Peru1Philipines7Poland7Portugal17Romania6Russia6Saudi Arabia2Serbia3Singapore4Slovakia2Slovenia5South Africa4South Korea1Spain12Sweden14Switzerland5Taiwan2Thailand1Tunisia1Turkey4USA542Ukraine1Venezuela3

Question 2: How would you describe yourself?

DescriptionCountDesigner518Developer790Other199

Question 3: What size orga­ni­za­tion do you work for?

2010

SectorCount%Student443.14%Hobbyist241.71%Freelancer29921.33%Small Organization (up to 10)29821.26%Medium Organization (up to 50)25818.4%Large Organization (up to 500)23716.9%Huge Organization (more than 500)22816.26%Other70.5%

2008

SectorCount%Student685.51%Hobbyist211.70%Freelancer22518.23%Small Company (up to 10)23519.04%Medium Company (up to 50)24419.77%Large Company (up to 500)18414.91%Huge Company (more than 500)23118.72%Other181.46%

Question 4: Which sec­tor do you work in?

2010

SectorCount%Web Focussed Agency51236.52Digital Design Agency1268.99%Construction & Property60.43%Consumer Goods130.93%Banking & Finance342.43%Health211.5%Industrials00%Leisure80.57%Media805.71%Natural Resources10.07%Retail181.28%Technology16711.91%Telecoms181.28%Transport60.43%Utilities10.07%Engineering110.78%Local Government171.21%State/​Regional Government292.07%National Government322.28%Charity/​Not for Profit523.71%Education1087.7%Other1329.42%

2008

SectorCount%Design Agency31925.85%Banking & Finance332.67%Construction & Property20.16%Consumer Goods110.89%Engineering161.30%Health221.78%Industrials20.16%Leisure90.73%Media12910.45%Natural Resources20.16%Retail141.13%Technology23118.72%Telecoms151.22%Transport60.49%Utilities30.24%Local Government161.30%State/​Regional Government292.35%National Government302.43%Charity/​Not for Profit423.40%Education12510.13%Other16913.70%

Part 2: OS and Browsers

Question 5: Which OS do you pri­mar­ily use for day to day work?

2010

OSCount%Windows XP34324.47%Windows Vista876.21%Windows 714510.34%Mac OS X 10.4201.43%Mac OS X 10.518413.12%Mac OS X 10.650736.16%Linux594.21%Unix00%Other40.29%

2008

OS (2008)Count%Windows XP46537.68%Windows Vista1139.16%Mac OS X 10.4655.27%Mac OS X 10.551241.49%Linux564.54%Unix10.08%Other70.57%

Question 6: Which browser do you pri­mar­ily use for day to day browsing?

2010

Browser (2010)Count%IE600%IE7110.78%IE8130.93%Firefox 3.522916.33%Firefox 3.653037.8%Safari 320.14%Safari 428420.26%Google Chrome24117.19%Opera241.71%Other100.71%

2008

Browser(2008)Count%IE6151.22%IE7403.24%IE830.24%Firefox 2443.57%Firefox 374160.05%Safari 210.08%Safari 325820.91%Google Chrome524.21%Opera383.08%Other272.19%

Question 7: What fea­tures are impor­tant in your decision?

2010

Featurenot impor­tantimpor­tantvery impor­tantBuilt in Developer Tools30.16%23.62%42.73%Plug in Developer Tools30.4%14.3%51.84%Performance10.06%12.08%74.41%sta­bil­ity9.98%11.71%74.84%Standards Support9.01%6.1%81.41%CSS3 Support15.4%19.61%61.51%HTML5 Support17.45%23.24%55.83%User Experience Design14.59%20.61%61.32%Familiarity18.57%20.3%57.67%

Mobile Browser Summary

2010

Browser (2010)Count%Mobile Safari41329%Android523.8%Pre3.2%Blackberry151.1%Opera mini362.6%Opera mobile201.43%Nokia11.8%

2008

Browser (2008)Count%Mobile Safari20016%Blackberry9.75%Opera mini423.4%Opera mobile201.6%Nokia201.6%

Question 8: Which browsers do you test your web sites with?

