Critiquing Claims of an Open Source Jobs Boom

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Bill Snyder examines what appears to be an open source job market boom, as evidenced by a recent O'Reilly Report. According to the study, 5 to 15 percent of all IT openings call for open source software skills, and with overall IT job cuts expected for 2009, 'the recession may be pushing budget-strapped IT execs to examine low-cost alternatives to commercial software,' Snyder writes. But are enterprises truly shifting to open source, or are they simply seeking to augment the work of staff already steeped in proprietary software? The study's methodology leaves too much room for interpretation, Savio Rodrigues retorts. 'That's why the 5% to 15% really doesn't sit well with me,' Rodrigues writes. 'I suspect that larger companies are looking for developers with a mix of experience with proprietary and open source products, tools and frameworks,' as opposed to those who would work with open source for 90 percent of the work day."

Comments

The cheapest code...

[Kjella]

...is the one you didn't have to write in the first place. Developers with some knowledge of BSD/LGPL code that could be used for rapidly creating complex apps without reinventing the wheel is probably in demand.

Re:The cheapest code...

[Lord Ender]

No! The cheapest code is the code that doesn't require support, maintenance, or bug fixes! Development costs are trivial compared to upkeep costs.

Re:The cheapest code...

[Spy der Mann]

No! The cheapest code is the code that doesn't require support, maintenance, or bug fixes! Development costs are trivial compared to upkeep costs.

I'm going to sell my "hello world" code for millions! :)

Re:The cheapest code...

[Foofoobar]

No! The cheapest code is the code that doesn't require support, maintenance, or bug fixes!

So we are in agreeance then. Open source IS better! :)

Re:The cheapest code...

[rbanffy]

I have been reliably running my hello world program since my Apple II days. With more than 30 years of field testing, extensive debugging and hardening, it's probably one of the most enterprise-ready hello world programs in existence.

Yours obviously can't compete.

Re:The cheapest code...

[GooberToo]

No! The cheapest code is the code that doesn't require support, maintenance, or bug fixes! Development costs are trivial compared to upkeep costs.

Good luck with that.

Let me know when something even close to that makes an appearance. In the meantime, people are forced to deal with support issues, maintenance issues, and bug fixes. They must deal with it either directly or indirectly (maintenance fees and/or personal to pick up the phone to get support on the other end). Either way, your counter argument simply does not exist.

Re:The cheapest code...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you guys are late. Bill Gates is launching his Hello World XT application, and it comes preinstalled with all Windows and SUSE operational systems...

Re:The cheapest code...

[BrotherBeal]

You must be the master programmer this link talks about!

Re:The cheapest code...

[mcrbids]

Show me your densest, most bug-free rendition of your "hello world" code. It's possible I can beat it...

Re:The cheapest code...

[tjstork]

Show me your densest, most bug-free rendition of your "hello world" code. It's possible I can beat it...

Go for it!

msg db 'Hello World'
mov dx, offset msg
mov ah, 9
int 21h

If you store that baby as COM file, its going to be all of a handful of bytes.

Re:The cheapest code...

[Tubal-Cain]

My last attempt at writing an app that ambitious bricked my system.

Re:The cheapest code...

[francium de neobie]

Actually this is an argument for open source, although not one of the strongest. If you use popular open source software, you get many bugfixes for the open source part for free - there's no guarantee the bugfixes posted with the project update will be what you need though, but there's a good chance it is.

Re:The cheapest code...

[Two9A]

It's also never going to work. Execution will start at the top, with the H of Hello; I forget what that opcode translates to, but it can't be what you expected it to be.

This might work better:

main: mov dx, offset msg
            mov ah, 9
            int 21h
            int 20h
msg: db 'Hello World!',13,10,34

Sure, it's larger. But it works.

Re:The cheapest code...

[Hal_Porter]

It's also never going to work. Execution will start at the top, with the H of Hello; I forget what that opcode translates to, but it can't be what you expected it to be.

This might work better:

main: mov dx, offset msg

            mov ah, 9

            int 21h

            int 20h
msg: db 'Hello World!',13,10,34

Sure, it's larger. But it works.

You can do a RET from a COM file because Dos pushes a zero onto the stack at exec time. CS:0 contains an INT 20. This is so translated CPM programs could use RET to get back to the OS.

That saves you ONE BYTE. Down to 8 bytes of code

cs:0100 BA0801 MOV DX,0108
cs:0103 B409 MOV AH,09
cs:0105 CD21 INT 21
cs:0107 C3 RET

and 14 bytes of data.

Re:The cheapest code...

[dudeinthedark]

Actually, you can make a LOT more off of selling support than you ever could selling the software alone.

Re:The cheapest code...

[mcrbids]

I beat you all. Mine's denser.

Written in PHP:

Hello World

Re:The cheapest code...

[anexkahn]

[sarcasm]Unless I open source my Hello World Program. There is no telling how much it could be improved if others are allowed to see the source! And by open sourcing it, the program is sure to be safe. Because everyone always reads the source code before installing it![/sarcasm]

Re:The cheapest code...

[NateTech]

Or they could do like most of the open-source world when the going gets tough -- give up, fork or start a whole new app that's just as buggy, and continue on at the same crappy quality level forever.

Re:The cheapest code...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Development costs are trivial compared to upkeep costs." - by Lord Ender (156273) on Thursday July 24, @05:14PM (#24325763) Homepage

Depends on the project's size & scope, really!

(I.E.-> How many people are used to create it (&, the fee they draw in payroll alone, plus dev. tools & more)).

I've personally (I sort of HATE saying ME/I, but what other 'frame of reference' do I have here, other than my own experience in development, right?) been part of "enterprise class" level development in MIS/IS/IT in database programs that keep companies alive in big part (& THEY COST LARGE!)

For a lot of companies, this "enterprise class" level of program's their information structure & systems for it, & yes, part of their lifeblood bigtime.

Those projects in my time & experience? I literally KNOW they cost millions to just get going & put out in final form (not b.s. broken form, but proven over years if not a decade or more, SOLID/STABLE/PERFECTLY WORKING form).

E.G.-> One I know, took a SOLID year for myself & 3 other guys (DBA, 2 main coders, & system analyst team) to put out, @ the tune of @ LEAST 60 hour weeks, many times more (up to nearly 75, & was killing us, to make deadline)...

AND, for a fact to this very day, it being built in VB6, Terminal Server (to remote campus users), & Oracle (stored procs & db devices/tables) as the backend DB engine?

She is still running strong, basically unaltered (other than adding in some new reports, from 1999 to present day, nearly a decade later)

"110% bulletproof & bugfree", + no REAL "huge maintenance costs" ontop of it, because it was "built right", from the "get-go"... we built it in 1.2 yrs. time, development, beta to Q/A, & out the door (with a small maintenance cycle after that, 1-2 months tops for final features & bug fielding).

Yes, programs like that, DO happen guys (hard as that may be to believe)... even on millions of lines programs.

(And, guys? I've been on "both sides of the fence" in this field in my time in it professionally (16 yrs now), from network tech-> network admin -> network engineer -> programmer/analyst -> software engineer, & am just telling it how it is, according to how I've seen it, having BEEN on 'both sides of the fence').

Generalizing? Touchy & tough thing (I know, been there myself, & got 'burnt' a couple times for it online, lol), as there is always usually 'exceptions to the rule' - nothing against the "OP's" statement really, but, it's just that I have seen different in my time...

