📖 Developer Satisfaction 2024 Report

🏆 Quality

tl;dr

Technical debt – Most respondents (56%) say the current level of technical debt is high, although the percentage is lower than last year.
Technical debt effects – More than two thirds (70%) say technical debt did affect their productivity in the past year, although the percentage is lower than last year.
Code quality effects – Almost two thirds (66.5%) said code quality did affect their productivity in the past year, although this percentage is lower than last year.
“Technical debt” – Open answers took issue with the term “technical debt”.

# Perception of technical debt

We asked survey takers, “Considering the software projects you’ve contributed to in your role as a member of the Wikimedia Developer Community this past year: What is your perception of the current level of technical debt?”

The majority (56%) of respondents perceived the technical debt level as high
19% perceived the level as neither high nor low
13% were unsure
12% perceived the level as low

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# Effects of technical debt on productivity

We asked survey takers, “In the past year, how has technical debt affected your productivity as a member of the Wikimedia developer community?”

The majority of respondents (69.9%) said technical debt affected their productivity
15.1% said it had no effect
15.1% were unsure

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# Perception of code quality: first-party code

We asked survey takers, “How would you rate the quality of the code you maintain in your role as a member of the Wikimedia developer community?”

41% rated the quality of code they maintain as high
31% rated the quality as neither high nor low
15% were unsure
13% rated the quality as low

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# Perception of code quality: third-party code

We asked survey takers, “How would you rate the quality of third-party code (libraries, language ecosystems) that you depend on in your role as a member of the Wikimedia developer community?”

46% of respondents rated the quality of third-party code as high
24% rated the quality as neither high nor low
19% were unsure
11% rated the quality as low

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# Effects of code quality on productivity

We asked participants, “In the past year, how has code quality affected your productivity as a member of the Wikimedia Developer Community?”

The majority of respondents (66.5%) said code quality affected their productivity
22.6% were unsure
11% said it had no effect on their productivity

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# Feedback

We asked participants, “Please share any other feedback you may have about code quality and technical debt” Some themes emerged from the answers.

Meta

Many took issue with the term “technical debt” suggesting we should reconsider this question in future surveys.

"Technical debt" is just another word for "code that exists".

Stewardship

[poor quality code is] usually in the codebases that *nobody actively maintains* but are nonetheless essential.