The good folks over at Genuitec developing MyEclipse recently asked the Twittersphere about real world CDI usage. They ran a week-long Twitter survey asking the simple question - "Do you use CDI in your Java EE applications?". The results of the survey were pretty interesting and certainly worth sharing. As the graph below shows 60% responded they use CDI. 21% responded that they did not. 19% did not know what CDI was.
Here is a link to the actual survey on the MyEclipse twitter account. For those unaware the MyEclipse team is working hard to bridge the CDI and Java EE support gaps in Eclipse - hence the question.
It is definitely very good that a clear majority said they were using CDI. CDI is key to writing effective Java EE applications. This data point goes a long way to removing the severe CDI skepticism in certain corners of the Java EE ecosystem. The 19% that responded that they did not know what CDI was pose both a challenge and an opportunity. If you are a Java EE or CDI fan it should tell you that there are colleagues that you should educate on CDI. I am often still taken aback when a developer does not know what CDI is or still refers to Java EE as "J2EE" (the term J2EE has been long retired with the likes of "J2SE" and COM/DCOM). A large number of these same developers are very pleasantly surprised to learn how much modern Java EE can help make their day-to-day work easier.
No survey is perfect of course. The sample data size for the survey is small but respectable at around 300. Around 500-1000 data points is probably more representative of the Java ecosystem. Since it is a Twitter survey it is probably highly susceptible to selection bias. That being said the results are definitely good enough to think about seriously.