2010

BrowserCount%IE5181.28%IE683759.7%IE7115882.6%IE8117183.52%Firefox 215711.2%Firefox 352237.23%Firefox 3.585961.27%Firefox 3.697369.4%Safari 2362.57%Safari 335825.53%Safari 4112480.17%Mobile Safari53338.02%Google Chrome107876.89%Opera66047.08%Opera Mobile805.71%

2008

BrowserCount%IE5534.29%IE696878.44%IE7110489.47%IE836429.50%Firefox 260448.95%Firefox 3113591.98%Opera61649.92%Opera Mobile614.94%Safari 223719.21%Safari 399280.39%Mobile Safari25920.99%Google Chrome48839.55%

Part 3: Markup

Question 9: Which type of markup do you use?

2010

MarkupCount%Exclusively HTML1389.84%Exclusively XHTML47633.95%Mostly HTML, some­times XHTML23016.41%Mostly XHTML, some­times HTML45132.17%XML50.36%Other191.36%

2008

MarkupCount%Exclusively HTML735.92%Exclusively XHTML52342.38%Mostly HTML, some­times XHTML19615.88%Mostly XHTML, some­times HTML36729.74%XML90.73%Other100.81%

Question 10: How often do you val­i­date your markup?

2010

FrequencyCount%Always45732.6%Frequently46733.31%Sometimes32423.11%Never634.49%

2008

FrequencyCount%Always45436.79%Frequently40132.50%Sometimes27822.53%Never413.32%

Question 11: Which doc­type do you typ­i­cally declare for your pages?

2010

DoctypeCount%none251.78%HTML 4.01 strict1178.35%HTML 4.01 transitional16211.55%HTML 4.01 frameset10.07%XHTML 1.01 strict35325.18%XHTML 1.01 transitional39628.25%XHTML 1.01 frameset50.36%XHTML 1.1563.99%HTML 517712.62%Other110.78%

2008

DoctypeCount%none211.70%HTML 4.01 strict1068.59%HTML 4.01 transitional14211.51%HTML 4.01 frameset30.24%XHTML 1.01 strict38431.12%XHTML 1.01 transitional42534.44%XHTML 1.01 frameset10.08%XHTML 1.1534.29%HTML 5161.30%Other100.81%

Question 12: Do you use tables for layout?

2010

AnswerCount%Never, on pain of death84460.2%Yes, often they’re much eas­ier for lay­out than CSS362.57%Only if I really really have to43531.03%

2008

AnswerCount%No104684.76%Yes12710.29%No answer161.30%

Question 13: If you use any of the fol­low­ing HTML tags or prop­er­ties, please mark them

2010

FeatureCount%None48134.31%font715.06%b21315.19%i17112.2%bor­der16511.77%width28820.54%u563.99%height24517.48%cellspac­ing25918.47%cell­padding21915.62%cen­ter1127.99%

2008

FeatureCount%None37830.63%font705.67%b21817.67%i18715.15%bor­der14611.83%width28423.01%u796.40%height23819.29%cellspac­ing24319.69%cell­padding20916.94%cen­ter1229.89%

Question 14: Do you use micro­for­mats in your markup?

2010

AnswerCount%Yes48434.52%No60242.94%What are microformats?22415.98%

2008

AnswerCount%Yes42934.76%No51241.49%What are microformats?23118.72%

Question 15: Do you use RDFa in your markup?

2010

AnswerCount%Yes795.63%No80257.2%What’s RDFa?43230.81%

2008

AnswerCount%Yes423.40%No58647.49%What’s RDFa?54444.08%

Question 16: Do you use HTML5 markup (for exam­ple sec­tion, header, nav elements)

2010

AnswerCount%Yes1037.35%Sometimes29420.97%Never91465.19%

Question 17: If so, what fea­tures of HTML5 do you use?

Respondents replied …

Question 18: Do you use WAI-​​ARIA (for exam­ple the role attribute) in your markup

2010

AnswerCount%Always90.64%some­times1309.27%never117083.45%

Question 19: Is so, what fea­tures of ARIA do you use?

role with 70% of those who responded always or som­times was the only sig­nif­i­cant response.

