Added survey results news article (WIP).

16 files changed, 317 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/dev_os.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/dev_os.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..088918dc3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/dev_os.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/do_you_use_nim.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/do_you_use_nim.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..257148325
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/do_you_use_nim.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/editors.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/editors.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..816ad515f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/editors.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_at_work.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_at_work.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..f00ab1a94
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_at_work.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_found.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_found.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a0a65b813
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_found.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_time.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_time.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..23bc4a136
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_time.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_time_rust.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_time_rust.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..9b861608a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_time_rust.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_versions.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_versions.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ba382c93d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/nim_versions.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/planning_to_use_at_work.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/planning_to_use_at_work.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..be3a50467
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/planning_to_use_at_work.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/project_size.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/project_size.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ad1359d0c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/project_size.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/project_size_nim_rust.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/project_size_nim_rust.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..41e3ec8b1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/project_size_nim_rust.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/project_size_work.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/project_size_work.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..fab6e52f2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/project_size_work.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/reliability.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/reliability.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..1767e9803
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/reliability.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/target_os.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/target_os.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a36915af1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/target_os.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/assets/news/images/survey/upgrades_broke_things.png b/web/assets/news/images/survey/upgrades_broke_things.png
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..28a8ee3f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/assets/news/images/survey/upgrades_broke_things.png
Binary files differdiff --git a/web/news/nim_community_survey_results.rst b/web/news/nim_community_survey_results.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..49656f20a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/news/nim_community_survey_results.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,317 @@
+Nim Community Survey Results
+============================
+
+.. container:: metadata
+
+  Posted by Dominik Picheta on 20/08/2016
+
+We have recently closed the 2016 Nim Community Survey. I am happy to
+say that we have received exactly 790 responses, huge thanks go to the people
+that took the time to respond. We're very thankful for this very valuable
+feedback.
+
+This survey was inspired in part by the
+`2016 State of Rust <https://blog.rust-lang.org/2016/06/30/State-of-Rust-Survey-2016.html>`_
+survey. You will note that many of the questions were modelled after
+Rust's survey. One of the reasons for doing this was to allow us to easily
+compare our results against the results obtained in the Rust survey. In
+addition, we of course also liked many of their questions.
+
+Our survey ran from the 23rd of June 2016 until the 8th of August 2016. The
+response numbers are impressive considering Nim's community size; at 790 they
+make up just over 25% of the Rust survey's responses.
+
+The goal of this survey was to primarily determine how our community is using
+Nim, in order to better understand how we should be improving it. In particular,
+we wanted to know what people feel is missing from Nim in the lead up to
+version 1.0. We have also asked our respondents about how well the Nim tools
+worked, the challenges of adopting Nim, the resources that they used to learn
+Nim and more.
+
+It is my hope that we will be able to run a similar survey in a years time,
+doing so should give us an idea of whether we are improving.
+With these general facts in mind, let's begin looking at specific questions.
+
+How did you find out about Nim?
+-------------------------------
+
+The rationale for the first question was simple, we wanted to know where our
+respondents found out about Nim. This is an interesting question for us, as
+we do occassionally get users asking us why it took so long for them to hear
+about Nim. It allows us to see how effective each website is at spreading the
+word about Nim.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/nim_found.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/nim_found.png" alt="How did you find out about Nim?" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+The majority of our respondents found Nim via Reddit, HackerNews or a search
+engine such as Google. These results are not altogether surprising. There were
+also a lot of "Other" responses, some of which were a bit more
+interesting. These included multiple mentions of habrahabr.ru, Dr. Dobb's,
+and lobste.rs.
+
+Do you use Nim?
+---------------
+
+Just like the Rust survey creators, we wanted to ensure that our survey was
+open to both Nim users as well people who never used Nim. In addition to
+those two groups, we have also included a third group of people: ex-Nim
+users. All three are interesting, for many different reasons.
