Re: Embedded Systems Survey

["Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@quadruscorp.com>]

Larry Kilgallen wrote:
> First you have to enumerate "all developers" for that problem domain.
> 
> Then you decide on a sampling algorithm and ask away.
> 
> The "no response" and the "none-of-your-business" samples will
> affect your "margin of error", as does the "always lie on surveys"
> mentality.
> 
This might skew your results as well. What if there is a high
correlation between "Ada Programmer Mentality" and "Always Lie On
Surveys" mentality? :-)


> If it were not language advocacy, but something else, like
> preferred toothpaste, would _you_ answer ?
> 
Depends. Does it make me get on a mailing list or something? Is the
*government* behind it trying to get even *more* information about me so
they can better control every aspect of my life?

> Giving people money for answering skews the results.
> 

I've had a little statistics training, so I'm confident that an
experiment could be conducted which would get a reasonably fair answer.
The problem is more one of the mechanics of it. A survey on the web is
inexpensive but suspect from the start for obvious reasons. A magazine
or direct mail survey has problems of cost, sample set and responses.
(Do Ada programmers read the same magazines as C++ or Java programmers?
Is one group more likely to respond than the other?) I suppose if you
could identify a random set of embedded system programmers and called
them with a two question survey (Which language do you use on your
current project? Which language would you prefer to use?) you might get
a meaningful result. But where would you get your list? Or the money to
do all the calling?


> > You think there may be some way of getting an honest answer to the
> > question of how many developers prefer Ada for a given problem domain?
> 
> No.

Maybe. People tend to be pretty honest about what they prefer. The
problem is getting an honest survey.

MDC
-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/
Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m
Visit my web site at:  http://www.mcondic.com/

"I'd trade it all for just a little more"
    --  Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10]
======================================================================