Part 3: Presentation

Question 20: Which of the fol­low­ing best describes your web design philosophy

2010

AnswerCount%Pages should look as near to iden­ti­cal as pos­si­ble across browsers19714.05%Consistency across browsers is impor­tant, but I use fea­tures sup­ported in newer browsers pro­vided they don’t cause prob­lems for older browsers84860.49%Pages might look sub­stan­tially dif­fer­ent in dif­fer­ent browsers, but pro­vided they look accept­able in all browsers, con­sis­tency is of no great concern22015.69%

2008

AnswerCount%Pages should look as near to iden­ti­cal as pos­si­ble across browsers30424.64%Consistency across browsers is impor­tant, but I use fea­tures sup­ported in newer browsers pro­vided they don’t cause prob­lems for older browsers70857.37%Pages might look sub­stan­tially dif­fer­ent in dif­fer­ent browsers, but pro­vided they look accept­able in all browsers, con­sis­tency is of no great concern1179.48%

Question 21: Which of the fol­low­ing best describes your approach to devel­op­ing for mul­ti­ple browsers?

2010

AnswerCount%I only develop for IE30.21%I develop for IE first, and then make sure my pages work in other major browsers392.78%I develop to W3C stan­dards, and then work around IE107276.46%I develop to W3C stan­dards and expect browsers to sup­port these15010.7%

2008

AnswerCount%I only develop for IE30.24%I develop for IE first, and then make sure my pages work in other major browsers625.02%I develop to W3C stan­dards, and then work around IE94676.66%I develop to W3C stan­dards and expect browsers to sup­port these1169.40%

Question 22: Do you typ­i­cally use quirks mode when design­ing sites?

2010

AnswerCount%Yes1007.13%No102272.9%What’s quirks mode?1369.7%

2008

AnswerCount%Yes1169.40%No83567.67%What’s quirks mode?16813.61%

Question 23: Which of the fol­low­ing do you use CSS for?

2010

AnswerCount%Fonts and text style124688.87%Page lay­out125289.3%Print appear­ance96668.9%

2008

AnswerCount%Controlling fonts and text style111290.11%Controlling page layout111590.36%Controlling print appearance85168.96%

Question 24: Which of these types of selec­tor do you reg­u­larly use?

2010

AnswerCount%HTML ele­ment selec­tors such as p {}119285.02%Class selec­tors such as p.classname {}119485.16%ID selec­tors such as p#idname {}114081.31%Descendent selec­tors such as p a {}112580.24%Child selec­tors such as p > a {}51636.8%attribute selec­tors such as a[href]52637.52%struc­tural selec­tors such as p:last-child52537.45%

2008

AnswerCount%HTML ele­ment selec­tors such as p {}102783.23%Class selec­tors such as p.classname {}105785.66%ID selec­tors such as p#idname {}99980.96%Descendent selec­tors such as p a {}96177.88%Child selec­tors such as p > a {}33727.31%

Question 25: Do you use any CSS3 or exper­i­men­tal CSS prop­er­ties, such as CSS tran­si­tions, trans­forms, ani­ma­tions, shadows?

2010

AnswerCount%Yes63645.36%No61643.94%

2008

AnswerCount%Yes27422.20%No84368.31%

Question 26: If so which?

2010

AnswerCounttext-​​shadow166box-​​shadow158border-​​radius305gra­di­ent24multi-​​column4rgba74opac­ity37tran­si­tions86trans­forms50ani­ma­tion13

Question 27: Do you use linked fonts with the @font-face statement?

2010

AnswerCount%Yes32022.82%No93266.48%

2008

AnswerCount%Yes514.13%No106085.90%

Question 28: Which type of fonts do you link to?

2010

TypeCount%Truetype23716.9%EOT19313.77%WOFF997.06%OpenType24817.69%

2008

TypeCount%Truetype504.05%EOT70.57%

Question 29: Do you use SVG?

2010

AnswerCount%No105775.39%A lit­tle18012.84%Extensively130.93%

2008

AnswerCount%No92374.80%A lit­tle17213.94%Extensively151.22%

Question 30: Which, if any libraries do you use for cross browser SVG support?