+Nim users can tell us how they are using Nim and also how Nim's
+tooling can improve. Ex-Nim users give us an
+idea of why they stopped using Nim. Finally, respondents who never used Nim
+can tell us the reasons for not adopting it.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/do_you_use_nim.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/do_you_use_nim.png" alt="Do you use Nim?" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+It's nice to see that we have such a good range of respondents. The Rust survey
+had a much larger number of Rust users amongst their respondents, with
+no distinction between users that never used Rust and users that stopped using
+Rust.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="https://blog.rust-lang.org/images/2016-06-Survey/do_you_use_rust.png">
+    <img src="https://blog.rust-lang.org/images/2016-06-Survey/do_you_use_rust.png" alt="Do you use Rust?" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+Should we consider your answers to be invalid?
+----------------------------------------------
+
+This was something I thought would be interesting to have, after I saw it
+being used in another survey. While it does pinpoint possibly
+invalid respondents, I have opted against filtering those out. Mainly because
+that would require re-creating each of the charts generated by Google Forms
+manually.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/reliability.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/reliability.png" alt="Should we consider your answers to be invalid?" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+According to the responses to this question, around 94% of our responses
+can be considered reliable.
+
+Nim users
+---------
+
+The following questions were answered only by the 38.9% of our respondents
+who identified themselves as Nim users.
+
+How long have you been using Nim?
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/nim_time.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/nim_time.png" alt="How long have you been using Nim?" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+A large proportion of our Nim users were new. This is good news as it means that
+our community is growing, with a large proportion of new Nim users that could
+become long-term Nimians. In total, more than 35% of Nim users can be considered
+new having used Nim for less than 3 months. With 18% of Nim users that can
+be considered very new having used Nim for less than a month.
+This could suggest that 18% of our users have only just found out about Nim in
+the last week or so and have not yet got the chance to use it extensively.
+
+The high percentages of long term Nim users are encouraging.
+They suggest
+that many users are continuing to use Nim after making it through the first
+few months. The sharp drop at 7-9 months is interesting, but may simply be
+due to the fact that there were fewer newcomers during that period, or it
+could be because our respondents are more likely to estimate that they have
+been using Nim for a year or half a year rather than the awkward 7-9 months.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/nim_time_rust.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/nim_time_rust.png" alt="Time using Nim and Rust" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+The results for Nim and Rust are actually remarkably similar. They both show a
+drop at 7-9 months, although Rust's isn't as dramatic. Nim on the other hand
+has a significantly higher percentage of new Nim users.
+
+Do you use Nim at work?
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+An important aspect of a language's adoption is whether it is being used for
+"real" work. We wanted to know how many people are using Nim in their day
+jobs and under what circumstances it is used.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/nim_at_work.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/nim_at_work.png" alt="Do you use Nim at work?" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+While a vast majority of our users are not using Nim at work, more than 25%
+of them are. It's encouraging to see such a high number already, even before
+we have released version 1.0. In fact, this percentage is likely close to 30%,
+because many of the "Other" responses mention using Nim for the likes of
+internal tools or small scripts to help with the respondent's work.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="https://blog.rust-lang.org/images/2016-06-Survey/rust_at_work.png">
+    <img src="https://blog.rust-lang.org/images/2016-06-Survey/rust_at_work.png" alt="Do you use Rust at work?" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+Interestingly, a larger percentage of Nim users are using Nim at work than
+Rust users. The sample sizes are of course vastly different, but it's still an
+interesting result. Combined, nearly 1/5th of Rust users are using Rust
+commercially whereas more than a quarter of Nim users are using Nim
+commercially.
+
+Approximately how large are all the Nim projects that you work on?
