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renaultamour · 6 years

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Renault Megane RS280 tested on the road and track

HOT hatch uses trick tech to help it carve corners better. But does it set a new benchmark?

The Renault Megane RS280 blends track performance with daily-driver comfort.

Germany currently has the upper hand with the all-rounder VW Golf GTI and its derivatives.

France’s riposte is the new generation Renault Megane RS, the badge returning after a two-year hiatus.

French hot hatches are typically brilliant to drive on a race track but the German equivalent is usually better to live with day-to-day.

When France has reacted to criticisms — by softening the next model — it has often ended up with a blancmange.

The new model is heavier and has a smaller engine, but performance is still brisk

Is the new Megane RS the first French hot hatch to break the mould? It’s off to a good start with the adoption of a five-door body in place of the previous three-door.

Purists are up in arms but the new Megane RS wouldn’t exist if it weren’t a five-door, due to the drop in demand for three-doors globally.

Another move towards the mainstream is the option of an automatic for the first time.

A six-speed manual is still available but the six-speed twin-clutch auto opens the Megane RS to buyers who may not have considered it before and takes the grind out of the daily commute.

Key ingredients remain: bigger brakes, broader footprint, sports suspension, snug seats and more mumbo under the bonnet.

The 2.0-litre turbo — long a staple of the hot-hatch class — has been replaced by a 1.8-litre turbo, which Renault claims is the most powerful of its type in the world.

A bigger car than its predecessor, the Megane RS has put on 48kg (to 1427kg) for the manual and added 71kg (1450kg) for the auto — largely negating the power gain.

Sports seats and a large vertical touchscreen dominate the cabin. The manual has a handbrake lever, the auto gets an electric park brake switch

However, thanks to the wonders of gear ratios Renault has still managed to extract brisk performance.

Hot hatches aren’t only about straight-line speed but in the industry-standard 0-100km/h test we stopped the clock at 6.0 seconds in the manual and 6.2 seconds in the auto, which has a different spread of ratios. The official claim is 5.8 seconds.

The manual gearshift is OK but a bit notchier than rivals. The auto is one of the better twin-clutches around although it displays a subtle shudder at car park speeds.

Cars like this, however, are about carving corners. The Megane RS excels in this regard thanks to sticky tyres, well sorted suspension and trick rear-wheel steering, a first for the class.

It pivots the back tyres up to 1 degree in the same direction as the front wheels at high speeds, and up to 2.7 degrees in the opposite direction in tight turns at low speeds.

Five driving modes make the suspension softer or stiffer, automatic gear shifts gentle or abrupt, and switch the exhaust from boring to boy racer.

The muffler’s snap, crackle and pop are more pronounced in the auto thanks to the build-up in pressure in the split-second between gear changes. The manual is oddly quiet.

The Renault Megane RS280 Cup gets red brake calipers and two-piece bio-material discs, but they are the same size as the Sport Chassis models.

There is greater personalisation.

The manual’s “Cup” option pack adds a mechanical limited-slip differential — previously standard — bundled with black 19-inch alloys, 10mm lower suspension and two-piece front discs with four-piston Brembo brake calipers painted red.

On both versions, the bigger front discs — 355mm — better handle repeated punishment.

Other options include Bose audio, sports Alcantara leather seats and panoramic sunroof.

The standard sports suspension is brilliantly agile when you want it to be and surprisingly comfortable the rest of the time.

The optional lower suspension is a touch too busy for normal road use, even for hardcore hot hatch fans.

The Renault Megane RS280 Sport Chassis, left, and Cup Chassis, right.

Tyres are 19-inch Bridgestone rubber. There’s ample grip but they’re noisy on coarse surfaces and can hum on smooth tarmac. Renault says this is the trade-off for grip but other tyres grip with less groan.

A highlight of the car is the steering, which is remarkably accurate and gives precise feedback. The effect of the rear-wheel steering is difficult to detect — perhaps because it is doing its job well.

In the manual there is a delay in power delivery below 2500rpm but beyond this point the surge is so strong the front wheels want to follow the contour of the road and the steering wheel wants to wriggle out of your hand. You quickly learn to anticipate and adapt.

The bulging sports seats are snug and surprisingly luxurious. Rear passengers aren’t afforded the same comfort — with tight foot and kneeroom — but they get rear air vents.

The large vertical dash display can be personalised and there’s a large digital speedo to keep your right foot in check. One blot: the rear-view camera view is grainy at night. Front, rear and side sensors help take the guesswork out of parking.

Mood lights in the doors and dash give the cabin a lift and audio buffs will appreciate the premium Bose fitment.

Other observations: the LED low and high-beams are remarkable, especially on back roads in the dead of night.

Footnote for fans: a hardcore Trophy edition arrives next year with 220kW/400Nm in manual or auto and with the limited-slip diff standard.

VERDICT: 4 stars out of 5

The new Renault Megane RS gets closest yet to Germany’s benchmark VW GTI hot hatch, combining two cars in one: daily driver meets weekend track-day warrior.

The performance of the LED low and high beams are impressive.

WHAT’S NEW

TECH A large tablet-style touchscreen and fancy digital instrument display give the cabin a lift. Super-bright LED headlights make it easy to spot corners at night. Front, rear and side sensors and rear-view camera mean you’re less likely to scratch the rims.

PERFORMANCE Despite the smaller 1.8-litre turbo (previously 2.0) — and a heavier body — Renault says the new Megane is slightly quicker. Claimed 0-100km/h time for the auto is 5.8 seconds, quick for a front-drive car. We clocked 6.2 seconds in the auto and 6.0 in the manual.

DRIVING There is rear-wheel steering (up to 2.7 degrees) in certain modes. Trick new suspension is described as “a shock absorber within a shock absorber” to iron out the worst bumps. Auto gets launch control and paddle-shifters.

DESIGN It’s longer, wider and lower than the previous model — and the Megane hatch on which it’s based. Purists will lament the loss of the three-door body but the five-door will broaden appeal. Front and rear fenders are wider than the donor hatch, hence the muscular stance and bigger footprint.

Article source: https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/new-cars/renault-megane-rs280-tested-on-the-road-and-track/news-story/5233ad60ab487deefbcd0f0f146ffcc2

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thefeedpost · 6 years

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2020 Mercedes-Benz GLE 450 Prototype First Drive

I was starting to get worried. No, it had nothing to do with the surprisingly difficult off-road trail our prototype 2020 Mercedes-Benz

GLE 450 was crawling over. We’ll get to that, but suffice to say, the GLE handled it fine. My concern was that I couldn’t find anything wrong with the GLE, even this camo’d-up development mule.

Times like these are when my journalism professors start haunting me. Am I not being critical enough? Not paying close enough attention? No car is perfect, and very few come close. Was this one of them, or was I missing something? I focus harder, looking, listening, and feeling for faults.

I come up empty-handed.

The new GLE-Class really is that good, even in prototype form.

It starts with an all-new platform called Mercedes High Architecture, or MHA, but not necessarily all-new ideas. Indeed, the big party trick was born out of the road-only S-Class. Mercedes is calling it E-Active Body Control, and it takes the S-Class technology a big step further. On the S, a forward-looking camera scans the roads for bumps, holes, wavy pavement, and more and adjusts the damping so that when the car arrives at the obstacle it can waft over the imperfection without disturbing the passengers. It does so using hydraulics to lift the wheels up to pop over a bump or push them down into a hole, then put them back where they belong as you come off the bump or out of the hole. In practice, it allows you to drive over a speed bump at 35 mph and barely notice it.

The new GLE advances this idea by replacing the S-Class’ central hydraulic system with individual, independent hydraulic systems at each wheel, allowing the computer to control each wheel separately from the other three and fine-tune the damping on a level even the mighty S can’t touch. Donut-shaped hydraulic accumulators fit around the dampers, and high-powered servos adjust the preload and rebound constantly to iron out the road. As an added bonus, the system is powerful enough that Mercedes engineers were able to get rid of the physical anti-roll bars and rely instead on the hydraulics.