APK

P.S.=> Is it "lucky"? Sure, to an extent, but I think it was a GOOD TEAM we had building it, more than anything (better guys than I was @ this stuff, @ least @ the time back then... they were surrounding me then, AND teaching me too)

So - If anything was LUCKY, it was me, being exposed to guys of that calibre on the developmental front as a Programmer/Analyst then (now, I have the 'fancy title' of "software engineer", lol!, a decade later, but it's STILL work, & still learning everyday, more & more - never ends! Ugh... lol!)... apk

I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of the C++ programming language, claims that C++ is experiencing a revival and
that there is a backlash against newer programming languages such as Java and C#. "C++ is bigger than ever.
There are more than three million C++ programmers. Everywhere I look there has been an uprising
- more and more projects are using C++. A lot of teaching was going to Java, but more are teaching C++ again.
There has been a backlash.", said Stroustrup.

He continues.. ..What would the world be like without Google?... Only C++ can allow you to create applications as powerful as MapReduce which allows them to create fast searches.

I totally agree. If Java ( or Pyhton etc. for that matter ) were fast enough why did Google choose C++ to build their insanely fast search engine. MapReduce rocks.. No Java solution can even come close.
I rest my case.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[jrcamp]

That's like saying since drag racing cars are the fastest cars everybody should be driving one.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

You're making the insanely simplistic assumption that one language is appropriate in all parts of a given application/project. Yes, obviously anything that's truly resource/speed dependent will generally require a language like C or C++ to allow you to get intimate with the lower-level aspects of the given system. Which is why just about any newer language makes it simple to create native language modules and packages allowing you to take all the advantages of a tightly coded core with the convenience of writing the majority of code in a high-level language.

I don't think there's anything truly new about that concept and I certainly don't think it's responsible for any kind of 'backlash'.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Reverend528]

C++ may be better than python/ruby/java for certain applications, but it will probably always remain in C's shadow.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, an ancient troll gets modded up to 3, Interesting, and even garners a few serious chin-stroking responses. Well done, sir.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. Then all of the C++ programmers will stop claiming to know Java just because it has braces too.

Each language has it's place. Programmers from both sides should respect each other's ability. I took one C++ course. Would never claim to be a C++ programmer.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Cyberax]

A free Java implementation of MapReduce and GFS (Apache Hadoop) already works fine on 5000 computers cluster.

And there's no real reason why it can't scale further.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, if you need a 5000 node cluster to run it and already plan on adding more nodes, I'd say that's not a very good advertisment for java. ;)

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[bill_kress]

If speed were your primary concern, how could you not go with assembly.

On the other hand, one little programming challenge on Cecric Beust's website was solved in a large variety of algorithms/languages and when implemented with the fastest algorithm, the C++ solution had to be compiled with high optimization (-03) to simply match Java's performance.

If you were to program OO using C++, it should always be significantly slower than Java due to the large number of tiny heap allocations/de-allocations. In order to compete, C++ programmers constantly have to consider putting every object on the Stack. Java's short-term heap performance challenges that of a C++ stack, which is MUCH better than malloc.

C++ is also unable to do many runtime optimizations that Java can do.

My last two java jobs have involved working on a frequency analyzer where Java ran the entire GUI (at 12fps on a lower power CPU) and embedded in set top boxes (all cable STB & cable DVR apps will be written in Java soon as per new standards). In both of these embedded cases (a former stronghold of c/c++ development), Java was chosen over C++ for a variety of reasons.

In the long run, the concepts behind using a VM and memory management have far more potential than C++. Every year, without even recompiling, old Java apps get faster while old C++ apps--well for the most part they get replaced with new Java apps, but c++ has pretty much gotten as fast is it will get.

Also, many languages are going away from speed concerns altogether. Ruby is so far out of the C++/Java ballpark that it's silly. Most Java stuff tends to be about 1:2 the speed of C++, almost never slower than 1:4 with Ruby you're talking like 1:100, and yet people are moving to it because speed isn't that much of a consideration any more--and yet anyone (well, anyone who doesn't have some personal stake in C++) will agree that speed is the ONLY thing C++ has going for it.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[bledri]

When your main concern is speed C++ (or C for that matter) is they way to go.

From what I've heard, Goggle uses three languages in production: C++, Python and Java (not to mention all that Web 2.0 craziness on the client side.) I don't think they hired Guido van Rossum to write C++ (although he is obviously a talented C programmer.)

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[spiffmastercow]

--and yet anyone (well, anyone who doesn't have some personal stake in C++) will agree that speed is the ONLY thing C++ has going for it.

I disagree. C++ has pointers, which Java hides from the programmer. That's the main reason I prefer C++ over Java. Well, that and the "training wheels" sensation I get whenever I work with Java.

But for most non time-critical tasks I prefer Python. It's almost too easy.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[molarmass192]

I must be getting old because I remember when people bitched that C++ was dog slow compared to C. Guess that since Java has held the "slow" torch for long enough, it's time to pass it on to Python, Ruby, and all the other interpreted languages. FWIW, I like C++, but ever since Objective-C got a GC, ObjC has become my C of choice.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[allenw]

Actually...

The largest "real, in-use" Hadoop cluster that Yahoo! has is around 2000 nodes, counting a dedicated name node. As far as we're aware, we've got the largest Hadoop cluster. [If there is a bigger one, we'd love to talk to you and compare notes. :) ]

That said, we do have Hadoop running on tens of thousands of machines. Just not as one big cluster.

It is also worth pointing out, that most of our clusters are multi-user, multi-application. The number of nodes is really more indicative of the size of the Hadoop distributed file system than the number of nodes given to a particular application in our (grid team's) use case.

There is a lot more about Hadoop, and Yahoo!'s particular Hadoop usage for internal utility-type computing, at http://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/HadoopPresentations .

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking the same thing. Mod +1 Funny

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[abigor]

Python isn't interpreted. It's compiled to bytecode, like Java. You can even compile it to Java's bytecode and run it on the JVM if you want to.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If speed were your primary concern, how could you not go with assembly.

With rare exceptions (like codecs), c++ is just as fast as asm, and twice as easy to maintain. Most of your gains are from algorithm choice, anyway.

If you were to program OO using C++, it should always be significantly slower than Java due to the large number of tiny heap allocations/de-allocations. In order to compete, C++ programmers constantly have to consider putting every object on the Stack.

Or maybe a C++ programmer just throws things in there as needed. No mallocs = fast memory usage.

Also, many languages are going away from speed concerns altogether. Ruby is so far out of the C++/Java ballpark that it's silly.

Dunno about that, but python allows you to replace chunks of your script with native code, so you get script dev speed and the slow parts are a native library.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

If speed were your primary concern, how could you not go with assembly.

Because writing asm doesn't provide any benefits. Modern c/c++ compilers can optimize the hell out of the code which doesn't happen with asm.

If you were to program OO using C++, it should always be significantly slower than Java due to the large number of tiny heap allocations/de-allocations.

[citation needed]

C++ is also unable to do many runtime optimizations that Java can do.

This is true. But, With C++ you can control memory allocations. You can do several clever things that are not possible with java.

In order to compete, C++ programmers constantly have to consider putting every object on the Stack. Java's short-term heap performance challenges that of a C++ stack, which is MUCH better than malloc.

I have yet to see C++ code of the same algorithm that runs slower than Java code. Can you post a 1 page code sample that demonstrates this?