2010

AnswerCount%Raphael745.28%SVG Web372.64%Other503.57%

Question 31: Do you use the Canvas element?

2010

AnswerCount%No104574.54%A lit­tle19313.77%Extensively201.43%

2008

AnswerCount%No98980.15%A lit­tle1119.00%Extensively90.73%

Question 32: Do you opti­mize your sites for devices other than laptops/​PCs?

2010

AnswerCount%No80357.28%Yes45832.67%

2008

AnswerCount%Yes31025.12%No81365.88%

Question 33: If “Yes”, what other devices do you opti­mize your web­sites for?

2010

DeviceCount%iphone/​mobile safari23451%black­berry235%android4710%opera mobile61.3%Palm Pre41.3%wii3.7%

2008

DeviceCount%iphone/​mobile safari13644%black­berry134%android31%opera mobile5

1.6%

wii51.6%

Question 34: If you opti­mize sites for dif­fer­ent devices, what tech­nique or tech­niques do you use?

2010

Client Side browser sniffing20414.55%Server Side browser sniffing21315.19%Media Queries19113.62%

Part 4: Scripting

Question 35: Do you use JavaScript in your development?

2010

AnswerCount%No563.99%For visual effects107776.82%For form validation92666.05%For com­plex appli­ca­tion interaction68348.72%For Ajax com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the server81858.35%

2008

AnswerCount%No655.27%For visual effects90273.10%For form validation75461.10%For com­plex appli­ca­tion interaction52042.14%For Ajax com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the server65953.40%

Question 36: Do you sep­a­rate your JavaScript from your markup (“unob­tru­sive JavaScript”)?

2010

AnswerCount%Always61443.79%Usually52937.73%No563.99%

2008

AnswerCount%Always47738.65%Usually51841.98%No473.81%

Question 37: Do you strictly adhere to the W3C DOM, and avoid browser spe­cific extensions?

2010

AnswerCount%Yes45432.38%As much as possible66447.36%No815.78%

2008

AnswerCount%Yes37530.39%As much as possible61349.68%No534.29%

Question 38: Which JavaScript libraries and frame­works do you use?

2010

FrameworkCount%None553.92%Backbase10.07%Dojo412.92%Ext392.78%GWT130.93%JQuery109177.82%Mootools19613.98%Prototype24917.76%qoox­doo20.14%script​.aculo​.us18713.34%YUI16111.48%Other433.07%

2008

FrameworkCount%None1199.64%Backbase20.16%Dojo362.92%Ext332.67%GWT161.30%JQuery77562.80%Mootools23519.04%Prototype28723.26%qoox­doo10.08%script​.aculo​.us22418.15%YUI13310.78%Other504.05%

Only one each for Cappucino and Sproutcore

Question 39: Do you use HTML5 APIs (geolo­ca­tion, client side stor­age, web­work­ers etc)?

2010

AnswerCount%Yes1289.13%No112179.96%

Question 40: If so, which APIs do you use

2010

APICountgeolo­ca­tion57client side storage40web work­ers4drag and drop3file api2web­sock­ets2

Part 5: Rich Media

Question 41: Do you incor­po­rate media into your sites other than HTML, CSS, Javascript and images (for exam­ple, Audio, Video, Flash or Silverlight)?

2010

AnswerCount%Yes94667.48%No31522.47%

2008

AnswerCount%Yes77462.72%No33927.47%

Question 42: Which kinds of con­tent do you use?

2010

TypeCount%Flash82959.13%Silverlight513.64%Quicktime23116.48%Real100.71%H.26418813.41%Ogg Theora/​Vorbis443.14%MP333023.54%Windows Media664.71%AVI533.78%Embedded Vimeo Content37726.89%Embedded YouTube Content59142.15%Other463.28%

2008

AnswerCount%Flash75761.35%Silverlight262.11%Quicktime24219.61%Real252.03%Others221.78%

Question 43: What do you use this kind of con­tent for?

2010

TypeCount%Audio55439.51%Video90064.19%Embedded games and other inter­ac­tive applications24817.69%Whole sites594.21%

2008

AnswerCount%Audio48339.14%Video72959.08%Embedded games and other inter­ac­tive applications27222.04%Whole sites836.73%

Question 44: How do you include this kind of con­tent in your sites?