Our well-appointed prototypes were fitted with both the fancy dampers and the optional air suspension (steel springs and fixed dampers are standard), which in most cases would’ve been handicapped by the also-fitted sport package with enormous 21-inch wheels staggered 275 and 315 front/rear in Pirelli P Zero SUV performance tires with skinny 45- and 40-section sidewalls. Instead, this big SUV rode like, well, an S-Class. Undulating pavement ceased to exist as the system kept the ride perfectly flat, while potholes and railroad tracks were reduced to small bumps, more noise than impact.

To truly appreciate how well it rode, though, I had to get out and ride in a current-generation GLE 43 AMG Coupe that was tailing us. Suddenly, the highways and byways around Birmingham, Alabama’s Barber Motorsports Park felt coarse, wavy, and seemed to have much bigger expansion joints, potholes, and bumps. The GLE prototype had simply been erasing them all.

I mentioned that E-Active Body Control does away with physical anti-roll bars, and it’s more than a technical curiosity. Among other things, it allowed the GLE engineers to crib another high-end Benz trick: Curve Control. Originally designed for the SL-Class, Curve Control lifts the suspension on the side of the car opposite the direction of the curve it’s taking (you turn left, it raises the right side of the car). This helps reduce some of the lateral g force on the passengers as you corner. On the SL, the system felt very abrupt, like the sudden banking of a roller coaster. As you turned, there was a push from the side of the car and you were jacked up on an angle.

The GLE engineers have thoughtfully refined the system to the point where it’s effectively invisible in normal driving. There’s still a hint of that abruptness in its maximum setting (Lean Level 3) at low speeds, but now that you can adjust the amount of lean, you can dial it back to your liking. Or you can simply choose another driving mode like Comfort or Sport if you don’t care for it or don’t need it. In especially sharp corners or emergency maneuvers, the computer temporarily and automatically cancels Curve Control until things settle down.

Road scanning is only active in Comfort and Curve Control driving modes, but don’t think everything goes to pot if you select one of the sport or off-road modes. The computer simply relies on individual wheel sensors, yaw sensors, steering angle, throttle/brake position, and more to continuously vary the damping rate for the conditions.

The sport modes are where E-Active Body Control’s virtual anti-roll bars really shine. Keeping any vehicle’s body flat in a corner is a task, and it only gets harder as the vehicle gets taller and heavier and the center of gravity rises. Make no mistake, the new GLE is a big SUV, but it corners flatter than your average sporty sedan. When a typical vehicle goes around a corner quickly, there’s both a lateral and vertical component to the body roll. Depending on which side of the car you’re on, you move slightly up or down as the vehicle leans in addition to feeling pulled to the side. The GLE eliminates that vertical motion, so all you feel is the sideways pull. At most, there’s a slight dip at the corner with the most weight on it, the outside front then rear as you enter and exit a curve.

With that kind of body control and an impressive level of grip afforded by the steamroller-spec Pirellis, our GLE prototypes handled shockingly well considering both their size and mass and the fact they weren’t AMG products but simple GLE 450s with a sport package. In most corners, it’s just grip and go. You can’t really attack sharp corners without getting a moderate understeer, but that’s to be expected. What’s unexpected is the amount of rotation the stability control allows in Sport+ mode when you power out of the corners. It’s like the GLE engineers knew there was nothing they could do about the front end but wanted to make up for it by loosening the reins on the rear end just a little. It does all this by stiffening the virtual rear anti-roll bar during sporty driving, though it will go back to stiffening the virtual front bar when speeds get high to promote stability.

Helping achieve all this is Mercedes’ new 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six with assistance from an electric motor between it and the transmission. In addition to the natural smoothness of an I-6, this engine boasts seamless torque thanks to the electric assist and a unique and pleasing growl that’s throatier than your typical I-6. It’s matched to a nine-speed automatic and a standard 4Matic all-wheel-drive system that utilizes a new electronically controlled wet-clutch center differential that can send 100 percent of power to the rear and up to 65 percent of power to the front on pavement. Left-to-right torque distribution is handled by the brakes as both differentials are open.

Off-road, though, is where the real surprises show up. Here, the Benz engineers pull out the entire bag of tricks. On the dirt, the air suspension can raise to the highest of its six settings, 3.1 inches higher than normal ride height (it can also drop 1.6 inches below normal for easy entry and exit), the center differential can fully lock and send 100 percent of the power to the front axle if it needs to, and the optional two-speed transfer case can be dropped into its crawl ratio.

Don’t think the system gets dumb, though. Every sensor but the road-scanning camera is still active, and the damping is being adjusted constantly to deal with the terrain. To keep you out of trouble, low range and maximum ride height are a package deal and come with an electronic speed limiter of just 12 mph. The center diff, meanwhile, is constantly varying the front-rear torque split and fully unlocks when you’ve got the steering wheel turned to the stops to improve the turning radius.

With a set of optional Pirelli Scorpion ATR A/T M+S in a square 275/50R20 fitted on all corners and steel plates fitted under the engine and transmission/transfer case, the big GLE becomes a rounder, plusher G-Wagen off-road. On a moderately difficult trail, the GLE crawled over decent-sized rocks, forded deep water, dropped into crevasses, and climbed up and down very steep hills without missing a beat or dragging a bumper. I saw an indicated 45 degrees of downward pitch and 28 degrees of roll on various obstacles. We even backed up that 45-degree slope, just for fun.

You might think those open differentials would be a deal-breaker off-road, but like many modern SUVs, the GLE gets away with using the brakes as a limited-slip differential. Unlike many others I’ve tested, though, the GLE’s computer clamped down on a tractionless wheel in less than half a rotation and sent power to the other side, where others would’ve let the wheel spin a bit before realizing it had no grip.

What’s really remarkable about the GLE’s off-road performance isn’t the kind of situations it can get itself into and out of; it’s how easy it feels from inside. Coincidentally, I’d pre-run a Jeep trail the previous weekend in our long-term F-150 Lariat FX4 and the difference in passenger comfort was shocking. In the pickup, I was constantly being thrown violently from side to side in the front passenger seat as we traversed rocks, roots, bumps, and holes. In the GLE, in the same seat on a more difficult trail, I spent the entire ride taking notes on my phone and never once reached for a grab handle. The level of body control on the Benz is that good.

Then there’s the fun stuff. Dig deep enough into the off-road menus, and you’ll find a screen that allows you to control the height of each wheel independently with sliders. Ever watched a video of lowriders dancing on their hydraulics? It’s basically like that, if a bit less dramatic. Then there’s Free Driving Mode. It’s meant to keep you from getting stuck in deep sand, and it does that by making the car hop straight up and down surprisingly hard. The idea is to unload the tires slightly and let the sand get under them rather than pile up in front and cause you to dig a hole. I guarantee both of these features will be used to show off on pavement at some point.

I’d like to tell you even more about the new GLE if you’re still reading, but the terms of my access to these prototypes forbid it. What I can tell you about is what you can see if you look closely enough at the photos. Right away you’ll see the new car adopts Mercedes’ twin-eyebrow LED daytime running lights. Look closer and you can see that beneath the camo the dramatically sloping C-pillar—a calling card going back to the first ML-Class from which the GLE-Class came—is still there. Cast your eye down to the wheel arches, especially at the rear, and you’ll see the GLE has very wide hips to accommodate its massive tires. In all, it looks like a tall, beefcake E-Class wagon with a shorter rear overhang. Step back and you appreciate how well Mercedes’ designers and engineers have nailed the proportions.