Also, many languages are going away from speed concerns altogether. Ruby is so far out of the C++/Java ballpark that it's silly. Most Java stuff tends to be about 1:2 the speed of C++, almost never slower than 1:4 with Ruby you're talking like 1:100, and yet people are moving to it because speed isn't that much of a consideration any more--and yet anyone (well, anyone who doesn't have some personal stake in C++) will agree that speed is the ONLY thing C++ has going for it.

C/C++ will *always* be in demand. There isn't a single language that has yet to replace C/C++ for systems programming. One reason why new programmers dont embrace C/C++ is because its hard :) I'm glad it is.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno about that, but python allows you to replace chunks of your script with native code, so you get script dev speed and the slow parts are a native library.

Except python fails with the GIL. It is essentially a mutex that is locked anytime a python object is being used. Unless those bits of native code you have don't need to worry about python objects, your python code doesn't scale.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[TheSync]

Guess that since Java has held the "slow" torch for long enough, it's time to pass it on to Python, Ruby, and all the other interpreted languages.

It's not Ruby that's the problem, its the Rails....

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

The way around this is to design your app such that heavy lifting, where possible, is done in native leaf nodes; most of the time, I don't really run into problems like this: stuff is either fast enough or it's obviously doing way too much work.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[bill_kress]

Honestly I started to argue and then had to stop and consider if you were messing with me.

Pointers are simply an artifact left over from when it was too difficult to make a compiler produce high-performance code. There is absolutely no advantage to pointers now that compilers can be written to perform with the same speed on arrays. They are just a horrid horrid idea.

I'm actually quite good with pointers--I'm not scared of them or anything, It's not that they aren't a little fun at times, but they don't supply a single positive thing to the programming experience that can't be done better through other mechanisms with a better language/compiler. Even memory-mapped I/O could be done with an array if anyone really wanted to do so--there is absolutely no reason it shouldn't compile down to code exactly as fast as pointers.

The more information your compiler has, the smarter it can be about optimizing your code. When C was made (and C++ followed with similar syntax) they didn't really consider optimizing, just making an easy to write, easy to port compiler (a very admirable goal for the time!).

Oh, I agree about Java being a "Hand-holding" language, but if you have to work on some crappy code written by a bunch of crappy engineers that is extremely bug-laden, wouldn't you prefer it was in simpler language?

Hmm, seriously, while I was typing out that paragraph I answered myself--it's a trick question (and perhaps the one HUGE advantage to C++!) You won't find really really crappy c++ code because there is a much higher "Minimum programming ability" than most other languages.

You don't gain anything, but it does keep you in a more exclusive club.

PS: I spent years programming the windows 3.0-3.1 api with C including the giant 100 line switch-statements from hell and the debugging binaries and all... It's not like I don't understand C/C++..

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[bill_kress]

>>Or maybe a C++ programmer just throws things in there as needed. No mallocs = fast memory usage.

This kind of proves a point. C++ keeps programmers from understanding OO development. Just as a quick review--when I moved from C++ to Java, I suddenly realized I had NO IDEA how to program OO in C++. It wouldn't let me.

To think in OO, you create objects without owners or lifecycles. They are shared--they kind of float around. Others may have references to your objects or not.

the way you are able to design is a level up. You can't care about when to destroy memory, and you can't be in any way reluctant to create a new class. The elegance and simplicity of OO comes form creating a class EVERY SINGLE time it enters your mind to do so. Good classes are rarely more than a screen or two long, and never have more than one concern.

This leads to a massive number of small memory allocations that cannot be stack-based (Well, of course many can be stack based, but to even make you think of that is a pretty big distraction to your design and a huge hole for bugs).

Basically I've never seen an OO C++ program.

I know that a lot of what I said makes you feel like I have no design process and my code must be horrible, but that's not the case. It's like the design process has gone up a level and left a lot of the less important concerns to the compiler which can be trusted (the reason it makes you nervous is that the C++ compiler could not be trusted to handle those details).

But whatever. I've spent 7 years in C++/C and 10 in Java. I suppose if you've spent a few years in Java and a few in C++ then we've just had different experiences, teams and design approaches.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[NateTech]

Yeah, that's useful. Great. Just what end-users want, crappy code that still doesn't run right but now you can run it inside a different interpreter. Wheee.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[spiffmastercow]

That's all well and good for instances where you're using pointers as an array type. My issue with removing pointers is for when I want to implement, say, a linked list or a B-Tree. In such instances its significantly more intuitive to use pointers, and its absolutely vital to have control over memory management if you want to write a fast data structure library.

Admittedly, I don't write a lot of B-Trees these days. But if I was going to, I wouldn't be doing it in Java. And yes, I know it can be done in Java. It's just not nearly as elegant or efficient.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[MrDERP]

Borland's TurboPascal ..back when Ms Pascal costs $500+ it was $50 and SO much faster/better. It was great why is it not used?????????? This is what I was taught on and I could never figure out why it isn't used more often. Marketing etc is all I can think of.

Re:I am with Bjarne on this one.

[bill_kress]

There is no reason it has to be less efficient is my only point.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

As far as intuitive--I'm not sure I like "Intuitive" code much. I saw a lot of it in Ruby and to tell you the truth, The more "Intuitive" the language, the harder the code tends to be to read (and often, the worse the implementation--some of these string manipulation tools built into the language become the "Go-to" solution for all problems when in fact they are creating some horrid underlying solutions..)

I'd like longer, more explicit code as long as the compiler is smart enough to grind it down to the same machine language. (Yes, java ends up as machine language if you haven't been paying attention, and potentially more efficient machine language than C since it is optimized at runtime.).

I suppose we all have these balance points--being willing to give up a certain amount of understanding of the underlying implementation for simplicity and abstraction at a higher level. If not, we'd all still be using assembly (I remember programmers complaining about C vs assembly the same way many people now complain about java vs c)

As long as you know that Java is virtually as fast as C, that it's significantly more reliable and can have a much better level of abstraction allowing quicker development, choosing to stick with C is fine.

Personally there are Java competitors that are becoming just about as fast and some people claim are better abstractions (Scala), but I'm just getting too old to wrap my head around (I tried), so I'll stick with Java, telling myself that it's better to stick with simplicity and more explicit code and no cute language tricks--actually, I really believe that.

This Is True

[curmudgeon99]

I just got hired in Manhattan by a new company and they have all expected lots of OpenSource technology knowledge. In fact, I recently worked for Barnes & Noble and one of my victories was convincing them to dump JRun for JBoss. Eclipse is everywhere and that is free. (I use MyEclipse, though, for $30 a pop). So, this is bourne out by my experience. The fact is, proprietary software is only supported by the company. Open Source is supported by the masses. And you know which ends up being better--the masses. I remember putting a note in JRun's forums and it went unanswered for a year. Nobody uses those forums. JBoss and Hibernate are teeming with activity. Open Source is "King" (sorry Gavin).

Re:This Is True

[NateTech]

Let's translate.

I convinced my employer at great expense (people time, downtime) to change technologies without a shred of evidence it would actually lower the number or amount of bugs our developers create daily. Activity for activity's sake.

I would run the open version of Eclipse but it sucks, so I buy one because it actually works correctly more often than not.

I then claim my experience leads me to believe open source is better than closed. (Huh? Why put the story in there about paying for Eclipse then?)

