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The other
day I had a look at NDepend
website visits by countries statistics (produced by Google Analytics). Despite some
important bias the result were pretty interesting.
NDepend is
a tool to work effectively on quality and maintainability of .NET software. Being
interest in Software Quality is certainly correlated with a high education and
experience in other software development domains like advanced OOP skills,
automatic testing, Deisgn by Contract, continuous integration...
The fact
that a developer visits our website reveals somehow its interest for Software
Quality. The number of visits from a country is then more or less correlated to
the cultural interest for Software Quality. Obviously the number of visits is strongly
correlated with the number of developers in the country. While there are no
statistics about the number of developers per country, there are some
statistics about the country population.
By dividing the number of visits by the number of habitants, we then obtain an
indicator the cultural interest for Software Quality. Notice that I don't claim that this indicator is resulting from a scientific approach (it is not the case). I just found the result interesting enough to be shared publicly. Just take these numbers as-is.
Here are the
results for the top 50 countries:
|
Visit Rank
|
Country
|
% of Visits
|
Population
in Million
|
%
of Visits / Population
|
|
1.
|
United States
|
26,36
|
306
|
8,61
|
|
2.
|
United Kingdom
|
7,65
|
62
|
12,34
|
|
3.
|
India
|
6,55
|
1165
|
0,56
|
|
4.
|
France
|
5,99
|
65
|
9,22
|
|
5.
|
Germany
|
5,92
|
82
|
7,22
|
|
6.
|
Canada
|
3,93
|
33
|
11,91
|
|
7.
|
Australia
|
2,96
|
22
|
13,45
|
|
8.
|
Italy
|
2,87
|
60
|
4,78
|
|
9.
|
Netherlands
|
2,42
|
16,5
|
14,67
|
|
10.
|
Russia
|
2,01
|
142
|
1,42
|
|
11.
|
Sweden
|
1,9
|
9,3
|
20,43
|
|
12.
|
Poland
|
1,92
|
38,1
|
5,04
|
|
13.
|
Brazil
|
1,76
|
191,4
|
0,92
|
|
14.
|
Spain
|
1,64
|
45,8
|
3,58
|
|
15.
|
Belgium
|
1,58
|
10,7
|
14,77
|
|
16.
|
Norway
|
1,57
|
4,8
|
32,71
|
|
17.
|
Denmark
|
1,52
|
5,5
|
27,64
|
|
18.
|
South Africa
|
1,36
|
48,7
|
2,79
|
|
19.
|
Switzerland
|
1,27
|
7,7
|
16,49
|
|
20.
|
Israel
|
1,17
|
7,4
|
15,81
|
|
21.
|
Japan
|
1,15
|
127,5
|
0,90
|
|
22.
|
Austria
|
1,06
|
8,3
|
12,77
|
|
23.
|
China
|
1
|
1331
|
0,08
|
|
24.
|
Ukraine
|
0,96
|
46,1
|
2,08
|
|
25.
|
Romania
|
0,9
|
21,4
|
4,21
|
|
26.
|
Ireland
|
0,89
|
4,5
|
19,78
|
|
27.
|
New Zealand
|
0,8
|
4,3
|
18,60
|
|
28.
|
Argentina
|
0,73
|
40,1
|
1,82
|
|
29.
|
Portugal
|
0,65
|
10,6
|
6,13
|
|
30.
|
Hungary
|
0,63
|
10
|
6,30
|
|
31.
|
Singapore
|
0,59
|
4,8
|
12,29
|
|
32.
|
Turkey
|
0,47
|
71,5
|
0,66
|
|
33.
|
Finland
|
0,43
|
5,3
|
8,11
|
|
34.
|
Morocco
|
0,42
|
31,5
|
1,33
|
|
35.
|
Sri Lanka
|
0,34
|
20,2
|
1,68
|
|
36.
|
Mexico
|
0,34
|
109,6
|
0,31
|
|
37.
|
Greece
|
0,34
|
11,2
|
3,04
|
|
38.
|
Philippines
|
0,32
|
92,2
|
0,35
|
|
39.
|
Czech Republic
|
0,32
|
10,4
|
3,08
|
|
40.
|
South Korea
|
0,31
|
48,3
|
0,64
|
|
41.
|
Vietnam
|
0,27
|
88
|
0,31
|
|
42.
|
Hong Kong
|
0,25
|
7
|
3,57
|
|
43.
|
Taiwan
|
0,25
|
23
|
1,09
|
|
44.
|
Belarus
|
0,23
|
9,6
|
2,40
|
|
45.
|
Lithuania
|
0,21
|
3,3
|
6,36
|
|
46.
|
Egypt
|
0,21
|
77
|
0,27
|
|
47.
|
Tunisia
|
0,18
|
10,3
|
1,75
|
|
48.
|
Slovenia
|
0,17
|
2
|
8,50
|
|
49.
|
Thailand
|
0,17
|
63,3
|
0,27
|
|
50.
|
Serbia
|
0,16
|
9,8
|
1,63
|
Bias
There are 2
important bias when considering % of
Visits of NDepend website/ Population as a metric for country interest in Software
Quality and Maintenance:
- Level of Country development: India (0.56) is the main representative
of this bias. While India is a country with a traditional focus for Software
Development, a large portion of the population is still unfortunately under-developed. The same way, Russia (1.42), South-Africa (2.79) and South-Korea (0.64) are also largely impacted by this bias.
- Lack of Localization: For now all our documentation and
tooling is available in English only. We hope that this situation will evolve
in the future but so far, this constitutes a barrier for countries
traditionally attached to their language. With a high focus for quality, a high
traditional national cohesion and a very low score, Japan (0.90) is certainly the main
representative of this bias. (Btw, Jeff Atwood had recently some interesting remarks
about English as the language for developers).
Remarks
- The tremendous
portion of visits (26.36%) from USA is not a surprise. The home country of Microsoft, Google, IBM, Oracle, Apple, Sun... represents the main market for
every ISV on earth. However I was a bit surprised by the relatively low score of USA (8.61). I don’t
really have an explanation for that, do you? Btw, here is the amount of visits
by states:
- Scandinavia
countries are often quoted as models for education, social development,
environments, human rights… The very large score for Norway (32.71), Sweden (20.43 )and Denmark
(27.64) reveals also a high focus for Software Quality. Btw, did you noticed
that both Anders Helsberg (creator of C# and Turbo Pascal) and Bjarne Stroustrup
(creator of C++) are Danish?
- With 62M
habitants, UK as a large country with a high score (12.34) seems to be an
exception.
Canada (11.91) and Australia (13.45) are smaller but also comes with a high score.
These 3
countries are English spoken and here, the fact that our software is
only localized
in English might represent a positive bias. The opposite way, the same reason plays as a
negative bias for non-English-spoken large developed countries like
France (9.22), Germany (7.22), Italy (4.78), Spain (3.58)....
- It seems
that smaller countries, like Scandinave countries but also Switzerland (16.49),
Israel (15.81),
Ireland (19.78), Belgium (14.77), New Zealand (18.60), Netherlands (14.67), Singapore (12.29)… gets higher
score. Each country
may have particular reasons (banking in Switzerland, higher IT budgets
in Israel because of defense, lower taxes + English spoken in Ireland…).
- There is not a strong correlation between the presented score and the amount of sales per countries. For most software the licensing price is the same world-wide. Depending on the currency strength of each country, a license is thus more or less affordable.
I am a big
fan of travel and foreign-culture discovery. Quoting all these countries makes
me want to bag-back on the road again. Until then, let’s guess where the hell is Matt? 
Posted
Sun, Jul 5 2009 12:30 PM
by
Patrick Smacchia