Given its performance on-road and off, it should be easy to see why I was second-guessing myself. You just don’t expect this breadth of capability from a luxury SUV, or even a mainstream one. Few modern SUVs do this much, period, and fewer do it this well. I’m sure it’s got faults somewhere, and I’m looking forward to trying to find them when production models hit the road in the first half of next year as 2020 models.

The post 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLE 450 Prototype First Drive appeared first on Motor Trend.

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webbygraphic001 · 7 years

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The State of Front-End Tooling

At the end of 2016, I put out the 2016 Front-End Tooling Survey. The response has been phenomenal. Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to do so.

The aim was pretty straight-forward; to find out more details about the tools front-end developers are currently using in their own workflows. In our industry, it’s all too easy to take for granted what people are using based on your own knowledge. This survey aims to give more of an insight into the current trends in front-end tooling from a broader perspective.

This year the survey was made up of 19 questions covering a wide range of front-end tools and methodologies.

Quick Thanks

This survey would have been a whole lot harder to put together without the support of Just Eat (my employer) and Wes Bos, who has kindly affiliated with this years survey, which has enabled me to spend more time analysing the results.

Wes is renowned for creating great learning materials for web developers. His courses are a great place to start if you’re looking to learn more about topics such as React and ES6.

The Responses

This years survey has had over 4,700 responses. In comparison, when I released the first set of results in 2015, the survey had received just 648 responses which then rose to a final figure of 2,028 responses when the survey closed. So that’s almost 2 and a half times the number of responses in comparison to last years final numbers, or a 132% increase for people who like percentages.

In terms of where the responses have come from, I posted the survey on Twitter, Reddit, HackerNews, DesignerNews, Echo.js, LinkedIn and Frontendfront. It was also featured by a number of newsletters such as Responsive Design Weekly, Sitepoint Weekly and FrontEnd Focus, among others.

The reason I want to highlight these sources is to show that there has been a good spread of response across various channels; respondents haven’t all come from one social channel.

The Results

Pre-amble disclaimer: These results represent a sample of front-end developers working in the industry – therefore, they shouldn’t be taken as gospel, simply as pointing towards a rough trend.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the results! Grab yourself a cup of tea/coffee and let’s take a look…

Q1: General Front-end Experience

The first question I asked was to get an idea of the experience level of those responding; something that wasn’t recorded in last year’s survey. The question was Roughly how long have you been working with front-end technologies?

Here are the results:

Answer Number of Votes Percentage 0-1 Year 232 4.92% 1-2 Years 589 12.49% 2-5 Years 1,508 31.98% 5-10 Years 1,323 28.06% 10-15 Years 673 14.27% Over 15 Years 390 8.27%

The majority of respondents said that they have been working with front-end technologies for either 2-5 years or 5-10 years, which together accounted for 60.04% (2,831) of responses.

Interestingly, there is a very even split between those who have been working with front-end for up to 5 years (49.39%) when compared to those with over 5 years experience (50.6%). Positively, this implies that the results of the survey come from a fairly even distribution of experience levels.

Q2: CSS Knowledge

The second question was a subjective look at how respondents rated their own knowledge of CSS.

It goes without saying that this question is pretty relative, as this can be interpreted differently by each respondent as well as relying on a level of modesty when it comes to rating your own skill level – but it is none-the-less interesting to see the results!

The question was How do you rate your own knowledge of CSS and its associated tools and methodologies?

Here’s what the responses looked like:

Level Number of Votes Percentage Beginner 78 1.65% Novice (between Beginner and Intermediate) 424 8.99% Intermediate 1,243 26.36% Advanced (between Intermediate and Expert) 2,203 46.72% Expert 767 16.27%

Looking at the results, 89.36% (4,213) of respondents rated themselves as having an intermediate level of CSS knowledge or higher, with most – 46.72% (2,203) – saying that they are at an advanced level. Just 16.27% (767) of respondents rated themselves as having expert knowledge.

When digging a little deeper into these results and filtering based on the answers given to question 1, of those who have up to 12 months experience working with front-end technologies 10% rated themselves as having advanced knowledge of CSS or higher (although no-one in this subcategory rated themselves as an expert). That percentage rose to 22% for respondents with up to 2 years experience.

This can be interpreted in different ways, but it seems a relatively high percentage considering the short amount of time they have spent working with CSS. It could also reflect how CSS can often be perceived to be simpler to learn when compared to other languages such as JavaScript – something I wouldn’t necessarily agree with when it comes to learning the intricacies and nuances of the language and it’s methodologies.

We’ll look to reference these results in the following questions.

Q3: CSS Processor Usage

The next question was the first technology specific question, asking What is your CSS Processing tool of choice?

This question was asked on last years survey, with Sass being the choice for the majority of developers back in 2015. The possible answers included all of those available last year plus the addition of PostCSS and Rework, two more modular CSS Processors.

The results below also show the percentage difference between this year’s and last year’s results where applicable.

Preprocessor Number of Votes Percentage % Diff (to 2015) Sass 2,989 63.39% -0.56% Less 478 10.14% -5.05% Stylus 137 2.91% -0.84% PostCSS 392 8.31% N/A Rework 3 0.06% N/A No Preprocessor 643 13.64% -1.4% Other 73 1.55% -0.52%

Looking at the results, Sass is still the CSS processing tool of choice for the majority of respondents with 63.39%. When compared to last years results, Less usage has dropped slightly to 10.14% (down 5.05%).

PostCSS showed good growth with 8.31% of respondents saying that they used it exclusively. It’s usage is likely to be slightly higher in reality as this doesn’t account for those respondents who use it in combination with another processing tool.

Interestingly, the percentage of respondents not using any CSS processing tool has dropped to 13.64%, down from 15.04% in 2015. This re-enforces how CSS processing is now a key skill in modern front-end development and one that the majority (86.36%) of front-end developers currently use in their own workflows.

Q4: CSS Processor Experience

Following on from the last question, I wanted to find out more detail about knowledge levels across CSS processing tools with respondents asked to give their experience in each.

Here is how people responded when asked – Please indicate your experience with the following CSS Processing tools:

Never Heard of Heard of/Read About Used a little Feel Comfortable Using Sass – Standard or SCSS syntax 0.57% (27) 11.11% (524) 17.16% (809) 71.16% (3,355) Less 0.81% (38) 30.86% (1,455) 33.32% (1,571) 35.02% (1,651) Stylus 24.22% (1,142) 57.26% (2,700) 11.11% (524) 7.40% (349) PostCSS 21.76% (1,026) 45.37% (2,139) 18.73% (883) 14.15% (667) Rework 78.43% (3,698) 20.17% (951) 0.91% (43) 0.49% (23)

The tool with the highest knowledge levels was Sass by quite some distance, with 71.16% of respondents saying that they felt comfortable using it. In fact just 11.68% of people had never used it, with only 0.57% (27 people) having never heard of it at all. When looking at this together with the results of question 3, Sass clearly dominates when it comes to both usage and knowledge levels across CSS processing tools.

Looking at the other tools, 35.02% of respondents said that they felt comfortable using Less, followed by 14.15% that said the same with respect to PostCSS. Interestingly, this number has almost doubled from the 7.15% of respondents who said that they felt comfortable using PostCSS in last years survey, showing an upwards trend in knowledge of the tool.

Q5: CSS Naming Schemes

The next question was an area of CSS that I have a lot of interest in – CSS Naming Schemes. Having used a naming scheme in my own work for a number of years now, I was interested to see if this was something that other front-end developers had adopted too.

The question asked was – Do you use a naming scheme when writing CSS, such as BEM or SUIT?

Answer Number of Votes Percentage Yes 2,170 46.02% No – I’ve heard of CSS naming schemes but don’t use one 1,731 36.71% No – I’ve never heard of CSS naming schemes 814 17.26%

The results show a fairly even split, although just less than half of respondents (46.02%) said that they do use a CSS naming scheme in comparison to those that said that they did not (53.98%).