2010

MethodCount%Primarily or always the object element65446.65%Primarily or always the embed element45132.17%HTML5 audio/​video ele­ment (with fall­backs where necessary)1268.99%

Part 6: The Server side

Question 45: What type of hard­ware do your sites run on?

2010

AnswerCount%Dedicated servers man­aged by you or your company44631.81%Dedicated co-​​located servers21715.48%Shared servers45232.24%Don’t know755.35%Other483.42%

2008

AnswerCount%Dedicated servers man­aged by you or your company43335.09%Dedicated co-​​located servers18915.32%Shared servers36829.82%Don’t know625.02%Other403.24%

Question 46: What server soft­ware is used to serve your sites?

2010

AnswerCount%Apache97969.83%IIS29020.68%GWS70.5%lighthttpd483.42%Nginx543.5%Other1037.35%Don’t know1138.06%

2008

AnswerCount%Apache84968.80%IIS28022.69%GWS50.41%lighthttpd685.51%Don’t know1159.32%Other816.56%

Question 47: Which oper­at­ing system(s) do your servers run?

2010

AnswerCount%Linux88162.84%Unix19613.98%Windows35225.11%Mac OS X614.35%Don’t know1198.49%Other261.85%

2008

AnswerCount%Linux72558.75%Unix20616.69%Windows34327.80%Mac OS X695.59%Don’t know1139.16%Other262.11%

Question 48: What data­base sys­tems do you use?

2010

AnswerCount%none402.85%MySQL98770.4%Microsoft SQL Server28420.26%Oracle956.78%PostgreSQL14410.27%Other886.28%

2008

AnswerCount%none423.40%MySQL86970.42%Microsoft SQL Server27121.96%Oracle1139.16%PostgreSQL12810.37%Other806.48%

Other data­bases men­tioned CouchDB 9, Mongo 9, Cassandra 3.

Question 49: On the server which pro­gram­ming lan­guages do you use?

2010

AnswerCount%ASP986.99%ASP​.NET22616.12%ColdFusion684.85%Java15811.27%JavaScript (q47a5)976.92%Perl1027.28%PHP87562.41%Python15711.2%Ruby22415.98%None443.14%

2008

AnswerCount%ASP14411.67%ASP​.NET20816.86%ColdFusion887.13%Java15212.32%JavaScript68055.11%Perl1038.35%PHP77863.05%Python18715.15%Ruby17814.42%None433.48%Other433.48%

Question 50: Which back-​​end frame­works do you use for development?

2010

FrameworkCount%None43330.88%CakePHP563.99%CherryPy40.29%Django936.63%Ext GWT20.14%Ruby on Rails20214.41%Struts271.93%Zend frame­work886.28%node.js171.21%Developed inter­nally24217.26%Other25618.26%

Others men­tioned included code igniter 82, sina­tra 17, sym­fony 15.

2008

AnswerCount%None36729.74%CakePHP756.08%CherryPy30.24%Django13310.78%Ext GWT40.32%Ruby on Rails16413.29%Struts231.86%Zend frame­work796.40%Developed inter­nally24119.53%Other19916.13%

Part 7: The Cloud

Question 51: Do you rely on “Cloud Computing” resources?

2010

AnswerCount%Yes (49c1)31222.25%No (49c2)92265.76%

Question 52: If so, what do you use the cloud for?

2010

AnswerCount%Infrastructure as a ser­vice (e.g. Amazon EC2)14410.27%Platform as a ser­vice (E.g. Google App Engine)1037.35%Online stor­age (e.g. Amazon S3)23316.62%

Question 53: If so, what do you use the cloud for?

2010

AnswerCount%Infrastructure as a ser­vice (e.g. Amazon EC2)14410.27%Platform as a ser­vice (E.g. Google App Engine)1037.35%Online stor­age (e.g. Amazon S3)23316.62%

Question 54: What cloud ser­vices do you use?

2010

AnswerCount%Amazon EC2946.7%Amazon S319013.55%Google App Engine805.71%Windows Azure70.5%Joyent80.57%Bungee10.07%Other755.35%