The Web Development Skills Crisis

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister raises questions regarding Web development skills in an era of constant innovation. Sure, low barriers to entry give underdog technologies ample opportunity to thrive without the backing of name-brand vendors. But doesn't this fragmentation of the Web development market put undue pressure on developers to specialize? Choosing one tool to be your bread and butter from a field this broad is one thing, McAllister writes. Recruiting talent for a Web project when your technology requirements eliminate most of the applicants is another. The result is a crisis, McAllister concludes, one in which maintaining a marketable skill set gets more and more difficult as the so-called state of the art changes on an almost daily basis."

Comments

Re:Really?

[ShieldW0lf]

Not me... I'm an Internet Application Developer. Web Developer is so 1990s...

What's the crisis?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Real programmers don't care what language they need to write applications in. They write them in C.

Re:What's the crisis?

[bigstrat2003]

Bah. You sound like one of those soft newcomers who doesn't have a steady enough hand to use a magnetized needle! I suppose we should give you a monitor and keyboard next!

Re:What's the crisis?

[cparker15]

Excuse me, but REAL programmers use butterflies.

Re:I gave up

[Nibbler999]

Sadist.

Re:change emphasis away from specifics

[sohp]

I know what he means! I've put this job offer through our HR folks literally WEEKS ago and have not seen a SINGLE candidate's resume!

Wanted to hire, Jr. Web Developer.

Required Skills, minimum 10 years experience in the following:

Silverlight
Microsoft(tm) AJAX(tm)
C-pound
SQL Server 2005
MySQL 5.0
ColdFusion
ATOM
IBM(tm) SOA .NET
MS-Groovy
PRISM

Compensation: $14K/yr

Re:change emphasis away from specifics

[eebra82]

Maybe the compensation is set too high; it looks like you're kidding.

Re:change emphasis away from specifics

[Tumbleweed]

We had no problem finding junior devs with those skills, but finding people with PhDs and 20 years of experience in Silverlight and AJAX proved problematic for the senior positions.

Re:Really?

[wattrlz]

Nah, Chicks dig scars, or giant robots.

Re:Really?

[element-o.p.]

No kidding. About a year ago, I saw an ad for a company that was looking for a Linux, Windows and Cisco system administrator (MCSE and CCNA required, CCIE desired, RHCE desired); who could code in C/C++, Perl, Python, shell scripting, HTML/CSS and Javascript; who could configure IIS, Active Directory, Apache, Bind, Samba, etc.; and who had experience maintaining Oracle 9i.

They were offering something like $40K a year.

Re:Really?

[Atari400]

If you get sick on the job from stress, you're a fucking pussy. Seriously. YOU CAN'T HANDLE IT. So get the fuck out.

You seem a little....