It’s encouraging that overall 82.73% (3,901) of respondents had at least heard of CSS naming schemes, but 36.71% (1,731) had yet to use one.

As you might expect, when looking at the respondents who rated themselves as having an advanced level of CSS knowledge or higher, the usage of CSS naming schemes rose to 56.94%. This is compared to a usage of just 27.47% among those who rated themselves as an intermediate or lower.

CSS naming schemes are a tool that I think will continue to grow in usage, so it’ll be interesting to see how these figures change in the future.

Q6: CSS Linting

Next up was CSS Linting – is this a tool that a lot of developers use in their workflows?

I asked Do you use a tool to lint your CSS?

The results were as follows:

Answer Number of Votes Percentage Yes 2,232 47.34% No – I don’t lint my CSS 2,483 52.66%

Like the previous question, this was a pretty even split with 47.34% (2,232) of respondents saying that they do use a tool to lint their CSS, compared with 52.66% (2,483) of those that do not.

Unsurprisingly, these numbers also rise as we look at those respondents with more advanced knowledge in CSS. 52.42% of respondents who rated themselves as having advanced or higher knowledge of CSS also said that they linted their CSS, compared to just 38.70% of those with beginner to intermediate knowledge.

CSS linting is still relatively new in terms of tooling and usage, especially when compared with the amount of time that JavaScript linting has been around. As better tools, such as Stylelint, continue to be discovered by developers I’d expect usage to grow as this area of CSS tooling matures.

Q7: CSS Tool Experience

The next three questions in the survey covered the knowledge levels and usage across a number of CSS tools and methodologies. Firstly question 7 asked respondents to Please indicate your experience with the following CSS tools.

Let’s look at the results:

Never Heard of Heard of/Read About Used a little Feel Comfortable Using Autoprefixer 18.28% (862) 17.18% (810) 15.93% (751) 48.61% (2,292) Susy 55.02% (2,594) 29.78% (1,404) 9.69% (457) 5.51% (260) Modernizr 6.64% (313) 22.93% (1,081) 37.96% (1,790) 32.47% (1,531) Stylelint 54.68% (2,578) 24.35% (1,148) 10.39% (490) 10.58% (499)

Out of these, Autoprefixer, with 48.61% (2,292), was the CSS tool that the most respondents felt comfortable using, followed by Modernizr (32.47%), Stylelint (10.58%) and finally Susy (5.51%).

However, when expanding this out to include those respondents who had used the tool a little, Modernizr then came out on top, with 70.43% compared with the 64.54% of respondents who said that they have at least a little experience in using Autoprefixer.

The majority of respondents said that they had never heard of Stylelint (54.68%), a CSS Linting tool, and Susy (55.02%), a Sass layout tool.

Interestingly, a high percentage of respondents who rated themselves as advanced or above in CSS and it’s tools had never heard of these two tools – 46.53% for Stylelint and 45.52% for Susy. I think this illustrates just how difficult it can be for developers of any experience level, let alone beginners, to keep up with the tools available to us all.

Q8: CSS Methodologies and Naming Scheme Experience

This next question followed on from the last by asking respondents to Please indicate your experience with the following CSS methodologies.

The results looked like this:

Never Heard of Heard of/Read About Used a little Feel Comfortable Using SMACSS 40.57% (1,913) 33.91% (1,599) 14.74% (695) 10.77% (508) Object Oriented CSS (OOCSS) 28.27% (1,333) 41.80% (1,971) 17.77% (838) 12.15% (573) Atomic Design 41.53% (1,958) 33.74% (1,591) 14.34% (676) 10.39% (490) ITCSS 68.34% (3,222) 22.38% (1,055) 4.50% (212) 4.79% (226) CSS Modules 27.42% (1,293) 44.77% (2,111) 15.95% (752) 11.86% (559) BEM 24.90% (1,174) 23.52% (1,109) 18.49% (872) 33.09% (1,560) SUIT CSS 69.42% (3,273) 24.14% (1,138) 3.90% (184) 2.55% (120)

Of these, BEM – a CSS naming scheme – was the most widely known with 33.09% of respondents saying that they felt comfortable using it. This figure rises to 51.58% of respondents when including those who said they have used it a little.

Surprisingly (to me at least), knowledge of many of the most well known CSS methodologies is pretty low. Just 29.92% of developers said that they have used OOCSS either a little or feel comfortable using it in their projects, with 27.81% saying the same for CSS modules, 25.51% for SMACSS and 24.73% for Atomic design.

Even among those with advanced or expert knowledge of CSS, none of these methodologies break the 20% mark in terms of the number of respondents that said that they felt comfortable using them.

Digging into the responses a bit further shows that less than a third (29.20%) of respondents feel comfortable using at least one of the listed CSS methodologies – so that’s any one of SMACSS, OOCSS, Atomic Design, ITCSS and CSS Modules. This rises to 55.02% of respondents if we consider those who say that they have used any one of these methodologies at least a little.

Before drawing more conclusions from these results, let’s also take a look at question 9, which is closely related.

Q9: CSS Tool Usage

Rounding off the survey’s questions on CSS, I asked respondents Which of these CSS methodologies or tools do you currently use on your projects?

Here are the results:

Tool/Methodology Number of Votes Percentage SMACSS 613 13.00% Object Oriented CSS (OOCSS) 696 14.76% Atomic Design 680 14.42% ITCSS 248 5.26% CSS Modules 740 15.69% BEM 1905 40.40% SUIT CSS 111 2.35% Autoprefixer 2,414 51.20% Susy 237 5.03% Modernizr 1,828 38.77% Stylelint 682 14.46% I don’t use any of these approaches or tools 1,095 23.22%

Top in terms of actual usage was Autoprefixer (51.20%), followed by BEM (40.40%) and Modernizr (38.77%), which all saw good usage levels from respondents.

Although individual usage levels of CSS methodologies is modest – even among those who stated advanced experience with CSS – when looking at usage across all of them together, 41.21% of respondents said that they were using at least one of SMACSS, OOCSS, Atomic Design, ITCSS or CSS Modules on their projects.

It’s also a little surprising, due to the relative newness of the approach, to see that usage of CSS modules has higher usage than any of the other CSS methodologies.

For me, the relatively low usage levels – and knowledge levels shown from question 8 – across CSS methodologies indicates two things. The diversity of ways that people are writing their CSS is very broad – there isn’t any one method that developers seem drawn to when it comes to writing their CSS.

Secondly, from the responses a high number of front-end developers consider themselves to have an advanced knowledge of CSS when they don’t have knowledge of some of the most well known CSS methodologies. Learning different approaches to writing CSS (such as SMACSS, OOCSS and ITCSS) helps give a better perspective to how you structure your own styles – irrespective of whether you choose to use them or not in your own workflow.

CSS may be a simple language on the surface, but it can be a complex one to master and fully understand.

Q10: JavaScript Knowledge

The second half of the survey focussed on JavaScript and it’s ecosystem of tools.

First up, I asked respondents How do you rate your own knowledge of JavaScript and its associated tools and methodologies?

These were the results:

Knowledge Number of Votes Percentage Beginner 197 4.18% Novice (between Beginner and Intermediate) 553 11.73% Intermediate 1555 32.98% Advanced (between Intermediate and Expert) 1684 35.72% Expert 726 15.40%

Responses showed a similar distribution across knowledge levels to those seen in relation to CSS. The main exception comes in the number of respondents who rated themselves as having an advanced knowledge of JavaScript, which is 35.72%.

By way of comparison, 51.12% of respondents rated themselves as having either an advanced of expert level of JavaScript knowledge, compared with 62.99% of respondents who said the same in relation to their knowledge of CSS.

Q11: Task Runners

Task runners have become a very important part of many front-end developers’ workflows. But has this area changed much over the last 12 months, or has usage stayed consistent across tools and approaches?

