Job ads reflect present perceived "needs". When I started university, there were hundreds of ads for geophysicists. I did chemistry and physics and computational stuff (there was no Computer Science yet). When I graduated, there were ads for computer skills, but geophysicists were first in the line to serve at the then-relatively-new McDonalds. I strongly suspect the same applies to Java skills. I've tried a couple of times to learn Java, but for the things I do, it has never been very well-suited, and frankly quite annoying in the volume of bits and pieces of code to just do simple things. So I (still) use Perl and sometimes Pascal and Fortran, occasionally C by modifying existing codes, never C++ because it is too much a patchwork design. Mostly now I use R, partly because my work in in computational stats, but also because it has commands that do a lot with a few lines, yet those lines, unlike the APL a day that kept I P Sharp away, are not incomprehensible. Probably starting now, I'd learn Python, which seems to have a reasonable balance of applications and straightforward syntax. But my main message here is to be cautious about interpreting messages about "needs", since they likely reflect a preoccupation with keeping poorly written code going. This code was likely written by a bunch of folk who were only taught (name your language - any will be the wrong one for many applications) but not to design their software so that whatever language was used it would be easy to maintain. Or the software was fine, but the boss then wants to turn a bicycle into a Ferrari F1 machine at Dollarama prices. The jobs may be there, but they will be retrospective and will cease once the software is superceded. JN On 12/16/2011 12:25 PM, Rob Echlin wrote: > So says eWeek: > http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Linux-Skills-Open-Huge-Job-Opportunities-394073/ > > The slide show is the story. Wait or click. > > Rob > > > -- > Rob Echlin, B. Eng. > 613-266-8311 - Ottawa, ON > http://talksoftware.wordpress.com/ > _______________________________________________ > Linux mailing list > Linux [ at ] lists [ dot ] oclug [ dot ] on [ dot ] ca > http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux