Slashdot Mirror

I look at the popularity of a development platform.

indeed.com is the greatest job search engine on earth. It polls data from loads of other job sites and compiles the information in one place .. that being said, it also offers tools that show trends in industry based on what jobs are posted and the key words associated with them.

So, if I look at some trending data like this:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=jsp%2C+cgi%2C+asp%2C+php&l=

I can determine which platforms are popular and which ones aren't. That information will also tell me which ones are more supported. The more jobs that are offered in a technology, the more people there are to support it. It's all market driven.

For Instance
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java%2Cdelphi%2C+perl&l=

shows me that there are a tone of java positions out there, and very few delphi positions available. While Delphi may be great, you're going to have a difficult time finding someone to support it. It also tells me that Java is probably a better development language as a whole (*waits for flames from the delphi community*), because more people are using it. People tend to use good technologies.

I look at the popularity of a development platform.

indeed.com is the greatest job search engine on earth. It polls data from loads of other job sites and compiles the information in one place .. that being said, it also offers tools that show trends in industry based on what jobs are posted and the key words associated with them.

So, if I look at some trending data like this:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=jsp%2C+cgi%2C+asp%2C+php&l=

I can determine which platforms are popular and which ones aren't. That information will also tell me which ones are more supported. The more jobs that are offered in a technology, the more people there are to support it. It's all market driven.

For Instance
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java%2Cdelphi%2C+perl&l=

shows me that there are a tone of java positions out there, and very few delphi positions available. While Delphi may be great, you're going to have a difficult time finding someone to support it. It also tells me that Java is probably a better development language as a whole (*waits for flames from the delphi community*), because more people are using it. People tend to use good technologies.

You can graph the trend of platforms/frameworks using job postings. For example heres rails, jsf, wicket, struts. Make sure you look at both the relative and absolute numbers though. The relative gives you an idea of the trend for an individual platform. The absolute tells you how big it is compared to others.

Going from 1 user to 6 users may be 600% growth, but I'll take 2% of all jobs posted versus .02% for $1,000, Alex.

Yeah, I feel really sorry for Ruby

Indeed.com trends for java,python,perl,php

It all depends how you count it. For example, here is a comparison based on available jobs that shows Perl still vastly in the lead, followed by PHP, with Python and Ruby both trailing by a long way. I'm sure there are other figures that prove that PHP is the biggest language, and yet others that show Ruby is growing fastest, etc. etc. etc.

TIOBE's methodology is distinctly suspect, too. Looking at search engine result counts - which are estimates, and in the case of Google are well documented to be inaccurate - is hardly scientific. And they're using YouTube as one of their search engines?! How is that going to produce meaningful figures?

(Yeah, I'm still bitter that ML is so unpopular. But you can't call me a Perl fanboy, because I dislike all "dynamic" programming languages equally, and program largely in C++ and OCaml.)

...a good VB programmer...

That's an oxymoron.

If you seriously believe a VB programmer can be good, then you think a VB program can be good. You would have to reinvent VB from the ground up, as Microsoft has for the past 6 versions of VB, and you still would get a lousy language, in which serious programs can't be written.

Even C# suffers from incompatabilities from version to version. What is it? Is Microsoft unable to create languages that are backward compatable or it does it on purpose so that companies have to rewrite their all their programs every few years?

I think Microsoft really does it on purpose, because Microsoft has binary backward compatability for all their software (you can run DOS programs in all Windows versions, even Vista), but Microsoft prefers not to have source code backward compatability for a reason, and I guess the reason may be Developers, Developers, Developers... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6304687408656696643

They want developers to have jobs, and specially jobs that are dependent on Microsoft technologies. So you, the developer, switch to Microsoft and all your clients will always call you every few years to rewrite their very same systems. All you, the developer, need to do is to learn the little differences that spring from version to version by buying their books, so Microsoft is more a book selling company for developers, since tools are free, while at the same time, Microsoft sells cheap operating systems to companies to run the software those developers write. Microsoft has been doing this since the early 90's and it has worked well so far.

The first problem Microsoft has is that Java is open source and Linux is open source. Any company investing on Linux and Java will never have to look back, their investment is safe. They could even run their software on Windows or AS/400 if they wish. Let's hope they don't, but let us recognize they could.

The second problem is that source code written in Java is forwards compatable. You write now and you run it forever. Serious companies will always choose open source technologies, because they can control them (so they are safe for them) and they know they won't get buyer remorse. Is it more expensive to hire Java developers than .NET developers?

Absolutely!!!

http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=java&l1=&q2=jms&l2=&q3=session+beans&l3=&q4=spring+hibernate&l4=&q5=ibatis&l5=&q6=struts+ajax&l6=&q7=j2ee+architect&l7=&q8=.net&l8=&q9=java&l9=

So companies may think it is cheaper to build .NET apps rather than Java. They may even get away with it for a short period of time, but companies that prefer Java are more viable in the long run. And the long run is what is important when it comes to companies.

That is what explains why developers using open source Java get rich quicker than .NET developers: Most companies have realized already about this.

Did you notice the explanation of how they create the "TIOBE Index"? They run some Google searches and count the results. That's it. I wouldn't take it too seriously. And this person is asking about Ruby, which is miles below Perl on this index. In terms of actual jobs, this chart seems to show that Perl is doing quite a bit better than these other dynamic languages.

I suspect Perl's strength in the job market has to do with what you mention as a weakness: it's association with things beyond just web development.

"On the other hand you have dedicated scientists getting research grants to study the problem."

And if the problem were not as bad as we thought, or is non-existent, how much money would those scientists get then?

Exactly.

Stop deluding yourself, scientists feel financial pressure too, and pretending it doesn't exist does no one any good at all.

"You are on a site that is dedicated to science, so the people HERE understand that research grants provide relatively LOW SALARIES."

O Rly?

It seems that those "people" need to check their facts then, because they're dead wrong. Research Scientists have an average salary in the US of 83,0000. That is over twice what Teachers make, nearly twice what police officers make, and more than software engineers, physicians, and attorneys.

http://www.indeed.com/salary/Research-Scientist.ht ml
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Police+Officer&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Teacher&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Software+Engineer& l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Physician&l1=

So when you say "relatively LOW SALARIES." what are you "relating" them to, professional athletes and CEOs? I had a hard time finding ANY occupation that, on average, got paid as much as research scientists (be glad you're a dentist if you are, ka-ching!).

"People who want to dedicate themselves to science and helping society go to work for universities and you are trying to smear these people by saying they are in it for the MONEY?"

No, Mr. Strawman, what we're saying is that without money to pay for the research, research doesn't get done. Pretending that they are above the inevitable corruption that follows money is naive in the extreme.

"On the other hand you have dedicated scientists getting research grants to study the problem."

And if the problem were not as bad as we thought, or is non-existent, how much money would those scientists get then?

Exactly.

Stop deluding yourself, scientists feel financial pressure too, and pretending it doesn't exist does no one any good at all.

"You are on a site that is dedicated to science, so the people HERE understand that research grants provide relatively LOW SALARIES."

O Rly?

It seems that those "people" need to check their facts then, because they're dead wrong. Research Scientists have an average salary in the US of 83,0000. That is over twice what Teachers make, nearly twice what police officers make, and more than software engineers, physicians, and attorneys.

http://www.indeed.com/salary/Research-Scientist.ht ml
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Police+Officer&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Teacher&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Software+Engineer& l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Physician&l1=

So when you say "relatively LOW SALARIES." what are you "relating" them to, professional athletes and CEOs? I had a hard time finding ANY occupation that, on average, got paid as much as research scientists (be glad you're a dentist if you are, ka-ching!).

"People who want to dedicate themselves to science and helping society go to work for universities and you are trying to smear these people by saying they are in it for the MONEY?"

No, Mr. Strawman, what we're saying is that without money to pay for the research, research doesn't get done. Pretending that they are above the inevitable corruption that follows money is naive in the extreme.

"On the other hand you have dedicated scientists getting research grants to study the problem."

And if the problem were not as bad as we thought, or is non-existent, how much money would those scientists get then?

Exactly.

Stop deluding yourself, scientists feel financial pressure too, and pretending it doesn't exist does no one any good at all.

"You are on a site that is dedicated to science, so the people HERE understand that research grants provide relatively LOW SALARIES."

O Rly?