Proprietary software is supported by people who have to make it a success or they don't get paid and can't eat. Open source is supported by some guy if he has time from his basement. This is better.

I had a really dumb question about JBoss because I don't really understand it (even though all my open-source advocates and myself will tell you it's great... the source is right there! You can fix any problem yourself! But I'm too lazy to read source.) So I posted about it, and some guy decided he had enough time to type up the answer to my dumb problem.

Meanwhile I compare this to some "forums" about the other software, and never bothered to call the company for help.

JBoss and Hibernate are still buggy pieces of shit, but they're popular so we can all help each other with it and act like it's better than what we had before.

[That about cover it?]

Re:This Is True

[curmudgeon99]

Nate, I'll address your comments point by point: "I convinced my employer at great expense..."--no, my employer (a former DBA VP came up with the idea. We did a POC and had nearly all the kinks ironed out before we changed the team. "I would run the open version of Eclipse but it sucks..."--no idea. I've used WebSphere Studio App Developer, Visual Cafe (true crap), JBuilder, JDeveloper and MyEclipse. Never used raw Eclipse so I have no idea if it sucks. "I then claim my experience leads me to believe open source is better than closed."--since I have experience with both, I must follow my experience. I prefer open source and it has seemed to make my developer life easier. "Proprietary software is supported by people who have to make it a success or they don't get paid and can't eat..."--now I see where you're coming from. You used to sell proprietary software but open source ate your company's lunch and you're bitter. Suffer and like it--that's called me marketplace. As for the comment about JBoss, I had to work on a Single Sign On project and so I was deep in the source of JBoss and Tomcat. Wrong again, Mister sour grapes. JBoss and Hibernate are buggy pieces of shit? WebSphere Studio AD was horrible and it cost $8K for the Integration Edition. For the expense, it was not worth it. So, nice try, you carry no points and reveal your bitterness. Loser.

Re:This Is True

[NateTech]

Hmm.. point by point. Okay, I can play that game too.

"My boss came up with the idea" Yeah, because changing out the development team behind everyone's backs makes for a happy workplace, and of course it was economically sound...? (You could answer that question if you were him and could see the real numbers on how much you cost versus the originally deployed solution, but it sure sounds to me like he just wanted yes-men around him, a MUCH more common reason for changing technologies in a company than anything based on business fact. As long as you and your new technology you originally claimed YOU came up with and "convinced" your company to use... when really HE did the heavy lifting... nice back-pedal there, BTW... cost no MORE than the original, I guess it was just a power grab by a VP. Big whoop. Glad you came out of it on the right side!)

"Never used raw Eclipse" - yep. So you have no idea if the open-source version has bugs, problems whatever. You're the expert! You bought it. (I'm making a dangerous assumption here, never heard of MyEclipse until your posting and I assume it's a commercial product. If it's just another lame ass fork of something that worked, well... that's stupid too. Fork! Fork! Fork!)

"I prefer open source" - didn't we just cover that? You're using a proprietary version of something open-source that someone's selling after they fixed the bugs, I think.

"...and it has seemed to make my developer life easier" - Yeah, open-source is great for that, no doubt about it. At the expense of usability for the users. Want your $500 video card to work? We're developers! We just patch our kernels! (Had a support call from a friend about this horse-shit in CentOS again today, have had the same call from friends who think they want to run Linux because it's "better" now every year since 1995. It's gettin' old. Linux needs to get it's graphical desktop shit together. But it's open-source! ANYONE can fix it! Yeah I know, and I'm not a graphics programmer, never will be, and neither will any of the people who just want to load the damn OS who call me wondering how to fucking get it to work. Oh wait, I forgot... it's NVIDIA and ATI's fault that open-source developers can't figure out how to sign NDA's or release binary bits of "proprietary" things to get a video card to work because the Sun might explode out of some hippie freedom-fighters ass who has the initials RMS, if they do. Why more distros haven't told the freetard to to fuck off and die so they can just have a working video card, so they can get important shit done like bitch about which of the 20 desktops to use... I don't know. Choice! Oh yeah, choice! I forgot. Having 20 shitty choices is always better than having ONE THING that works! Fuck.)

"You used to sell proprietary software but open source ate your company's lunch and you're bitter" - Wow, that's a stretch. Nope. I work for a company that builds telecommunications equipment with mostly closed-source software. They do have some things that run embedded Linux as the OS with all proprietary code running on top of it. The shit actually works too. Asterisk is a nice toy for small business, but at the carrier level, let's see it get SS7 live network certified or handle 100 inbound calls a second without trying hard, and handle more than 4000 ports in one box. It'll get there someday, by then no one will care. Because we'll have built something even bigger or better. You see, we've been doing it a long time and we sell the things for prices that will allow any carrier to charge TINY amounts of money per minute and still make serious cash money with it. Payoff is about 3 months and they amortize the things over 5-7 years. They *gasp* have to pay for a support contract and per-port licensing on the devices as long as they're in service, so we actually have a business model where they can make (a lot) of money with them, even after they pay us. OMG, closed-source software sux0rs and isn't l33t. Only open-source where you can't affo

More on the front end than the back end

[gbulmash]

In job hunting, I'm seeing more Open Source skills being requested in the mixes, but they are part of a mix, and they definitely tend to be in heavier demand on the front-end web dev side than on the back-end dev side.

Re:More on the front end than the back end

[NateTech]

Ah yes, web browsers still suck as user interfaces and always have.

Now companies want people that can beat them into submission since they bought the bullshit that the web was the way to distribute applications.

IT degree = waste of time

[zymano]

Feel sorry for those folk.

All that money and time wasted on a computer science or IT degree.

   

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[siDDis]

Hey! I like programming, especially being paid for my doing my hobby! It's just like a soccer player, getting paid for doing what he loves. However programmers has the advantage that they can do their hobby at a professional level as long as the mind is good. Soccer players has to throw in their towel when they're in their thirties.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[Darkness404]

Soccer players has to throw in their towel when they're in their thirties.

But a good soccer player can make enough money in 10 years to cover a lifetime of work. A good programmer has to work all of his life to make enough money to feed themselves most of the time.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[abigor]

I think $90,000+ a year qualifies as a bit more than feeding oneself. Do you work in the software industry?

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[guaigean]

But a crappy programmer with great promotion skills can create a startup company, hype the idea, and then sell it to an investment firm before it fails for a lifetime's wages.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[iamhigh]

And the numbers are skewed somewhere... REALLY GOOD programmers I know clear about 80K. Average is about 60K. That is good, but not pro sports good.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[jhfry]

(ITDegree || ComputerScienceDegree) Programmer

An IT degree can be any number of things... program management, Quality Assurance, etc. And Computer Science isn't programming either... it's really applied mathmathmatics and logic. My IT degree focused on Program Managment, and I have never used it because I'm not in software, but there are tons of well paying positions for software lifecycle management and similar jobs.

I agree that it's a waste of time to teach business programming anymore... those who are good at it will pursue it on the side anyway... but most schools don't go much deeper than basic logic and structure now anyways. CS majors look at things differently, many are into robotics, embedded systems, and places where one must work in low level languages or where the applications are extremely complex and not easy to outsource.

