VANCOUVER, British Columbia – March 29, 2010 – ActiveState, the dynamic languages company, today announced the results of an informal survey of enterprise software architects and developers that found developers benefit greatly from dynamic languages to get products to market faster and at a reduced cost.

The poll was conducted on March 10, 2010 during a webinar given by Larry Backman, VP of Quality Assurance, Computer Associates and Jeff Hobbs, Director of Engineering for ActiveState. More than 75 enterprise software developers and architects participated in the poll.

Among the highlights of the poll, developers said:

  • There is more pressure to be fast and cheap than good: A much higher percentage of developers feel that the single largest pressure comes from delivering products to market faster (29.4%) or at a reduced cost (23.5%) than to reduce the number of bugs (only 5.8%)
  • Dynamic languages provide fast speed to market: The vast majority of developers felt speed of development was the most important reason to use a dynamic language such as Perl, Python, Tcl. –  Not supported or indemnified: The vast majority of users either don’t have support and indemnification (58.8% said no) or don’t know if they have it (35.2% said don’t know)

“Dynamic languages provide a framework for developing better software faster, and as this survey shows, developers are most focused on development speed,” said Hobbs. “At ActiveState, our quality-assured, enterprise-ready editions of ActivePerl, ActivePython and ActiveTcl  give developers all the tools and SLA support they need to focus on developing applications faster so they don’t have to worry about code and module management.  In addition, this survey highlights that many developers are using open source components in applications and opening up their companies to legal or privacy risks without realizing it. At ActiveState, we’ve helped companies like CA by providing indemnification and redistribution rights that eliminate those risks for our enterprise customers.”

Here are the three questions and the responses (attendees could only pick only one response for each question):

What is the single largest pressure today in a development environment?

  • 29.4% pressure to get products to market faster
  • 23.5% pressure to reduce costs
  • 20.5% pressure to complete engineering milestones on schedule
  • 17.6% pressure to add new features
  • 5.8% pressure to reduce number of bugs
  • 2.9% pressure to know more languages

What is the single most important reason you use a dynamic language (for example Perl, Python, Tcl)?

  • 47.3% speed of development
  • 36.8% ease of use
  • 15.7% low cost

Do you currently buy both support and indemnification for the dynamic languages you use?

  • 5.8% yes
  • 58.8% no
  • 35.2% don’t know

To see Larry Backman’s full presentation on how CA benefits from ActiveState’s supported, indemnified, enterprise-ready ActivePerl to accelerate the time-to-market and quality of CA’s enterprise product SiteMinder, download the PowerPoint on slideshare or sign up for a recording of the webinar on Dr. Dobbs .

About ActiveState

ActiveState is the world leader in enabling companies to develop, manage, and distribute applications with dynamic languages. The company’s products and services for Perl, Python, Tcl and other web languages, are used by over 2 million developers and 97% of the Fortune 1000 to build and run applications from mission-critical to open source projects. ActiveState’s end-to-end solutions include development tools, language distributions, indemnification, OEM solutions, support and other services. With these, customers such as Cisco, CA, HP, Bank of America, Siemens, and Lockheed Martin are able to accelerate productivity, minimize risk, and ensure compliance.

Contact:
Bret Clement
PR@activestate.com
303.462.3057