The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

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From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: June 22, 2007 5:28:09 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills

The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills
Are your skills in need of upgrading?

By Mary Brandel

Those in search of eternal life need look no further than the computer
industry. Here, last gasps are rarely taken, as aging systems crank away
in back rooms across the U.S., not unlike 1970s reruns on Nickelodeon's
TV Land. So while it may not be exactly easy for Novell NetWare
engineers and OS/2 administrators to find employers who require their
services, it's very difficult to declare these skills -- or any computer
skill, really -- dead. (Readers have their own views on dead and dying
skills. Others offer their own suggestions for the pyre.)

In fact, the harder you try to declare a technology dead, it seems, the
more you turn up evidence of its continuing existence. Nevertheless,
after speaking with several industry stalwarts, we've compiled a list of
skills and technologies that, while not dead, can perhaps be said to be
in the process of dying. Or as Stewart Padveen, Internet entrepreneur
and currently founder of AdPickles Inc., says, "Obsolescence is a
relative -- not absolute -- term in the world of technology."

1. Cobol
Y2k was like a second gold rush for Cobol programmers who were seeing
dwindling need for their skills. But six-and-a-half years later, there's
no savior in sight for this fading language. At the same time, while
there's little curriculum coverage anymore at universities teaching
computer science, "when you talk to practitioners, they'll say there are
applications in thousands of organizations that have to be maintained,"
says Heikki Topi, chair of computer information services at Bentley
College in Waltham, Mass., and a member of the education board for the
Association for Computing Machinery.

And for those who want to help do that, you can actually learn Cobol at
Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, which according to Mary
Sumner, a professor there, still offers a Cobol course. "Two of the
major employers in the area still use Cobol, and for many of their
entry-level jobs, they want to see that on the transcript," she says.
"Until that changes, we'd be doing the students a disservice by not
offering it." (see also: "Cobol Coders: Going, Going, Gone? ")

2. Nonrelational DBMS
In the 1980s, there were two major database management systems
approaches: hierarchical systems, such as IBM's IMS and SAS Institute
Inc.'s System 2000, and network DBMS, such as CA's IDMS and Oracle
Corp.'s DBMS, formerly the VAX DBMS. Today, however, both have been
replaced by the relational DBMS approach, embodied by SQL databases such
as DB2, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server, says Topi. "The others are
rarely covered anymore in database curricula," he says.

3. Non-IP networks
TCP/IP has largely taken over the networking world, and as a result,
there's less demand than ever for IBM Systems Network Architecture (SNA)
skills. "It's worth virtually nothing on the market," says David Foote,
president of Foote Partners LLC in New Canaan, Conn. Foote tracks market
pay for individual IT skills, which companies usually pay as a lump sum
or a percentage of workers' base pay, either as a bonus or an adjustment
to their base salary. SNA, Foote says, commands less than 1% premium
pay. "It's like a penny from 1922 -- there has to be someone who wants
to buy it."

Despite the fact that many banks, insurance firms and other companies
still have large investments in SNA networks, the educational offerings
in this area are also rare, according to Topi. "The dominant model of
protocols is TCP/IP and the Internet technologies," he says.

4. cc:Mail
This store-and-forward LAN-based e-mail system from the 1980s was once
used by about 20 million people. However, as e-mail was integrated into
more-complex systems such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange, its
popularity waned, and in 2000, it was withdrawn from the market.
According to Foote, "cc:Mail is a bygone era. Now e-mail is tied into
everything else, and cc:Mail didn't make that leap." Just the same, the
product continues to be commercially supported by Global System Services
Corp. in Mountain View, Calif.

5. ColdFusion
This once-popular Web programming language -- released in the mid-1990s
by Allaire Corp. (which was later purchased by Macromedia Inc., which
itself was acquired by Adobe Systems Inc.) -- has since been superseded
by other development platforms, including Microsoft Corp.'s Active
Server Pages and .Net, as well as Java, Ruby on Rails, Python, PHP and
other open-source languages.

Debates continue over whether ColdFusion is as robust and scalable as
its competitors, but nevertheless, premiums paid for ColdFusion
programmers have dropped way off, according to Foote. "It was really
popular at one time, but the market is now crowded with other products,"
he says.

6. C programming
As the Web takes over, C languages are also becoming less relevant,
according to Padveen. "C++ and C Sharp are still alive and kicking, but
try to find a basic C-only programmer today, and you'll likely find a
guy that's unemployed and/or training for a new skill," he says. (see
also: "Hot Skills, Cold Skills ")

7. PowerBuilder
Recruiters that have been around since the 1990s, such as David Hayes,
president of HireMinds LLC in Cambridge, Mass., remember when
PowerBuilder programmers were "hot, hot, hot," as he says. Developed by
Powersoft Inc., this client/server development tool in 1994 was bought
by Sybase Inc., which was once a strong Oracle competitor.

Today, PowerBuilder developers are at the very bottom of the list of
in-demand application development and platform skills, with pay about
equal to Cobol programmers, according to Foote. Nevertheless, the
product keeps on trucking, with PowerBuilder 11 expected this year,
which has the ability to generate .Net code. (see also: "35 Technologies
that shaped the industry ")

8. Certified NetWare Engineers
In the early 1990s, it was all the rage to become a Certified NetWare
Engineer, especially with Novell Inc. enjoying 90% market share for
PC-based servers. Today, however, you don't have to look far to find
CNEs retraining themselves with other skills to stay marketable. "It
seems like it happened overnight," Hayes says. "Everyone had Novell, and
within a two-year period, they'd all switched to NT." Novell says it
will continue supporting NetWare 6.5 through at least 2015; however, it
has also retired several of its NetWare certifications, including Master
CNE and NetWare 5 CNE, and it plans to retire NetWare 6 CNE. "Companies
are still paying skill premiums for CNEs, but they're losing value,"
Foote says.

9. PC network administrators
With the accelerating move to consolidate Windows servers, some see
substantially less demand for PC network administrators. "You see the
evidence for that in the demise of those programs at the technical and
two-year schools and the loss of instructors," says Nate Viall,
president of Nate Viall & Associates, an AS/400 (iSeries) recruiting
company.

10. OS/2
A rough translation of OS/2 could be "wrong horse." Initially created by
Microsoft and IBM and released with great fanfare in 1987, the
collaboration soon unraveled, and after repeated rumors of its demise,
IBM finally discontinued sales in 2005. OS/2 still has a dedicated
community, however, and a company called Serenity Systems International
still sells the operating system under the name eComStation. (see also:
"IBM, Bankers at Odds Over OS/2 Migration Path ")

This Article Reprinted Courtesy of http://www.computerworld.com



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