Finally, the only reason either of these jobs have lost their prestiege is that so many people who have no business in the field said "I like computers" to their college advisors... a person who truely knows, loves, and understands computers and programming will not hurt for work. It just takes patience to wait while employers weed out all of the mediocrity.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[abigor]

No, but it is "feed themselves" good, right? And really good programmers make a lot more than $80K (gross), although that may depend upon where you live, I suppose. If you're a motivated contractor, you can gross $120K a year pretty easily.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[sfcat]

I make about 3x that working as a Java developer for an investment firm. And I can make even more as a contract dev. But that is in SF where the cost of living is very high. 60K in a rural area is probably a better salary adjusted for cost of living than I make. But 60K in the bay area is very tight and means you will either live in a dangerous area, live very cheaply, or live far away (long commute). Your choice. But if you think a programmer's salary isn't very high then either you aren't very good at programming or you have a very different idea of "making a good living" from most people. Try living on a construction worker's salary (or a junior QA person's salary) in the bay area and you might change your opinion.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[jedidiah]

That's great logic if you assume that the programmer lives alone and inside a box under a bridge somewhere.

It's sh*tty logic if you consider that the programmer may need to get to his job
every morning, may need a safe clean place to live and may be paying for several
other people to do the same. That programmer probably also needs to pay for their
food too, as well as their medical care and also be able to account for possible
future emergencies that may include being downsized and unemployed for awhile.

Then there's retirement.

Yeah, if you have a "live for today" mentality and live in a cheap location and just live in a studio then mebbe $90k is a lot.

An experience tradesman can make $90k in a year.

Perhaps you've heard of this thing called inflation...

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd, I live quite decently on around that much a year (well more now but that's a separate point) and a large chunk of it goes into savings (or investments). It's actually quite easy if you're capable of not buying every shinny thing you see.

as well as their medical care

Then you're likely a shitty programmer because only those get hired by companies which don't provide insurance. If you're a contractor that's different but then you should be making more than a salaried person to make up for such things.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[Anonymous Coward]

But a good soccer player can make enough money in 10 years to cover a lifetime of work.

No he can't, a great soccer player may be able to but not merely a good one. Pro sports is where the best go and there aren't that many pro sports players. There are a lot of programmers on the other hand.

I'm sure that if you're the programming equivalent of a professional sports player (best of the best, etc.) then you are making a lot more than average. You'd probably have to compare against those who make successful startups.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is mathmathmatics? Is the like developersDevelopersDEVELOPERS?

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[abigor]

The median family income in the US is $48,000 a year, so clearly lots of people would do just fine with one household wage earner making $90,000. In fact, they'd be incredibly thankful for it.

I'd say it's your logic that's shitty, and you should probably examine your spending habits.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[bigbird]

And 4x as a senior dev for an investment bank in London.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[tjstork]

A good programmer has to work all of his life to make enough money to feed themselves most of the time.

Only if you are working in Open Source. If you sell a proprietary, closed source application, you can make -bank-.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[weisschr]

Pure programming is more and more viewed as a commodity. Knowing your domain, having "architect" skills, and having some people skills make programmers worth much more than what most are paid today. I have an MS in computer science from a big 10 school, and my training has helped me tremendously when combined with the ability to talk to business stakeholders. I also work as an independent contractor, which allows me to make 3-5x what a programmer would make. If all you are is a mechanic, you have too much competition to command a high salary. You need to broaden your skill set to go after bigger $$. The truly gifted programmer is a truly rare person. I have only met a few in my 20+ years in IT. In most cases, the employers of these people didn't know what a gem they had in their employ. A degree in anything is a waste of time if you don't bring something else to the table.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[NateTech]

Plumbers and electricians make as much as IT workers, and always have. IT just likes to think we have "important" jobs.

Ask a master electrician in the local IBEW union what they make and see how much they work and how hard it is. Then come back and tell me that complex programming or system administration is a good job choice.

The reality is, they are good jobs... but they're not any better than the guy next door with his own bathroom remodeling business.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[NateTech]

Yeah, like open-source has produced better products that have no "mediocrity" in them... no bugs, all the end-users are happy with the Linux Desktop because it's better than Microsoft or Apple for their needs, and everything's roses coming out of my ass.

Mediocrity will remain. There is this thing called a bell curve, and only a few programmers are in the small far-right portion of it.

The rest crank out crap, year after year after year. Don't believe me? Take a job in senior technical support for 15 years. I have.

I will never want for work. Programmers just aren't that bright.

Re: IT degree = waste of time

[MrDERP]

Somewhere like say .. Savannah, GA 60k-70k is a very good living, because it's a cheap place to live, I have a nice house in historic district I bought for $167,000. If this house was in a desirable area of SF BAY It would be 1,000,000.

Duh?

[sexconker]

Companies want people who have open source experience - both use and contribution.

They want to use these people to implement open source projects that fit their needs, for free (beer).

They do not want these people because they love free (open) software.

Re:Duh?

[turbidostato]

"They want to use these people to implement open source projects that fit their needs, for free (beer)."

That's intriguing. Are you saying they won't pay the wages for those people?

Re:Duh?

[sexconker]

They will opt for free over $ in terms of software costs.

Many businesses are open-source based accidentally

[hattig]

Given that Java is now GPL and open-source, and lots of the popular third-party Java frameworks are also open-source, I would expect that open-source is really hot in many businesses - just that they don't know it.

When your developers code an interface to XYZ in a short time, it's not because they're reimplementing the wheel. No, they're using Axis. Or HttpClient. With hibernate, spring, struts, tiles, and so on.

But if we look at databases, you'll see a large investment in proprietary systems still, for core business data, with MySQL running minor functionality around the outside. Cutbacks simply mean that upgrading your database platform won't happen, it's already paid for, why migrate from Oracle to Postgresql!

The other big platform is MS proprietary. You all know the story. It keeps TheDailyWTF alive.

As a 17 year IT consultant...

[infinite9]

I've seen a lot of shops. And a lot of them like open source for one reason... it's cheap. Not because they're cheap bastards, but because free software often can circumvent the corporate BS associated with spending money.

Once a place has used some open source software, they tend to keep using it. And they tend to want to hire people who know how to use what they have. I wouldn't call it an open source hiring boom. I'd just call it acceptance.

Re:As a 17 year IT consultant...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll agree to that. I'm currently using SharpDevelop because the owner doesn't want me programming (I'm in "QA") and I need tools that the developers don't have time to write. So, I get SharpDevelop (and Tcl/TK) to write my own tools as I need them.

Of course, the rest of the company uses Microsoft products, but when I need something quick and I don't want to bother with expense reports, OpenOffice goes on the test machines to open the word docs as needed, and other free and/or open source tools get used. Partimage Is Not Ghost, Copy Handler, GIMP, notepad++, 7-zip, and Foxit Reader are just a few of the products I use to fly under the radar with tools I need/like to use. Of course, this was posted while using Firefox, but Opera is good too.

/posted anon to avoid losing used modpoints

Re:As a 17 year IT consultant...

[eln]

That brings up a study I'd really like to see done: What is the correlation (positive or negative), if any, between prevalence of Open Source in a shop and the salaries they offer? Do most of them use open source so they can spend more on quality people, or do they do it because they're cheap and don't want to spend money on anything, people included?

I don't have enough data in my personal work history to make an intelligent guess, although the size of the company involved may have a lot to do with the answer. However, I think it would be valuable information to have. After all, specializing in a given technology because you hear there are lots of jobs asking for it is not a wise move if all of those jobs max out at 8 bucks an hour (exaggeration to illustrate the point, not what I really think Open Source admins make).

Re:As a 17 year IT consultant...

