Give me Linux, Win7, C, and a nice RTOS for ARM and I'm happy.
I write asm interrupt code for entertainment...old habits die hard.
You kids! Get off my lawn!
Posted on 11/15/2013 7:52:02 AM PST by SeekAndFind
One of the givens of working in IT is that the pace of technology changes rapidly, and so too, do the skills that are needed to stay current. Here are 10 that John Hales, a VMware instructor at Global Knowledge says are going away:
1. Windows XP/2003 and earlier. Why? Mainly because the operating systems are reaching their end of life and won’t be supported/updated by Microsoft any longer. Also, new applications no longer support them.
2. Silverlight. This was Microsoft’s answer to Adobe Flash and it can’t be used with the new Windows Store (metro) apps or on a Windows phone.
3. Adobe Flash. After Adobe stopped supporting mobile platforms in 2011, more websites started moving to HTML 5, which works on mobile and desktop Oss. While there is still demand for Flash, Hale thinks it has peaked.
4. COBOL, FORTRAN and other mainframe languages. Although they were popular and commonly used for years, the majority of programming work has transitioned to modern, object-oriented languages like ObjectiveC, Java, C++ and C#.
5. Lotus Notes administrator. Once one of the three big platforms, now more people are moving to hosting email in the cloud or using free platforms like Gmail.
6. Novell GroupWise administrator. Marketshare for GroupWise appears to be rather small in most industries, Hale believes.
7. Traditional telephony. Use of PBXs is declining as more and more companies are switching to mobile platforms, VoIP-enabled phones and collaborative communications platforms like Microsoft Lync.
8. Server-only admin skills. Virtualization is becoming more ubiquitous and fewer physical servers are being deployed, meaning there are fewer to set up and configure.
9. Help desk technicians/level 1 support. There is less demand for help desk skills as they are mainly outsourced to other companies and also off-shore.
10. PC repair techs. Demand for this skill set is decreasing, although it is not going away. However, tablets are being used more frequently in place of PCs and laptops, and there is very little that needs to be fixed in a tablet.
What do you think--do you agree with these choices? Are there others that should be on the list?
I’ll tell you one skill that’ll be around a while, and that’s knowing a Structured Query Language, or SQL. SQL, and perhaps PL/SQL, could eventually replace COBOL. The thing about COBOL is that it’s so prevalent in some legacy systems. Over time, all that underlying data will be stored in a DBMS, and SQL will be the one thing to process against it.
My favorite COBOL program was were where the original author had named the data fields after flowers.
My favorite Assembler program was one where the original author had named the data field after op codes.
In the 80s I did design work using AMD 290x bit-slice microprocessors... Microcode was the best!
My past few years have been a total LAMP environment.
The time division is about 70% javascript/jQuery and 30%PHP and MySQL.
I did 360 Assembler and COBOL for almost 20 years. That’s why I find articles like this comically myopic. And likely mere exercises in narcissism; this may project the author’s prejudices but do not reflect the reality of the industry.
So get a chuckle out of it but don’t take it too seriously.
Give me Linux, Win7, C, and a nice RTOS for ARM and I'm happy.
I write asm interrupt code for entertainment...old habits die hard.
You kids! Get off my lawn!
I remember a thin, narrow little green pamphlet that had the System 360 op codes in it. :-)
Now I have tiny surface mount processors with WAY more power than a 360. whooda thunk it!?
I am buying a new desktop myself, and the people I am buying from already know: Any requirement to take Win 8 is a dealbreaker. They assure me I can get Win 7.
Yep, we used to call that either the “green card” or the “yellow card.” I’ve got half a dozen different versions I’ve collected over the years although I could probably tell you most of the common op codes by heart.
I once heard someone say that the standard digital wristwatch (available for $10 at a corner drugstore) has more processing power than the Orbital Guidance System on the Apollo Command Modules.
A lot has changed in this business in 40 years.
Upgraded to Win 8.1 last night and it's actually quite a bit better - Window/X-key is your friend. But I'm on Win7 at work and they'll pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I’m writing code for an ARM based SoC that will sit on the tip of your finger. Quad cores at well over 1ghz. A GPU on the SoC alongside the ARM cores. This little black square would have been dubbed a super computer not that long ago...
Their Visiprise Manufacturing or VM is a pain in the arse to work with. Finance likes its integration with timekeeping, payroll, inventory and accounts payable and billable. Managing routers, BOM and work instructions is painful.
Yea, I was able to get a Win7 upgrade for the old laptop, through a buddy’s MSDN account. And between 7 and 8, I actually don’t mind 8. AFTER ClassicShell turns it back into 7. 8 has a pretty good backend, and boots/shuts down quite a bit faster. Once you get rid of Metro, I haven’t had many issues with it. Metro was my huge peeve.
Granted, this laptop has much better specs: processor, RAM, HDD, especially graphics (Nvidia 750M vs old integrated), so that’s a big thing with why I like this one better.
Like I mentioned in my post, I am very computer-literate, but couldn’t do anything with Win8. Once you figure out how, you need to download Firefox (Chrome) and then download CShell and install it. Turns your computer back into Win7, and you can even set it to make Metro very difficult to get to (:
Even the documentation has a little smirk to it. "To get to the [sic] Charms Bar, swipe from the right edge, or, if you're stupid and old-fashioned enough to use a mouse..." I may be paraphrasing just a bit there but you get the idea.
LOL, I must have been in the wrong place then! Overpaid? Haha!!!
A good COBOL program could be pretty poetic.
Yup. Unix has really held up well to the passage of time, I think. The tools available for it are extraordinary.
The biggest problems with unix tends to be the roadblocks microsoft is constantly trying to throw up against interoperability.
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