Hi @riecatnor,
This survey leaves me with a terrible taste in the mouth every year (I have discussed this with a few people like @Mariatta who might be better to explain how I feel in words).
For a long time scientists have known that self-selection bias in surveys is a huge problem. For me, as a non-native English speaker, “developer” usually means “professional software developer”, I’m not a professional software developer, this survey is not for me. Maybe we need a well designed and not IDE seller provided “Python Users Survey”?
A small example:
For me, teaching Python for years, this question made no sense and didn’t have a “doesn’t apply” option. You see, “professional coding experience” sounds like something “professional developers” have. I’ve been told in English this isn’t what it is meant. But even so, how about people using Python for hobbies? Could it be phrased something like: “For how many years have you been using Python for work or other projects?”
Scaffidi et al. in 2012 showed an estimate that in the USA there were more than 4 times the number of end-user programmers than professional programmers (a.ka. developers). Is the PSF survey reaching a significant sample of us, end-user programmers?