[QuantumRiff]

I use open source solutions often at my work, and its not because of the cost. (I don't mind paying for the right tool for the job) It has much more to do with the tracking.. If I go purchase SQL server and windows server, I have to keep track of licenses, versions, (are they enterprise, standard, etc) Are they CAL based, and do I have enough CAL's a few months later, are they processor based (and if so, did I move the app to a server with more processors). With virtualization, its an even bigger push for me, as its very, very easy to quickly deploy a new virtual OS. It takes much, much longer to ensure licensing compliance, and go through the approval and purchasing process if needed..

Re:As a 17 year IT consultant...

[firewrought]

Free software often can circumvent the corporate BS associated with spending money.

And the BS involving legal/licensing (6 week minimum in my company). And the BS involving layers upon layers of business cases and needs analysis. If the commercial world could standardize some of this (the license agreement broilerplate, for instance), they could better compete against open source...

Re:As a 17 year IT consultant...

[Rycross]

Yeah but sometimes you then get the BS with "approved software." We technically weren't allowed to use Firefox at my job for the longest time because it wasn't company approved software. My team works on a web application which is supposed to support Firefox. Took a year or two to get it on the approved list.

Oh and the fastest way to get a piece of software approved here is to have it released/supported by IBM.

WHAT?

[Darkness404]

What? They are now open sourcing Steve Jobs and then making him go BOOM!?!?!?!?

Re:WHAT?

[pushing-robot]

What? They are now open sourcing Steve Jobs and then making him go BOOM!?!?!?!?

No, he does that all on his own.

Re:WHAT?

[CaptSaltyJack]

Ah crap, you beat me to it, I see. ;) Well-played..

Well, good for Apple

[CaptSaltyJack]

I'm glad Steve Jobs finally decided to open source everything. Boom!

Do we care?

[Anonymous Coward]

For gods sake, do we even care on all this analysts' crap?
We do our jobs, and we try to get away with the best and cheapest version of the solution.

If it's Open Source, so be it. But bosses are increasingly interested in sustainability which means that access to the source will help you in that regard.

repeated troll...

[everphilski]

seen it a few times like here

Re:repeated troll...

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it's Stroustrup himseff, cleverly disguised as an AC!

Ummm... Yah

[Darkness404]

Of course jobs are going to increase in open source areas. Right now, the software industry is in a period of change from 100% proprietary code to now about 25% proprietary and 75% OSS. The thing though is, for any small company, making a general purpose program is nearly impossible. If it is a proprietary system, it gets 0 marketshare due to monopolies in every single program genre. If it is OSS, it may have great marketshare, but won't make any money because your company is too small to give support. Once we find a good balance, we will see another major software boom comparable to the '90s one. But until then, we will see either failing closed-source companies, or open source companies that have yet to see a profit.

Re:Ummm... Yah

[CodeBuster]

Right now, the software industry is in a period of change from 100% proprietary code to now about 25% proprietary and 75% OSS.

You meant to say 20% proprietary and 80% OSS right?

Me too...

[iamhigh]

Looking at sysadmin jobs, I also see things that want Cisco, RedHat/Some *nix, MS AD, some sort of DB, this ERP app, that specific app, Citrix, scripting, programming, web development, website hosting, blah, blah, blah... Those that have a salary range, are in 55-60K

I think HR just throws all in the listing... get as many applicants as possible, sort it out later.

Re:Me too...

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the ability to perform miracles. The employers are trying get as much as they can for as little as they can. This includes "Human Resources".

Startup = Open Source Only!

[pafein]

As the CTO at a 4 year old startup, we're only interested in people who have open source experience. In fact, we've rejected people from consideration because their programming background was mostly with closed source platforms.

We use OSS for all of the usual reasons - cost, quality, support, access to code. We want to hire people who know how to operate in that environment - someone's who's first instinct when they need to solve a problem is to check the Ubuntu repos or look on Python's Cheeseshop, not call a vendor.

Re:Startup = Open Source Only!

[Rycross]

So the assumption is that someone who has worked with proprietary technologies is incapable of working with OSS technologies? Because I'd say thats pretty much completely contrary to my experience.

I work with propriety technology ATM. Didn't stop me from opting for CruiseControl.Net and NAnt over the proprietary build systems that were vying for our business. There are plenty of technologies we're using that I'd switch to OSS alternatives in a heartbeat (goddamn ClearCase...). Yeah, some of my coworkers have drunk vendor kool-aid, but plenty others are open to the OSS side of things too.

I would say that putting that kind of arbitrary restriction on your hiring process may be cutting you off from some valid talent. That is unless you're looking for someone religious about it, then I guess it would be perfectly valid. Just some food for thought though.

Re:Startup = Open Source Only!

[turbidostato]

"So the assumption is that someone who has worked with proprietary technologies is incapable of working with OSS technologies?"

I don't think so.

I think the parent poster is more on the line that if the candidate has not experience on the open source world, its ability to manage it is still to be seen. If there're candidates that won't have such uncertainty it's just reasonable to stick with them.

"Because I'd say thats pretty much completely contrary to my experience."

That's your experience. Mine is that even at the code monkey level there's people that just don't grasp the open source "thingie" as there is people that is heavily uncomfortable using closed source software.

"I would say that putting that kind of arbitrary restriction on your hiring process may be cutting you off from some valid talent."

Quite true, the point being "arbitrary". It's arbitrary to only hire blond people for a java developer position; it's not arbitrary to hire someone SQL fluent for a DBA, and I don't think it's arbitrary to hire people with open source experience on a shop pushing open source "philosophy" (it *might* be arbitrary to push "the open source philosohpy", though, but that's out of scope).

budgets

[br00tus]

We might like free software because it is free as in speech, but most companies tend to like it because it is free as in beer. Except for our Oracle databases and a few legacy systems in the process of being migrated, all of our systems have been migrated from Solaris to Red Hat. We are mostly on Jboss, with our proprietary Java application servers being legacy ones being migrated off of. We are mostly migrated from Vignette to Alfresco.

.
Tight budgets are the time when management is more willing to "take a chance" on an x86-64 Red Hat server over a more expensive Sun server. Or a free software application, with support from a company like MySQL, JBoss etc. rather than Oracle, or one of the many java app. server products. Management has been happy with the changes thusfar.

Re:budgets

[Rycross]

Depends on how you spin it. We use CruiseControl.Net where I work. When I had to justify it as opposed to a "superior" (not really superior technologically, but in a "we're paying for it so it must be better" sense) proprietary technology, I pointed out that since I have access to the source code I can debug issues with our build system without needing vendor support. And I have several times. Of course, people like the cost, but managers also understand "we don't have to depend on a single source if things go to hell." Well, some of them do.

Re:budgets

[turbidostato]

"We might like free software because it is free as in speech, but most companies tend to like it because it is free as in beer."

And that's surprising... how? Companies are basically about money, so I can't find suprising that the word "money" appears on each and every company backed-up argument. Not necesarily to say "less" money, but money will be on it.

So you will find arguments like these:
* It costs a lot of *money* so it must be good
* We are tight on *money* so this solution looks apropiate
* It seems more *money* using this very popular but privative operative system, but we will recover it because wages for technical personnel will be lower due to its popularity
* I don't have to expend six months to get approved the *money* for that open source app, so it's good.
* We save *money* because we can go with best bidder for the support of this open source app.
* We save *money* bacause we have an all-encompassing support contract from this important vendor
* We don't risk *money* using this software because we can sue the offering company
* We don't risk *money* because since it's open source we are not opened to a vendor lock-in strategy
* Etc.