The question that respondents were asked was What task runner do you prefer using in your typical project workflow?

Let’s take a look at the results – where possible I’ve included the percentage change from last years survey:

Task Runner Number of Votes Percentage % Diff (to 2015) Gulp 2,060 43.69% -0.1% NPM Scripts 1,223 25.94% +22.78% Grunt 554 11.75% -15.81% Make 54 1.15% N/A GUI Application (i.e. Codekit) 93 1.97% N/A Other (please specify) 214 4.54% -0.34% I don’t use a task runner 517 10.97% -8.56%

Looking at the results, Gulp is still the clear leader when it comes to front-end task runners with 43.69% (2,060) of responses.

The biggest movement is in the usage NPM Scripts, which got a 25.94% (1,223) share of the response, making it the second most used task runner tool. That’s an increase of 22.8% when compared to last years figures. This suggests that more front-end developers are trying to simplify their build tasks and take away the abstraction layer that tools such as Gulp and Grunt provide.

Meanwhile Grunt has seen a substantial drop in use, with just 11.75% of respondents saying that they prefer using the tool – a fall of over 15% from 2015.

Interestingly, the number of respondents not using any task runner has fallen to just 10.97% – down from 19.5% last year – showing that the overwhelming majority of front-end developers now utilise a task running tool on their projects.

Q12: Knowledge of JavaScript Libraries and Frameworks

This was one of the questions I was most looking forward to seeing the responses to. How have knowledge levels across the most popular JavaScript libraries and frameworks changed in the last year?

At the time of the 2015 survey, React was a relative newcomer still gaining ground on Angular. Since then, the Angular team has released version 2 of the framework, but have developers started to migrate over?

Here’s what the results show:

Never Heard of Heard of/Read About Used a little Feel Comfortable Using jQuery 0.11% (5) 0.85% (40) 12.17% (574) 86.87% (4,096) Underscore 10.22% (482) 28.12% (1,326) 24.41% (1,151) 37.24% (1,756) Lodash 15.89% (749) 26.70% (1,259) 19.75% (931) 37.67% (1,776) Backbone 4.31% (203) 58.13% (2,741) 23.01% (1,085) 14.55% (686) Angular 1 0.66% (31) 40.21% (1,896) 30.43% (1,435) 28.70% (1,353) Angular 2 0.89% (42) 73.59% (3,470) 20.19% (952) 5.32% (251) Ember 3.75% (177) 78.41% (3,697) 11.71% (552) 6.13% (289) React 0.76% (36) 42.29% (1,994) 28.04% (1,322) 28.91% (1,363) Polymer 13.55% (639) 72.68% (3,427) 11.75% (554) 2.01% (95) Aurelia 43.71% (2,061) 50.03% (2,359) 3.20% (151) 3.05% (144) Vue.js 14.68% (692) 66.55% (3,138) 13.11% (618) 5.66% (267) MeteorJS 9.59% (452) 75.91% (3,579) 11.69% (551) 2.82% (133) Knockout 16.14% (761) 66.62% (3,141) 11.33% (534) 5.92% (279)

As was the case last year, jQuery is still the library or framework with the highest percentage of respondents – 86.87% (4,096) – who said that they felt comfortable using it. In fact over 99% of respondents said that they had used it at least a little, which is pretty remarkable for any tool.

Both Underscore (37.24%) and Lodash (37.67%) also had a sizeable number of respondents who said they felt comfortable using them.

When looking at the big hitting JS frameworks, the growth in knowledge of React is the most noticeable change from last year. It has not only caught up with Angular 1 (the leading MVW framework last year), but it has managed to even slightly surpass it, with 28.91% (1,363) of developers saying that they feel comfortable using it compared with 28.70% (1,353) of those that said the same about Angular 1.

It’s also interesting to see that Angular 2 uptake has been pretty slow so far, with 20.19% of respondents saying that they had used it a little but just 5.32% saying that they felt comfortable using it. I would suspect this number will grow over time, but it will be interesting to see by how much and if it reaches the level that Angular 1 has currently.

Looking at knowledge levels across the MV* frameworks – so everything in the list except jQuery, Underscore and Lodash – 62.23% of respondents said that they felt comfortable using at least one of these frameworks. That’s up just over 12% (from 50.2%) who said the same in last years survey.

As I noted last year, knowledge of at least one framework has become an important skill for many front-end developers.

Q13: Which JavaScript libraries and/or frameworks do you currently use most frequently on projects?

The next question referred to actual usage of the libraries and frameworks listed in the previous question.

The question was, Which JavaScript libraries and/or frameworks do you currently use most frequently on projects? with respondents invited to select all that applied.

Here are the results:

Number of Votes Percentage jQuery 3284 69.65% Underscore 714 15.14% Lodash 1527 32.39% Backbone 301 6.38% Angular 1 1180 25.03% Angular 2 387 8.21% Ember 280 5.94% React 1776 37.67% Polymer 87 1.85% Aurelia 154 3.27% Vue.js 456 9.67% MeteorJS 115 2.44% Knockout 156 3.31% I don’t use any of these approaches or tools 132 2.80%

jQuery usage was again very strong, with over two thirds (69.65%) of respondents saying that they used it frequently on their projects.

Arguably more interesting is that 37.67% (1,776) of respondents said that they frequently use React, even though this is almost 10% more than the number who said that they felt comfortable using it when answering question 12. It can therefore be concluded that a decent number of those who said that they have used it just a little are also using it frequently on their projects.

In keeping with the results from question 12, Angular 1 was said to be used frequently by 25.03% (1,180) of respondents, while Angular 2 is currently well below that figure with 8.21% (387) usage.

Although knowledge levels were similar between Lodash and Underscore in the results of question 12, Lodash received more than double the number of respondents who said that they still use it frequently on their projects – 32.39% (1,527) compared with just 15.14% (714) for Underscore.

Also, a notable mention to Vue.js, which has been getting mentioned a lot recently, with 9.67% of respondents saying that they use frequently on their projects.

Q14: Which JavaScript library or framework would you regard as essential to you on the majority of your projects?

Question 14 looked at what JavaScript library or framework respondents considered to be their most essential tool, with the question being Which JavaScript library or framework would you regard as essential to you on the majority of your projects?

Let’s take a look at the results:

Number of Votes Percentage None of them are essential – I feel comfortable using native JavaScript on my projects 985 20.89% jQuery 1468 31.13% Underscore 38 0.81% Lodash 262 5.56% Backbone 38 0.81% Angular 1 386 8.19% Angular 2 129 2.74% Ember 178 3.78% React 857 18.18% Polymer 16 0.34% Aurelia 113 2.40% Vue.js 148 3.14% MeteorJS 8 0.17% Knockout 17 0.36% Other (please specify) 72 1.53%

The tools that the most respondents said was essential to them was jQuery with 31.13% (1,468 responses), followed by React which received 18.18% (857) of the vote.

20.89% (985) of respondents said that they did not think that any library or tool was essential – most likely due to the rise in knowledge of ES6 (also known as ES2015).

These were the only answers that received more than a 10% share of the vote, with Angular 1 the next biggest choice with 8.19% (386) of responses.

Perhaps most interesting is that even among those who rated themselves at having Intermediate level JS knowledge or higher, jQuery is still the most popular choice with 25.98% of responses in this category, compared with 20.06% for the next closest tool which is React.

It’s clear that jQuery is still playing an important part in many front-end developers’ toolsets.

Q15: JavaScript Module Bundlers

Looking at the results of last years survey, JavaScript module bundlers were still a tool used by a minority of front-end developers, with just 46.1% of respondents saying that they used one in their own workflow.

Will this have changed just over 12 months on? The question asked was Do you use a JavaScript module bundler in your workflow?

