Lessons for Interactive Theorem Proving Researchers from a Survey of Coq Users

• The Coq Community Survey 2022 was an online public survey of users of the Coq proof assistant conducted during February 2022. Broadly, the survey asked about use of Coq features, user interfaces, libraries, plugins, and tools, views on renaming Coq and Coq improvements, and also demographic data such as education and experience with Coq and other proof assistants and programming languages. The survey received 466 submitted responses, making it the largest survey of users of an interactive theorem prover (ITP) so far. We present the design of the survey, a summary of key results, and analysis of answers relevant to ITP technology development and usage. In particular, we analyze user characteristics associated with adoption of tools and libraries and make comparisons to adjacent software communities. Notably, we find that experience has significant impact on Coq user behavior, including on usage of tools, libraries, and integrated development environments.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Datavetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Computer Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Community

Coq

Statistical Analysis

Survey

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)