Re:budgets

[NateTech]

Yeah we really hate having to call a vendor who needs their product to work in order to survive and ask them for a fix, when some guy here can muck around in the code and fix it ourselves.

Both ways suck. Would be better if the bugs simply weren't there in the first place, now wouldn't it?

"The domain cruisecontrol.net is for sale. To purchase, call BuyDomains.com at 781-839-7903 or 866-866-2700."

Re:budgets

[NateTech]

Most real businesspeople don't give a fuck if it's free as in speech, free as in beer, or free as in "rainbows will fly out of my ass freely"... nowadays, they FINALLY want software to WORK.

No more lame-ass programming, no more dicking around in your basement to create shitty applications -- companies want to see whatever resource they spend on something (time, money) come back in spades. Return-on-investment.

Learn it, love it. It's the new "in" thing. "Damn, these expensive computers and data centers we built when capital was flowing freely cost us more to operate than they make/save us! Dump 'em or find something that works."

Re:budgets

[turbidostato]

"No more lame-ass programming"

I only wish you were true...

Re:budgets

[Rycross]

Yeah we really hate having to call a vendor who needs their product to work in order to survive and ask them for a fix, when some guy here can muck around in the code and fix it ourselves.

You're assuming that you or your problem matters enough to the vendor for them to fix it. We have, more than once, been told "Sucks to be you..." by a vendor. My boss actually quipped that the Microsoft support we payed for was nearly worthless.

Both ways suck. Would be better if the bugs simply weren't there in the first place, now wouldn't it?

Yep, that is the best. You can usually get that with open source, though. I mean, there are plenty of companies around where you can pay for OSS support. Red Hat, for one.

"The domain cruisecontrol.net is for sale. To purchase, call BuyDomains.com at 781-839-7903 or 866-866-2700."

Try this link instead. Whats your point?

Re:budgets

[NateTech]

So I called RedHat and complained that they didn't include proprietary CODECs needed to view most of the content in the InterWebs, and guess what....

They didn't care.

Think your own argument just got used against you there. 99% of people WANT to do things like watch YouTube... but RedHat's not interested in fixing their problem.

Reality check: RedHat gave up on the Desktop market years ago.

Dead on.

[Mongoose Disciple]

I think the article is dead on in questioning the study.

Perfect example: the last two places I contracted at were looking to hire C# developers who had also been exposed to Subversion. Is it fair to look at a place like that and say they're now all about Open Source? Not really, no.

Open Source is getting somewhere in the business world to be sure, but the FOSS Rapture isn't quite upon us just yet.

It Doesn't Cost Less

[Kookus]

Open source software is actually costing my institution more than a closed source alternative. The drive for moving to open source software is more about being able to maintain a solution, and customize it to exactly what the requirements are.

Another fun thing we are experiencing is the total lack of knowledge closed source solution professionals have. We're finding the people to be very silo'ed without knowledge of what goes on around them. So when you are trying to implement something, you get very concerned with cross-technical area issues.

You ask an SAP basis person to come look at a screen and they'll say "Not Functional..." and wave their hands wildly with their palms facing you. Ask the Abaper and they'll shrug without a clue.

Hell, the Abaper is supposed to be a programmer you think, but they can't even teach you the basic parts of a program; you'll be lucky enough if they even know how to do proper error handling.

You see these types of people and they frighten the crap out of you. You just stare out the window and wonder why people are willing to pay 80 or 100 dollars an hour for these.... idiots!

I can go out into a University, pay a fresh graduate 40 dollars an hour and teach them everything they need to know... knowing that they'll leave after the project and still be better off than getting consultants.

Compare that with a professional in open source technologies. They need to know how things work together, because that's all they do. They can't learn just 1 technology, they need to know multiples, and how to fit them together. As they grow in their career, they know the big picture, and that is completely different than the closed source alternative.

Re:It Doesn't Cost Less

[Gazzonyx]

I have an example of that from just the other week. Take it as you will, but I found it to be a trend that emerges the more I talk to techs from both the open source and closed (be it developers, admins, general IT guys).

The other week I mentioned to someone (a studied but not certified MCSE) that RHEL 5.2 not only ships with Xen support out-of-the-box, but has a full LDAP server. "Oh? LDAP... so it does Active Directory?" was his reply. I fumbled over my thoughts and managed to get out, "let me see if it has the schema" and got the feeling that he didn't know that LDAP has many uses that aren't Active Directory. I RTFM (something he doesn't seem to like me doing, as I often say "gimme' a minute to read the manual", look up the pertinent information and present it much to his indifference, while I usually wonder how many hours will pass before he'll ask me a question whose answer will rely on the understanding of the information I'm currently presenting) and say "Yeah, it looks like it does have the schema for it", to which I was given a prompt, "Well, that's a long way off for us."

True, but wouldn't it be nice if we had some kind of place to put that customer list and information that has redundant information covering several MB of poorly named ("Copy of Copy of temporary people list.xls")Excel spreadsheets? I've mostly given up on even presenting the possibilities out there to this person because they are locked in this mindset of a vertical, pre-integrated, pre-configured, program set (stack, as the lingo goes, apparently). He doesn't know that AD is a schema with extensions for an LDAP/X.500 DIT, and refuses to go further than "Microsoft does that, it's called...". This same thing has happened over and over with this person, and I always get a dismissive attitude when I say (as a software development major) "I could program that for you, it's just library x interfacing service y with z GUI, and on sourceforge there are twenty projects that do specifically that."

It's like the very idea that you can learn the underlying technologies and interface them at certain layers, to create a more powerful and better suited, is so foreign to closed source that the very suggestion of doing so is such that the mind recoils in horror.

Rather, the idea is that you buy something that somewhat fulfills your needs (and includes the kitchen sink you've never wanted) and then work around its limitations until it is EOL'ed and you upgrade (backwards compatibility optional). This, of course, is preferred because "... we don't know how it works..." for singular values of 'we'. Note that regardless of how much technical data from documentation, demos, proofs of concepts, emails from authors regarding our ideas, and source code is provided to debunk this notion, 'we' will never know how it works and will have to deal with this inconvenience until someone markets a solution with a heavy price tag to do it. No, 'we' won't ever know how it works because 'we' don't care and couldn't be bothered to step out of our comfort zone and do our homework. Doubly so if our homework entails learning about something that isn't absolutely necessary to understand what we're studying.

This, of course, is my personal experience and a general trend I've noticed. Take it with a grain of salt, knowing that there will be cases where the opposite is true.

Secret

[codepunk]

Shhhhhhhhh....lets just keep that a secret shall we!

So this means

[T3Tech]

Open source developers won't actually be able to profit from companies spending less by switching from proprietary software?

Gotta give it to you

[Anonymous Coward]

Not too many IT consultants are 17...

Its not enterprises

[unity100]

well, at least not big, corporate enterprises. i believe the main thrust for this change is coming from small to medium businesses, then individuals. at least, its what im experiencing in my job.

a number of bigger enterprises (that are smaller than google, but bigger than avg joe inc medium business) are probably switching to open source due to costs and security as well, probably.

but the main drive to get one's business to internet is causing huge boost for ecommerce site production and maintenance, like oscommerce. even though its not a perfect piece of code, its very widely used, and curiously, loved.