Let’s take a look at the results:

Module Bundler Number of Votes Percentage % Diff (to 2015) I don’t use a module bundler 1516 32.15% -21.75% RequireJS 359 7.61% -5.85% Browserify 510 10.82% -5.65% Webpack 1962 41.61% +31.11% Rollup 79 1.68% N/A JSPM 108 2.29% +0.07% Other (please specify) 181 3.84% +0.39%

In a massive shift from last year, 41.61% (1,962) of respondents are now using Webpack to handle their module bundling in JavaScript, making it the clear leader in this category.

The percentage of those now using any kind of module bundler has increased to 67.85% (3,199 responses), an increase of over 20% when compared to last years figures.

In terms of other module bundling tools, both Browserify and RequireJS have both seen a 5% drop in usage, with 10.82% and 7.61% of respondents saying that they use these respective tools.

Overall, it’s great to see so many developers embracing module bundlers. Webpack has obviously struck a real chord with developers and is now considered the go-to tool when it comes to handling JavaScript module dependencies.

Q16: JavaScript Transpilers

The next question in the survey is a subject that has been talked about a lot over the last 12-18 months.

The use of a JS transpiler, such as Babel, enables developers to transpile their JavaScript from ES6 (ES2015) back to ES5 so that they can use the latest JS features while still providing support for older browsers.

The question I asked was Are you using a tool to transpile your JavaScript from ES6 to ES5? (i.e. Babel)

Here are the results:

Answer Number of Votes Percentage Yes 2,942 62.40% No – I’ve heard of these tools, but haven’t used one 1,443 30.60% No – I’ve never heard of a JavaScript transpiler 330 7.00%

The majority – 62.40% (2,942) – of respondents indicated that they are now using a JavaScript transpiler. Considering the short period of time these tools have been around, this shows just how valuable developers see working with ES6 features today.

Only 7% (330) of respondents had never heard of a JavaScript transpiler, again showing the remarkable reach that has been achieved in a relatively short space of time.

Looking at these results, it’s straightforward to conclude that having knowledge of a transpilation tool, such as Babel, is becoming a required skill for the modern front-end developer.

Q17: JavaScript Linting

JavaScript Linting, once a polarizing topic, is now firmly embedded in many developers workflows. But just how many people use one and is there a clear leader among tools that front-end developers use?

The question I asked was Which tool do you use to lint your JavaScript? (if any)

Here are the results:

Tool Number of Votes Percentage I don’t use a JavaScript linter 1,076 22.82% JSLint 894 18.96% JSHint 657 13.93% ESLint 1,927 40.87% xo 24 0.51% Other (please specify) 137 2.91%

The majority of respondents – 77.18% (3,639 people) – indicated that they do use a tool to lint their JavaScript.

Comparing this to the results seen earlier in relation to CSS linting, there is an obvious gap between those who choose to lint their JavaScript and those who do the same with their CSS – a difference of 29.84% in fact, as just 47.34% of respondents indicated that they used a tool to lint their CSS.

40.87% (1,927) of respondents said that ESLInt was the tool they used, making it the most popular linting tool, followed by JSLint with 18.96% (894) and JSHint with 13.93% (657).

It’s great to see that linting is now considered the norm when developing JavaScript, especially considering the benefits it brings to code quality and consistency.

Q18: JavaScript Testing

The next subject provided some of the most interesting results in last years survey.

Last year the majority of respondents – 59.66% – said that they weren’t using a tool to help test their JavaScript. Are more developers using JS testing tools a year on?

The question I asked was Which tool do you use to test your JavaScript? (if any)

Let’s take a look at the results:

Tool Number of Votes Percentage % Diff (to 2015) I don’t use a tool to test my JS 2,241 47.53% -12.13% Jasmine 802 17.01% +0.64 Mocha 1,061 22.50% +7.46% Tape 69 1.46% -0.02% Ava 84 1.78% N/A QUnit 199 4.22% +0.37% Jest 164 3.48% +2.69% Other (please specify) 95 2.01% +0.33%

Looking at the results, the figures show some changes since last years survey.

The split between those who test and those who don’t is now pretty even, with 47.53% (2,241) of respondents saying that they don’t use a tool to help with their JavaScript testing. This figure is down 12.13% from last year.

This means that the majority of respondents – 52.47% (2,474) – are using a tool to test their JavaScript. This indicates that more front-end developers are seeing the benefits of learning and using a tool to test their JavaScript, which – I personally think – is great news.

Of those testing their JS, the most popular tools were Jasmine, with 17.01% of the responses, and Mocha, with 22.50%. Mocha has seen the biggest gains, with a usage rise of 7.46% on last years figures, making it the most popular testing tool.

Jest also saw a 2.69% rise in usage, with 3.48% (164) of respondents saying that they now use it as their primary JS testing tool.

All in all, I think this shows a positive step from last years figures on JavaScript testing, but there is clearly more work to be done to reduce the gap in knowledge of testing tools among front-end developers.

Q19: Miscellaneous Tools

The final question of the survey was to find out more information on tools that don’t quite fit into the questions that have been asked so far.

The list this year consisted of package management tools – Bower, NPM and Yarn – as well as Babel, a popular JS transpilation tool, Yeoman and TypeScript.

Respondents were asked to Please indicate your experience with the following front-end tools.

Here is how people responded:

Never Heard of Heard of/Read About Used a little Feel Comfortable Using Bower 2.52% (119) 21.34% (1,006) 33.96% (1,601) 42.18% (1,989) NPM 1.76% (83) 4.01% (189) 14.15% (667) 80.08% (3,776) Yarn 21.40% (1,009) 50.56% (2,384) 14.32% (675) 13.72% (647) Babel 7.15% (337) 29.20% (1,377) 24.16% (1,139) 39.49% (1,862) Yeoman 11.56% (545) 41.53% (1,958) 33.47% (1,578) 13.45% (634) TypeScript 6.68% (315) 60.87% (2,870) 19.53% (921) 12.92% (609)

The most well-known tools in this list were NPM, with a huge 80.08% of respondents saying that they feel comfortable using it, Bower with 42.18% and Babel with 39.49%.

It’s interesting to see that although Yarn has only been around a few months, 78.6% of respondents had at least heard of it or used it in some way.

The number of respondents who felt comfortable using Yeoman, TypeScript and Yarn was fairly low, with these tools receiving between 12-14% in that category.

Summary

So that’s it – you made it through! But what conclusions can we make from the survey overall?

As with last years results, the adoption rate of front-end tools shows no signs of letting up, with tools such as Webpack and JavaScript transpilers becoming ever more essential in our workflows.

Although there has been a lot of talk about front-end developers moving away from using jQuery, the results show that usage and knowledge levels are still unrivalled in comparison with any other JavaScript tool of it’s kind.

The great news is that more people seem to be using a JavaScript testing tool than not, showing that more front-end developers are embracing the value that these tools provide.

Looking specifically at CSS, the adoption of methodologies, linting and naming schemes seems to be a bit slower. This is most noticeable when comparing the number of respondents linting their CSS compared to those doing the same with their JavaScript.

Whether this is down to developers seeing less value in investing their time in learning these tools is unclear. I’d encourage anyone reading this to put the time into learning some of the more popular CSS methodologies and tools such as SMACSS, OOCSS, CSS Modules and BEM. They really do help broaden your knowledge of CSS in terms of learning ways to structure and maintain your CSS, so that you can then choose the approach that best works for you.

If anyone has any questions about any of the results, or would like me to look at other cross sections of the responses, message me on Twitter and I’ll do my best to help!

Originally published here, republished with the writer’s permission.