It seems that those "people" need to check their facts then, because they're dead wrong. Research Scientists have an average salary in the US of 83,0000. That is over twice what Teachers make, nearly twice what police officers make, and more than software engineers, physicians, and attorneys.

http://www.indeed.com/salary/Research-Scientist.ht ml
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Police+Officer&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Teacher&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Software+Engineer& l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Physician&l1=

So when you say "relatively LOW SALARIES." what are you "relating" them to, professional athletes and CEOs? I had a hard time finding ANY occupation that, on average, got paid as much as research scientists (be glad you're a dentist if you are, ka-ching!).

"People who want to dedicate themselves to science and helping society go to work for universities and you are trying to smear these people by saying they are in it for the MONEY?"

No, Mr. Strawman, what we're saying is that without money to pay for the research, research doesn't get done. Pretending that they are above the inevitable corruption that follows money is naive in the extreme.

"On the other hand you have dedicated scientists getting research grants to study the problem."

And if the problem were not as bad as we thought, or is non-existent, how much money would those scientists get then?

Exactly.

Stop deluding yourself, scientists feel financial pressure too, and pretending it doesn't exist does no one any good at all.

"You are on a site that is dedicated to science, so the people HERE understand that research grants provide relatively LOW SALARIES."

O Rly?

It seems that those "people" need to check their facts then, because they're dead wrong. Research Scientists have an average salary in the US of 83,0000. That is over twice what Teachers make, nearly twice what police officers make, and more than software engineers, physicians, and attorneys.

http://www.indeed.com/salary/Research-Scientist.ht ml
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Police+Officer&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Teacher&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Software+Engineer& l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Physician&l1=

So when you say "relatively LOW SALARIES." what are you "relating" them to, professional athletes and CEOs? I had a hard time finding ANY occupation that, on average, got paid as much as research scientists (be glad you're a dentist if you are, ka-ching!).

"People who want to dedicate themselves to science and helping society go to work for universities and you are trying to smear these people by saying they are in it for the MONEY?"

No, Mr. Strawman, what we're saying is that without money to pay for the research, research doesn't get done. Pretending that they are above the inevitable corruption that follows money is naive in the extreme.

"On the other hand you have dedicated scientists getting research grants to study the problem."

And if the problem were not as bad as we thought, or is non-existent, how much money would those scientists get then?

Exactly.

Stop deluding yourself, scientists feel financial pressure too, and pretending it doesn't exist does no one any good at all.

"You are on a site that is dedicated to science, so the people HERE understand that research grants provide relatively LOW SALARIES."

O Rly?

It seems that those "people" need to check their facts then, because they're dead wrong. Research Scientists have an average salary in the US of 83,0000. That is over twice what Teachers make, nearly twice what police officers make, and more than software engineers, physicians, and attorneys.

http://www.indeed.com/salary/Research-Scientist.ht ml
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Police+Officer&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Teacher&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Software+Engineer& l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Physician&l1=

So when you say "relatively LOW SALARIES." what are you "relating" them to, professional athletes and CEOs? I had a hard time finding ANY occupation that, on average, got paid as much as research scientists (be glad you're a dentist if you are, ka-ching!).

"People who want to dedicate themselves to science and helping society go to work for universities and you are trying to smear these people by saying they are in it for the MONEY?"

No, Mr. Strawman, what we're saying is that without money to pay for the research, research doesn't get done. Pretending that they are above the inevitable corruption that follows money is naive in the extreme.

Go to berlios.de, sf.net and check "Help wanted" section. Find an correlation between trends at job market, your goals and project which are currently looking for developers, choose right one.

Enjoy.

Time to use indeed.com to look for a job ...

If you want to see salaries, look at the data aggregated from job postings themselves:

lisp, c++, java, c#, python, ruby, smalltalk, cobol salaries

Since I'm currently located in Korea, I've tried this query on your site.

The results? The first page contains only links to a site called "BostonWorks" which does have the term "Korea" somewhere in an HTML option of the actual company.

