Programming Languages Coverage Matters Most, Say TNS Readers

Programming languages — news and tutorials about C++, Javascript, Python, Rust, Go and more — are what readers of The New Stack want the most from TNS in 2025, according to our latest reader survey.

Fifty-six percent of participants in our survey picked languages as the topic they most desired us to cover. The category scored highest among developers and operations engineers overall.

Other most-desired topics, according to the survey results:

• API design, management and testing, was cited by 55% overall, making it No. 2 overall and with developers but No. 1 with architects and IT managers.
• DevOps is preferred by 53% overall — and, not surprisingly, the No. 1 topic desired by DevOps engineers and team members.
• The cloud native ecosystem, including all the latest proprietary and open source tools and platforms, was requested by 51%, making it No. 4 overall.
• Platform engineering, cited by just under 50% overall, and picked as No. 2 overall by architects and IT managers.

The New Stack’s eighth annual reader survey tallied results from 641 participants, our largest pool of respondents since 2018. The question was fielded during the entire month of October, with readers solicited through our newsletters, mailing list and website.

Generative AI is a big part of how our readers find information about technology, with 47% reporting that they use GenAI for that purpose at least once a week. In comparison, 67% use traditional search engines, and 55% use social media at least weekly to find tech content.

Who Reads The New Stack?

The overwhelming majority of our readers have experience as a developer: 32% are currently a developer or software engineer, and another 55% have previously had a job focused on code writing/reviewing.

And a lot of you have recently discovered us: 63% of survey participants said they’ve been following us for less than three years

But that doesn’t mean our readers are newbies in the software industry. Nearly 55% of survey participants said they had been working in tech for at least 10 years.

Thirty percent work for organizations with at least a thousand employees. Just over 10% of respondents, however, said they’re not employed currently. Perhaps not coincidentally, some workforce-related topics gained popularity in this year’s survey:

• Tech culture and ethics is the sixth most desired topic overall, up from No. 13 last year.
• Engineering management (No. 13 overall, up from No. 29 in 2023) and career advancement (No. 14, up from No. 28) also saw significant increases in popularity.

Other notable gainers include networking (No. 21 overall, up from No. 35 in 2023). The growing popularity of hybrid and multicloud architectures might be behind this trend.

Here’s what New Stack readers in different job roles are most interested in reading about in the coming year, according to our survey. We’ll do our best to please you all in 2025.