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theliberaltony · 5 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Sen. Kamala Harris was mentioned in almost as many cable news clips1 and online news stories2 as former Vice President Joe Biden last week, according to data from the TV News Archive and Media Cloud. So far, Biden has dominated in terms of media mentions every week since he launched his campaign in April, but that could change if Harris can keep the attention of the national media, which turned to her after she and Biden sparred during the Democratic primary debate. We reported last week that Harris saw a big bump in media coverage in the two days following the debate, and it seems that she is sustaining high levels of media attention in the week after the debate as well. The week of June 16, which was the last full week before the debate, Harris was only mentioned in 7 percent of cable TV clips on the three networks we monitor — CNN, Fox News and MSNBC — and her name came up in 22 percent of online news stories. But the week of June 30, following the debate, she was mentioned 37 percent of cable news clips and 45 percent of online news stories. And as you can see from the table below, she also got a higher percentage of all coverage that mentioned any Democratic candidate last week than she did during the week of the debate itself.

Harris and Biden shared the spotlight last week

Share of 15-second cable news clips mentioning each candidate vs. share of online stories mentioning each candidate in a Media Cloud search

Cable TV clips the week of … online stories the week of … Candidate June 23 June 30 diff. June 23 June 30 diff. Joe Biden 37.9% 43.4% +5.5 44.8% 47.2% +2.4 Kamala Harris 16.8 37.1 +20.3 33.3 45.2 +11.8 Bernie Sanders 14.4 13.5 -1.0 41.2 35.8 -5.4 Elizabeth Warren 15.3 11.8 -3.5 42.1 30.8 -11.3 Pete Buttigieg 6.9 9.0 +2.1 24.7 27.7 +3.0 Cory Booker 6.1 4.3 -1.8 25.8 17.4 -8.4 Julian Castro 4.8 2.9 -2.0 20.4 15.3 -5.0 Amy Klobuchar 2.3 1.2 -1.1 15.6 8.7 -6.9 Kirsten Gillibrand 0.6 0.3 -0.3 12.7 7.1 -5.6 Bill de Blasio 2.3 0.4 -1.9 15.5 6.6 -8.9 Beto O’Rourke 6.1 2.6 -3.5 9.0 6.1 -2.9 Marianne Williamson 1.2 0.7 -0.6 12.3 5.6 -6.7 Michael Bennet 0.7 0.3 -0.4 8.6 4.1 -4.5 Eric Swalwell 1.7 0.4 -1.4 12.3 3.9 -8.4 Andrew Yang 0.9 0.5 -0.5 10.0 3.9 -6.1 Tulsi Gabbard 1.5 0.3 -1.2 11.8 3.8 -8.0 John Hickenlooper 0.7 0.7 +0.0 8.4 3.7 -4.8 Jay Inslee 1.5 0.2 -1.3 12.1 3.7 -8.4 Tim Ryan 1.8 0.8 -1.0 10.4 2.9 -7.5 John Delaney 1.4 0.3 -1.1 10.5 2.9 -7.7 Steve Bullock 0.4 0.1 -0.3 2.2 2.4 +0.3 Seth Moulton 0.1 0.1 -0.1 2.5 2.2 -0.3 Mike Gravel 0.0 0.0 +0.0 1.1 0.9 -0.1

Includes all candidates that qualify as “major” in FiveThirtyEight’s rubric. Each network’s daily news coverage is chopped up into 15-second clips, and each clip that includes a candidate’s name is counted as one mention. For both cable and online news, our search queries look for an exact match for each candidate’s name, except for Julian Castro, for whom our search query is “Julian Castro” OR “Julián Castro”. Media Cloud searches use two of the database’s publication lists: “top online news” and “digital native” publications.

Sources: Internet Archive’s Television News Archive via the GDELT Project, Media Cloud

Biden also got a larger share of clips and stories mentioning him last week than in the week of the debate, but his increase was not as large as Harris’s, his coverage is still down from the week of June 16. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, on the other hand, got a bigger share of cable news clips and online news stories last week than the week before. The word “million” appeared in about a quarter of cable news clips last week mentioning his name, mostly referring to the $24.8 million dollars he announced he had raised in the second quarter, more than Biden, Harris and several other top-tier candidates who have released fundraising numbers. (Full fundraising data for the quarter is not due to the Federal Election Commission until next week.)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the other hand, whose debate performance impressed voters in our poll with Morning Consult, got less coverage this week than the week of the debate. And Rep. Julián Castro, whose debate performance also scored well in the poll, was mentioned in almost 5 percent of cable news clips and 20 percent of online news stories the week of the debate but declined on both counts last week. Castro however, is still getting a much bigger share of mentions than he was the week prior to the debate, when he wasn’t even mentioned in 1 percent of cable news clips and appeared in less than 7 percent of online news stories. The same can’t be said of Warren, who got a smaller share of all candidates’ coverage on cable news and online last week than in the week before the debate.

As the dust from the debate settles, we’ll be watching to see if Harris is able to stay in the media spotlight with Biden. So check back with us next week to see if her campaign or any other is able to capture the attention of the national news media.

Check out the data behind this series and check back each week for an update on which candidates are getting the most coverage on cable news.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Dhrumil Mehta

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webbygraphic001 · 7 years

Text

The State of Front-End Tooling

At the end of 2016, I put out the 2016 Front-End Tooling Survey. The response has been phenomenal. Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to do so.

This year the survey was made up of 19 questions covering a wide range of front-end tools and methodologies.

Quick Thanks

Wes is renowned for creating great learning materials for web developers. His courses are a great place to start if you’re looking to learn more about topics such as React and ES6.

The Responses

The reason I want to highlight these sources is to show that there has been a good spread of response across various channels; respondents haven’t all come from one social channel.

The Results

Pre-amble disclaimer: These results represent a sample of front-end developers working in the industry – therefore, they shouldn’t be taken as gospel, simply as pointing towards a rough trend.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the results! Grab yourself a cup of tea/coffee and let’s take a look…

Q1: General Front-end Experience

Here are the results:

Answer Number of Votes Percentage 0-1 Year 232 4.92% 1-2 Years 589 12.49% 2-5 Years 1,508 31.98% 5-10 Years 1,323 28.06% 10-15 Years 673 14.27% Over 15 Years 390 8.27%

The majority of respondents said that they have been working with front-end technologies for either 2-5 years or 5-10 years, which together accounted for 60.04% (2,831) of responses.

Q2: CSS Knowledge

The second question was a subjective look at how respondents rated their own knowledge of CSS.

The question was How do you rate your own knowledge of CSS and its associated tools and methodologies?

Here’s what the responses looked like:

We’ll look to reference these results in the following questions.

Q3: CSS Processor Usage

The next question was the first technology specific question, asking What is your CSS Processing tool of choice?

The results below also show the percentage difference between this year’s and last year’s results where applicable.

Q4: CSS Processor Experience

Following on from the last question, I wanted to find out more detail about knowledge levels across CSS processing tools with respondents asked to give their experience in each.

Here is how people responded when asked – Please indicate your experience with the following CSS Processing tools:

Q5: CSS Naming Schemes

The question asked was – Do you use a naming scheme when writing CSS, such as BEM or SUIT?

Answer Number of Votes Percentage Yes 2,170 46.02% No – I’ve heard of CSS naming schemes but don’t use one 1,731 36.71% No – I’ve never heard of CSS naming schemes 814 17.26%

The results show a fairly even split, although just less than half of respondents (46.02%) said that they do use a CSS naming scheme in comparison to those that said that they did not (53.98%).

It’s encouraging that overall 82.73% (3,901) of respondents had at least heard of CSS naming schemes, but 36.71% (1,731) had yet to use one.

CSS naming schemes are a tool that I think will continue to grow in usage, so it’ll be interesting to see how these figures change in the future.

Q6: CSS Linting

Next up was CSS Linting – is this a tool that a lot of developers use in their workflows?

I asked Do you use a tool to lint your CSS?

