A Survey on Developers’ Preferences in Integrated Development Environments

Abstract: Software development is a demanding task where developers face great challenges. Development tools are expected to be user-friendly. However, little research has been done to understand developers’ needs and priorities when it comes to such tools, so called Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). It is important to gain a better insight into developers’ prioritization of IDE qualities, in order to be able to make such tools more efficient and better tailored to their users’ real needs. The objective of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of software developers’ perspective regarding IDEs with the goal of facilitating further improvements of these tools. This thesis report presents the results of a quantitative survey, responded by twenty professional software developers, which focuses on developers’ prioritization of qualities in adopted IDEs and their perceived satisfaction with the qualities themselves and the IDEs overall. Moreover, we investigate whether limiting developers’ choice of IDE also affects their overall satisfaction of chosen IDEs. By analyzing the results, we conclude that developers perceive reliability, ease of use and efficiency as, on one hand the most important qualities of IDEs, and on the other hand those most in need of improvements. The results also suggest that developers’ satisfaction with their IDEs is not significantly affected by limiting their choice of development tools.