Here's a job RSS feed that may suit you :)

All hacker jobs

Indeed.com will send you fresh job postings from around the web just about any way you can imagine:

• RSS
• Instant Messenger
• Google desktop sidebar plugin
• Nightly email alerts
• or just good old-fashioned web browsing :)

Indeed.com will send you fresh job postings from around the web just about any way you can imagine:

• RSS
• Instant Messenger
• Google desktop sidebar plugin
• Nightly email alerts
• or just good old-fashioned web browsing :)

Indeed.com will send you fresh job postings from around the web just about any way you can imagine:

• RSS
• Instant Messenger
• Google desktop sidebar plugin
• Nightly email alerts
• or just good old-fashioned web browsing :)

Indeed.com will send you fresh job postings from around the web just about any way you can imagine:

• RSS
• Instant Messenger
• Google desktop sidebar plugin
• Nightly email alerts
• or just good old-fashioned web browsing :)

I forgot to add, http://www.indeed.com/ is similar allthough not as extensive in its searches as http://www.simplyhired.com/ Both of these websites show the power of web 2.0 when applied to job searches.

Indeed.com is a good step in the right direction. (disclaimer: I work there)

Indeed currently has 3.4 million jobs from the last 30 days. It lets you search jobs from thousands of sites in one place. And it has a cool job trends tool.

Oh yea, and it has a site for Canadian jobs, too.

Indeed.com is a good step in the right direction. (disclaimer: I work there)

Indeed currently has 3.4 million jobs from the last 30 days. It lets you search jobs from thousands of sites in one place. And it has a cool job trends tool.

Oh yea, and it has a site for Canadian jobs, too.

Indeed.com is a good step in the right direction. (disclaimer: I work there)

Indeed currently has 3.4 million jobs from the last 30 days. It lets you search jobs from thousands of sites in one place. And it has a cool job trends tool.

Oh yea, and it has a site for Canadian jobs, too.

You can do all this on these "vertical" search engines:

For jobs, indeed.com
For real estate, trulia.com

If you want to see the relative demand for yourself, check the job postings themselves:

This job trends graph shows how many job postings from 2005 contain each of the terms: .net, c#, java, j2ee, c++, and perl.

It also lets you enter any other terms to see how many job postings contained them..

http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java%2C+c%2B%2B Not that far behind java, but neither really seem to be growing or shrinking at the moment.

What I find so useful about rss feeds is that I don't have to go visit all the websites. I don't have to open up my bookmarks. I don't have to navigate to subpages for specific content.

With RSS, I simply load up my feed reader (Newsfire on OS X - its great) and it grabs everything without forcing me to do anything. Many of you are pointing out that with just lists of headlines in the news feed, you might as well go to the website to see the same thing. That is true, but for me it is easier to open up 1 information point and get ALL the headlines than go to a bunch of sites for the same thing. For me it is is just much more efficient. AND it provides a consistent interface - I just see the headlines. No dealing with crap designs on some sites.

Also, I happen to be looking for a new job now and 2 job site search engines (indeed.com and simplyhired.com) allow you to search all the other job sites and then save out a custom RSS feed based on your search criteria. This saves me a ton of time because I don't have to manually do a repetitive search. Hits just come straight to me. Its great.

The best thing about RSS is that once its set up, you no longer need to remember to check stuff. Now, this is great for non-tech people. Slashdot readers are probably more interested in control and immediacy than the average person. And setting feeds up with Safari is very easy. Any site with a feed is detected and shows an RSS logo in the address bar. Click it and (by default) it will bookmark the feed in safari or if you've changed your default reader, it will launch that app and bookmark. Simple.

-matt

Compare for yourself using indeed.com for Canada and the U.S..

• System administrator jobs: 610 in canada, 48,604 in U.S.
• J2EE jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.
• System architect jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.

These numbers only reflect the number of job postings (as opposed to actual jobs), but it's one indicator.

Compare for yourself using indeed.com for Canada and the U.S..

• System administrator jobs: 610 in canada, 48,604 in U.S.
• J2EE jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.
• System architect jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.

These numbers only reflect the number of job postings (as opposed to actual jobs), but it's one indicator.

Compare for yourself using indeed.com for Canada and the U.S..

• System administrator jobs: 610 in canada, 48,604 in U.S.
• J2EE jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.
• System architect jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.

These numbers only reflect the number of job postings (as opposed to actual jobs), but it's one indicator.