The results were as follows:

Answer Number of Votes Percentage Yes 2,232 47.34% No – I don’t lint my CSS 2,483 52.66%

Like the previous question, this was a pretty even split with 47.34% (2,232) of respondents saying that they do use a tool to lint their CSS, compared with 52.66% (2,483) of those that do not.

Q7: CSS Tool Experience

Let’s look at the results:

Out of these, Autoprefixer, with 48.61% (2,292), was the CSS tool that the most respondents felt comfortable using, followed by Modernizr (32.47%), Stylelint (10.58%) and finally Susy (5.51%).

The majority of respondents said that they had never heard of Stylelint (54.68%), a CSS Linting tool, and Susy (55.02%), a Sass layout tool.

Q8: CSS Methodologies and Naming Scheme Experience

This next question followed on from the last by asking respondents to Please indicate your experience with the following CSS methodologies.

The results looked like this:

Even among those with advanced or expert knowledge of CSS, none of these methodologies break the 20% mark in terms of the number of respondents that said that they felt comfortable using them.

Before drawing more conclusions from these results, let’s also take a look at question 9, which is closely related.

Q9: CSS Tool Usage

Rounding off the survey’s questions on CSS, I asked respondents Which of these CSS methodologies or tools do you currently use on your projects?

Here are the results:

Top in terms of actual usage was Autoprefixer (51.20%), followed by BEM (40.40%) and Modernizr (38.77%), which all saw good usage levels from respondents.

It’s also a little surprising, due to the relative newness of the approach, to see that usage of CSS modules has higher usage than any of the other CSS methodologies.

CSS may be a simple language on the surface, but it can be a complex one to master and fully understand.

Q10: JavaScript Knowledge

The second half of the survey focussed on JavaScript and it’s ecosystem of tools.

First up, I asked respondents How do you rate your own knowledge of JavaScript and its associated tools and methodologies?

These were the results:

Q11: Task Runners

The question that respondents were asked was What task runner do you prefer using in your typical project workflow?

Let’s take a look at the results – where possible I’ve included the percentage change from last years survey:

Looking at the results, Gulp is still the clear leader when it comes to front-end task runners with 43.69% (2,060) of responses.

Meanwhile Grunt has seen a substantial drop in use, with just 11.75% of respondents saying that they prefer using the tool – a fall of over 15% from 2015.

Q12: Knowledge of JavaScript Libraries and Frameworks

This was one of the questions I was most looking forward to seeing the responses to. How have knowledge levels across the most popular JavaScript libraries and frameworks changed in the last year?

Here’s what the results show:

Both Underscore (37.24%) and Lodash (37.67%) also had a sizeable number of respondents who said they felt comfortable using them.

As I noted last year, knowledge of at least one framework has become an important skill for many front-end developers.

Q13: Which JavaScript libraries and/or frameworks do you currently use most frequently on projects?

The next question referred to actual usage of the libraries and frameworks listed in the previous question.

The question was, Which JavaScript libraries and/or frameworks do you currently use most frequently on projects? with respondents invited to select all that applied.

Here are the results:

jQuery usage was again very strong, with over two thirds (69.65%) of respondents saying that they used it frequently on their projects.

In keeping with the results from question 12, Angular 1 was said to be used frequently by 25.03% (1,180) of respondents, while Angular 2 is currently well below that figure with 8.21% (387) usage.

Also, a notable mention to Vue.js, which has been getting mentioned a lot recently, with 9.67% of respondents saying that they use frequently on their projects.

Q14: Which JavaScript library or framework would you regard as essential to you on the majority of your projects?

Let’s take a look at the results:

The tools that the most respondents said was essential to them was jQuery with 31.13% (1,468 responses), followed by React which received 18.18% (857) of the vote.

20.89% (985) of respondents said that they did not think that any library or tool was essential – most likely due to the rise in knowledge of ES6 (also known as ES2015).

These were the only answers that received more than a 10% share of the vote, with Angular 1 the next biggest choice with 8.19% (386) of responses.

It’s clear that jQuery is still playing an important part in many front-end developers’ toolsets.

Q15: JavaScript Module Bundlers

Will this have changed just over 12 months on? The question asked was Do you use a JavaScript module bundler in your workflow?

Let’s take a look at the results:

In a massive shift from last year, 41.61% (1,962) of respondents are now using Webpack to handle their module bundling in JavaScript, making it the clear leader in this category.

The percentage of those now using any kind of module bundler has increased to 67.85% (3,199 responses), an increase of over 20% when compared to last years figures.

In terms of other module bundling tools, both Browserify and RequireJS have both seen a 5% drop in usage, with 10.82% and 7.61% of respondents saying that they use these respective tools.

Q16: JavaScript Transpilers

The next question in the survey is a subject that has been talked about a lot over the last 12-18 months.

The question I asked was Are you using a tool to transpile your JavaScript from ES6 to ES5? (i.e. Babel)

Here are the results:

Answer Number of Votes Percentage Yes 2,942 62.40% No – I’ve heard of these tools, but haven’t used one 1,443 30.60% No – I’ve never heard of a JavaScript transpiler 330 7.00%

Only 7% (330) of respondents had never heard of a JavaScript transpiler, again showing the remarkable reach that has been achieved in a relatively short space of time.

Looking at these results, it’s straightforward to conclude that having knowledge of a transpilation tool, such as Babel, is becoming a required skill for the modern front-end developer.

Q17: JavaScript Linting

The question I asked was Which tool do you use to lint your JavaScript? (if any)

Here are the results:

Tool Number of Votes Percentage I don’t use a JavaScript linter 1,076 22.82% JSLint 894 18.96% JSHint 657 13.93% ESLint 1,927 40.87% xo 24 0.51% Other (please specify) 137 2.91%

The majority of respondents – 77.18% (3,639 people) – indicated that they do use a tool to lint their JavaScript.

40.87% (1,927) of respondents said that ESLInt was the tool they used, making it the most popular linting tool, followed by JSLint with 18.96% (894) and JSHint with 13.93% (657).

It’s great to see that linting is now considered the norm when developing JavaScript, especially considering the benefits it brings to code quality and consistency.

Q18: JavaScript Testing

The next subject provided some of the most interesting results in last years survey.

Last year the majority of respondents – 59.66% – said that they weren’t using a tool to help test their JavaScript. Are more developers using JS testing tools a year on?

The question I asked was Which tool do you use to test your JavaScript? (if any)

Let’s take a look at the results:

Looking at the results, the figures show some changes since last years survey.

Jest also saw a 2.69% rise in usage, with 3.48% (164) of respondents saying that they now use it as their primary JS testing tool.

Q19: Miscellaneous Tools

The final question of the survey was to find out more information on tools that don’t quite fit into the questions that have been asked so far.

The list this year consisted of package management tools – Bower, NPM and Yarn – as well as Babel, a popular JS transpilation tool, Yeoman and TypeScript.

Respondents were asked to Please indicate your experience with the following front-end tools.

Here is how people responded:

The most well-known tools in this list were NPM, with a huge 80.08% of respondents saying that they feel comfortable using it, Bower with 42.18% and Babel with 39.49%.

It’s interesting to see that although Yarn has only been around a few months, 78.6% of respondents had at least heard of it or used it in some way.

The number of respondents who felt comfortable using Yeoman, TypeScript and Yarn was fairly low, with these tools receiving between 12-14% in that category.

Summary

So that’s it – you made it through! But what conclusions can we make from the survey overall?

As with last years results, the adoption rate of front-end tools shows no signs of letting up, with tools such as Webpack and JavaScript transpilers becoming ever more essential in our workflows.

The great news is that more people seem to be using a JavaScript testing tool than not, showing that more front-end developers are embracing the value that these tools provide.

If anyone has any questions about any of the results, or would like me to look at other cross sections of the responses, message me on Twitter and I’ll do my best to help!

Originally published here, republished with the writer’s permission.

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