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Finding out how large the Nim projects worked on by Nim users are is also
+very valuable.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/project_size.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/project_size.png" alt="Nim project size for all users" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+This shows us that currently Nim is primarily being used for small scripts and
+applications, with nearly 60% of the projects consisting of less than 1,000
+lines of code. This makes sense as many of our users are not using Nim
+professionally, but are doing so in their spare time.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/project_size_work.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/project_size_work.png" alt="Nim project size for work users" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+The numbers for part-time and full-time work users of Nim tell a different
+story. Over 70% of the projects written by full-time users are between 10,001
+and 100,000 lines of code. Part-time users show a slightly different trend,
+with many more small projects, the majority being between 1,000 and
+10,000 lines of code.
+
+Overall it's good to see that there is a few large projects out there which are
+composed of more than 100,000 lines of code. We expect to see the amount of
+large projects to grow with time, especially with version 1.0 on the way.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/project_size_nim_rust.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/project_size_nim_rust.png" alt="Nim project size for work users (Nim vs. Rust)" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+In comparison to Rust the proportion of project sizes for full-time users is
+vastly different. This is likely due to our small sample size. Project sizes for
+part-time users between Rust and Nim are somewhat similar, with differences of
+around 10% for each project size.
+
+Do you plan to try to use Nim at work?
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/planning_to_use_at_work.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/planning_to_use_at_work.png" alt="Planning to use Nim at work?" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+It's also encouraging to see that over 50% of Nim users are planning to use
+Nim at work! This is slightly more than Rust's 40% and should help Nim's
+adoption into even more areas.
+
+Nim and its tools
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+In this section of the survey, we wanted to find out the tools that Nim
+users are utilising when developing Nim applications.
+
+What editor(s) do you use when writing Nim?
+___________________________________________
+
+Programmers are very specific when it comes to their editor of choice, because
+of that it's good to know which editor is most popular among our community.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/editors.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/editors.png" alt="Editors used by Nim users" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+Looks like Vim is the winner with almost 30%. Followed by Sublime Text and
+Visual Studio Code. Aporia, the Nim IDE, gets a respectable 15.5%. There was
+also more than
+17% of answers which included "Other" editors, such as: Notepad++, Geany, gedit,
+and Kate.
+
+What operating system(s) do you compile for and run your Nim projects on?
+_________________________________________________________________________
+
+This question gave us information about the most popular target operating
+systems, as well as some of the more obscure ones. We have asked this question
+to find out the platforms on which Nim applications run on most frequently.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/target_os.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/target_os.png" alt="Target operating systems" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+This question allowed multiple choices, so each percentage is out of the total
+number of respondents for this question. For example, 80.7% of the
+respondents selected "Linux" but only 26.6% selected OS X.
+
+This makes Linux by far the most popular target for Nim applications.
+Some "Other" targets included: BSD (OpenBSD, FreeBSD), iOS, Android, and
+JavaScript.
+It's great to see Nim being used on such a wide variety of platforms.
+
+What operating system(s) do you develop Nim projects on?
+________________________________________________________
+
+With this question, we wanted to know what operating systems are used for
+development.
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/dev_os.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/dev_os.png" alt="Development operating systems" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+This question also allowed multiple choices and ended up with very similar
+results.
+
+You can see that Linux is also the most popular developmental
+platform for Nim. But it's more popular as a target platform.
+
+Which version(s) of Nim do you use for your applications?
+_________________________________________________________
+
+.. raw::html
+
+  <a href="../assets/news/images/survey/nim_versions.png">
+    <img src="../assets/news/images/survey/nim_versions.png" alt="Version use" style="width:100%"/>
+  </a>
+
+At the time of this survey, version 0.14.2 was the latest stable release.
+It's no wonder that it is the most commonly used release of Nim. It's good to
+see that the older versions are not used as often. The high use of ``Git HEAD (devel)``
+(nightly builds) isn't surprising, Nim is still evolving rapidly and our
+release schedule is not regular or frequent.
+
+Once we go past the 1.0 release, we expect to see much less use of the unstable
+``devel`` branch.
+
+
+
+
+