Compare for yourself using indeed.com for Canada and the U.S..

• System administrator jobs: 610 in canada, 48,604 in U.S.
• J2EE jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.
• System architect jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.

These numbers only reflect the number of job postings (as opposed to actual jobs), but it's one indicator.

Compare for yourself using indeed.com for Canada and the U.S..

• System administrator jobs: 610 in canada, 48,604 in U.S.
• J2EE jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.
• System architect jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.

These numbers only reflect the number of job postings (as opposed to actual jobs), but it's one indicator.

Compare for yourself using indeed.com for Canada and the U.S..

• System administrator jobs: 610 in canada, 48,604 in U.S.
• J2EE jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.
• System architect jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.

These numbers only reflect the number of job postings (as opposed to actual jobs), but it's one indicator.

Compare for yourself using indeed.com for Canada and the U.S..

• System administrator jobs: 610 in canada, 48,604 in U.S.
• J2EE jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.
• System architect jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.

These numbers only reflect the number of job postings (as opposed to actual jobs), but it's one indicator.

Compare for yourself using indeed.com for Canada and the U.S..

• System administrator jobs: 610 in canada, 48,604 in U.S.
• J2EE jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.
• System architect jobs: 286 in canada, 29,846 in U.S.

These numbers only reflect the number of job postings (as opposed to actual jobs), but it's one indicator.

How would you implement it in the reader? For example, here's a URL for Indeed.com, which provides job listings in RSS format. The URL for "Systems Engineer Jobs in Boston":

All Systems Engineer Jobs in Boston"

Notice, there are many results pages, but in a reader/aggregator, how do you get page 2? Ok, so you can parse, or indicate in the URL, but how do you do it in a standard way?????

yes is has been done a few hundred, but not a 1000 job sites http://blog.indeed.com/2005/02/03/window-on-the-jo b-market/ http://devnulled.com/content/2005/01/an-evaluation -of-the-current-technology-job-market-updated/ Job Postings Per Capita http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends.jsp Can't wait to see what Google does for a job site aggregator (1) buy indeed.com (2) put up Google Ads (just like gmail) (3) ahhh, yes white collar money laundering!

yes is has been done a few hundred, but not a 1000 job sites http://blog.indeed.com/2005/02/03/window-on-the-jo b-market/ http://devnulled.com/content/2005/01/an-evaluation -of-the-current-technology-job-market-updated/ Job Postings Per Capita http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends.jsp Can't wait to see what Google does for a job site aggregator (1) buy indeed.com (2) put up Google Ads (just like gmail) (3) ahhh, yes white collar money laundering!

Or you can use indeed.com, which lets you search all jobs within the last 30 days from almost a thousand job sites (including computerjobs.com).

You don't even have to visit the site to check for new jobs -- it has RSS feeds and email alerts for new jobs that match your search criteria.

Or if you're really ambitious, use their free XML API and do whatever you want with the data.

Or you can use indeed.com, which lets you search all jobs within the last 30 days from almost a thousand job sites (including computerjobs.com).

You don't even have to visit the site to check for new jobs -- it has RSS feeds and email alerts for new jobs that match your search criteria.

Or if you're really ambitious, use their free XML API and do whatever you want with the data.

Sort of a turn-based online game. Everybody's playing it...

Your turn

Not as much as they paid me to say this :)

Search for blog* jobs on indeed - 656 jobs from the last 30 days

Their RSS feeds are useful -- but it's worth noting why. The feeds are dynamically generated, and incorporate whatever search criteria the user specifies. So now I have several new feeds in my Sage panel that incorporate searches from these two sites, and I can quickly check them for new listings. A static feed -- all the listings in a category -- would be much less useful, since each category has thousands of listings a day.

Which is not to criticize the static feeds on craigslists. These work because each category gets maybe a dozen listings per day. Then again, craigslist listings are short because each category is part of a geographical job board. So there's actually no way to search all the jobs on all the various craigslist boards. By contrast, you can search all the indeed.com listings with a simple dynamic feed:

http://rss.indeed.com/rss/q/writer_api/l/

Someone's even hiring to surf slashdot!

With http://indeed.com/ you can search jobs across multiple job sites in one search. The byline is 'one search. all jobs'.