Guys
I might start a flame fest here but this 'Java' Programmer v 'Delphi' Programmer is indicative of the malaise that is infecting this industry. You wouldn't hire a plumber based on wether they'd used a certain brand of tap recently so why do we see adds for Programmers with C#, ADO, MSSQL...skills required, basically they a wanting a person a narrow field of vision and they get one.
<flame on> Umm, no, but you do take your Toyota to the Toyota dealer. And you take your John Deere to the John Deere dealer, and your Fisher and Paykel stove. Of course you'd take them back to where you bought them first, but people who make these products don't realise the value of click-through licenses yet...
As for the malaise, this is a _good_ thing. To completely mung the plumber analogy, the _House_ is the system, and you wouldn't hire a plumber to put an extension on the kitchen, or a plasterer to fix a tap, but you _would_ hire a Building management company to do all of these things, and you wouldn't care what they used to do anything.
I like the 'Gods own programming language' view - rather than being average with many tools be Very good with one - and limit the damage you can do to being only the damage you can do with that tool. (Implicitly implying here that Java, of course, is the Devils own programming language).
Mind you the other thing that pisses me off is the rise of product certification as a 'Qualification', MSCE is not a qualification it is a product knowledge test. This is starting to invade academic institutions in the US as well, They are at risk of become product specific training schools, You don't study 'Relational Database Theory' you are more likely to do Oracle 101. Having programmed in Basic, Pascal, SmallTalk, C++, Delphi, Dataflex, TCL, PHP, Java & VBScript and used MSSQL, Interbase, PostgreSQL with ODBC, ADO, BDE
Suitably impressed ;) , but add them up and you're probably a significant portion of them all at once now anyway. I can certainly do : Delphi, our own webby-languagy-thingy, javascript, html, IIS, Apache, Postgres, MSSQL (a rant in its own right), batch files, bash scripts. And we narrowly avoided VB at one stage. And Kylix or D7.net are being watched closely.
It would be interesting to note I wouldn't make the short list for a C# Job
Actually, there seems to be a realisation that Delphi - and the DOPL - are reasonably good introductions to it. Delphi.net'll probably help that even more.
Is C#/.NET making inroads? It appears so, The 'IT' industry having been screwed by M$ and bitching and moaning to this effect have seen Microsoft launch another thinly disguised plot for world domination and their response.... reach for the vaseline boys 'cause you wouldn't want actually put your money where your mouth was
Its a depressing thought, but you can't feed a family on ideology - I'm no RMS - you've gotta do what you've gotta do.
And to quote Miguel de Icaza, "flame me now, I am filled with love". Cheers, Kurt
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