Comments on: Startup Programming Jobs: C++, C#, and Java Reign Supreme?

By: Amit C

Amit C — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:33:45 +0000

You have to add startup to get the real number, it is about 35. Add to that platform things which matter, openings which just contain C++ in addition to java technologies such as Spring, etc or domains such as networkingrouting and it is much lower.
C++ is dying, http://blog.rajgad.com/work/2008-03/top-program…

My view from the other side, which is also anecdotal like yours is the reverse. C++ is really dying in many domains.

By: Amit C

Amit C — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:33:45 +0000

My view from the other side, which is also anecdotal like yours is the reverse. C++ is really dying in many domains.

By: webwright

webwright — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:46:14 +0000

Actually, that's a really good point (that hadn't occurred to me!). Medium/long-term growth is the key, though. If you made your decision on short term growth, there were probably times where you'd have been convinced that the future was Cold Fusion and Java Applets.

By: Scott Robinson

Scott Robinson — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:42:39 +0000

I'd want to be a "rockstar" / "ninja" in whichever languages were experiencing the most growth.

Something these statistics don't show.

By: webwright

webwright — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:18:33 +0000

Agreed! Don't take this post as advocating for specialization– it isn't! Our company is built on a healthy combination of Ruby on Rails, Python, JavaScript and C++ (for our client app). If someone was a rockstar () in only ONE of those, I'm not sure we could keep them busy.

As Robert Heinlein said (via Lazarus Long), “Specialization is for insects.”

By: RogerV

RogerV — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 11:54:43 +0000

In 2003 I joined a Seattle company and went on to write a distributed, messaging-based software system that drew on my decade of experience in C++ (certain Windows client components), my recently then acquired year of experience in Java (middle-tier), and .NET C# (the flagship language of the client implementation). Even a wee bit of x86 assembly language, plus some of the build process used perl scripting.

My very first job out of college in mid 80s utilized Object Pascal, C, and Motorola 68000 assembly language.

I don't know - multi-language fluency is something I've always regarded as a natural requirement in this profession and I find it strange to get fixiated on a single language.

By: kmerritt

kmerritt — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 02:16:58 +0000

There's definitely some self-selecting bias in the data. Posting a job ad on Monster, Dice or any other similar site is so ineffective any more that the only ones doing it are “legacy” shops. We've put together a strong engineering team at blist, largely from two sources: 1) us sending outbound inquiries to folks whose profiles we've found on LinkedIn, Facebook or their blogs; 2) inbound inquiries from people who've found our blog and have discerned enough of our culture to send us an expression of interest.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:23:26 +0000

Then why most ads still seek specialists?

By: McCarthy

McCarthy — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:42:32 +0000

Not surprising: mainstream programming languages use mainstream recruiting mechanisms. Today, that's Java/C#/C++ and online job boards.

I know lots of people looking for Ruby programmers, but they'd never bother posting online. They go to the Ruby meetup, and ask around.

On "indeed.com", searching for "title:lisp" turns up only 2 hits in the whole country, even though I know for a fact that several other companies are hiring Lisp programmers. They're just not stupid enough to post to general-purpose job boards, because that's not where Lisp programmers hang out, and there's no benefit to getting 10,000 resumes with "Lisp" as a keyword from people who just add whatever keywords the job description asks for.

Java is still a very popular language, but online job boards don't reflect the proportions in which a language is used. They reflect the proportions in which hiring managers want it to be used.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:38:48 +0000

ASM, C, C++, LISP and Python( or Ruby)
ASM – to know how it works,
C/C++ – to know what can you do on top of ASM
LISP- to forget about these horrible ASM, C and C++ stuff and concentrate on lambdas and context free
Python(or Ruby) – to relax after all these ))))))) thing

And all together to enjoy the freedom to choose!