We're ditching proprietary for open source

[KlomDark]

The company I work for has a huge monolith of code all done in C#/ASP.NET. We are currently in the process of scrapping it all to go Java and Ruby on Rails.

Seems like a huge expenditure for little gain, but I guess I'll wait to see what it looks like on the other side. At least I'll have experience with both when this is over. I've got lots of open source administration experience, but little open source programming experience. I'm too spoiled with the Visual Studio training wheels. It's going to be tough to go to a shittier IDE.

5-15%?

[tthomas48]

I guess I must live in an open source town. I can't remember a job posting in IT that didn't require a background in some sort of open source software. The only popular closed-source programming language is .NET, and even most of those projects seem to use things like nHibernate and nUnit.

Most sites and most jobs are not "Enterprise"!!

[Jane Q. Public]

Who cares what the "enterprise-level" companies are doing? I mean, yes they are a significant part of the job market but hardly all. Just as with most other types of business, most coding and site jobs are for smaller companies.

Mr Rodrigues doesn't know what he's talking about.

[jotaeleemeese]

The tendency in big enterprises is for ultra specialization, the reason being simple: that way people become interchangeable (or so they think, people are not machines after all).

Small and medium companies yes, for sure, you want somebody that is more of a Jack of all trades.

told you so

[corbettw]

From the summary:

'That's why the 5% to 15% really doesn't sit well with me,' Rodrigues writes. 'I suspect that larger companies are looking for developers with a mix of experience with proprietary and open source products, tools and frameworks,' as opposed to those who would work with open source for 90 percent of the work day.

So people with a mix of skill sets are considered valuable by employers, eh? And yet, in this post, where I advocated requiring IT staff to rotate in their job functions and learn Linux, Windows, Cisco, etc. etc. etc, people jumped down my throat saying "that's too hard" or "geeks won't like that".

Interesting.

Re:told you so

[Fulcrum of Evil]

That's because you just don't get it: having different skills for similar roles is far different than rotating through different roles. That's as stupid as the japanese habit of rotating people through engineering, AP, and PR.

Re:told you so

[corbettw]

Oh please, engineering, accounting, and PR are completely different career fields. Linux, Windows, and Cisco aren't, and any decent sysadmin should be able to switch back and forth between those skill sets with relative ease.

Re:told you so

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Network, AD, and system support are very different specialties. Are you saying that the Cisco guy should cross train with the DBA on AD?

Re:told you so

[corbettw]

So you've never worked in a shop where one or two guys did all of that? Seriously? In my professional life, I've been (at various times) the dba (Oracle, Informix, MySQL), the sysadmin, the sysengineer, the Windows guy, the Linux guy, the Solaris guy, the AIX guy, the mail guy (Qmail, Sendmail, Exim, Exchange, various anti-spam systems), the mainframe guy, the network guy (3COM, Cisco, Foundry), and the programmer (Python, C, Java, Perl, SQL). Not to mention all the times when I've worn the project manager hat, and the times when I've managed teams of admins and programmers.

None of those skills are orthogonal to each other, you can learn them all, and you can be good at them all, and excellent at (at least) several.

Re:told you so

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If you're in a position where there are separate roles for DBA, AD, etc, then you can be better at each if you stick to one. Sure, you can do all of them, but it's less efficient. If I were in a small startup, sure, I'd do DBA (and software dev too), but I'm not, and i'm more productive for it.

Re:told you so

[NateTech]

"Vote Libertarian. The freedoms you save may be your own."

I want the freedom to have a government that taxes me and uses it for things like roads and schools.

Oh, you don't want me to have those freedoms? Go away then...

As far as your job rotation idea -- it's actually a good one. Required time in mentored positions (journeyman if you want to use union-speak) and some structure around how IT people learn their knowledge and some real honest skills tests required by companies (or by law) as people work their way into more important roles wouldn't be bad either.

Aww, but why would we do that? That would make us all professionals like every other professional occupation on the planet. Imagine if you could be sued for being negligent when writing important banking or security code... because you didn't follow "building codes" for software.

Sure would be interesting, wouldn't it?

Open source is not a certificate but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Having the skills to work on a high profile open source project tells something about your skills. This rule might not hold 100% of the time, but engineers that work in these high profile projects tend to be very good engineers.

Sheesh

[Anonymous Coward]

How are "Open Source" software skills different from other software skills? Last time I checked, everyone was writing in the same computer languages as everyone else. :P

Job Posts

[skyggen]

As the IT manager of a medium sized company All the developer posts I write include as one of the questions Emacs or Vi? Why are we going open source? - Moving all applications to be web based - Why? Man are we ever sick of worrying about whether that last patch is going to break all of our software. - Some of our software will not run on Vista (Damn you small specific vendors) - Tired of paying money for a Monstrous workstation when all they really need is a web browser and email. - Tired of re-imaging (yeah fuck fixing or protecting windows) desktops because some CSR decided their dead grandma was sending them porno links from the great beyond. - Tired of being tied in and locked out of our software. - No one can customize software for your business like yourself. - And last but not least. I'm the FUCKING manager and I use Linux. Actually my whole IT department uses either Linux or OSX.

Breakdown

[jasonmanley]

Care to give us a breakdown of your setup i.e.
What version of Linux are you using on the desktop?
What technology stack are you using for your solutions? Python/php/Java/Apache/MySQL
What IDE / Toolset are your developers using?

That sort of thing ...

Netbeans FTW

[jasonmanley]

Dude try Netbeans you will not regret it!

Re:Netbeans FTW

[KlomDark]

I do! Unfortunately from what I've heard we're going to be forced into using Eclipse, which tries to be all things for all developers, and seems to fail miserably at that.

Re:Netbeans FTW

[NateTech]

Pretty typical of open-source applications, isn't it?

But it can do X, Y, Z, and the rest of the alphabet!

Yeah, but does it do any of them WELL?

Nah... not really. But you can pay for XYZ company's version they forked and worked hard on, and it does.

Hedging their bets

[PPH]

A 5 to 15 percent figure for open source skills doesn't necessarily mean 5 to 15 percent of the projects will be open source. More likely, IT managers are getting smart, keeping their options open and making sure that they have a back door out of the lock in trap. A broader range of experience is also a sign of someone with a better background in CS rather than a one language/one tool technician.

This sounds like a smart tactic. In fact, I'm surprised that the figure isn't higher. And I'm particularly happy that the proprietary platform fanbois are getting their panties in a bunch over only 15 percent.

Open source is code

[Anonymous Coward]

The "open source" in a job posting says more about a company and its culture than free meals, foosball tables or casual attire ever did.

Open source software skills

[weicco]

What on earth is open source software skill?

Re:Open source software skills

[nimbius]

the sudden outbreak of common sense that yes, while a $25000 all-in-one load balancing appliance can do the job, the companies cost-advantage is to just pay you to use stuff that already exists for free, and has been around longer in most cases. the downside is you dont get any cool vendor swag, and lunch that day is provided by you. it does however save about an hour and 20 minutes in powerpoint BS from a guy who spends more time in airports than he does at a computer.

Re:Open source software skills

[weicco]

And this relates to "open source software skills" exactly how? You are talking about development costs, not open source. I can download a heck load of closed software for free and use them without any costs. Let's take for example Microsoft products Visual Studio Express and SQL Server Express which both are free to download and

So is "open source software skill" same as doing things cost-effectively? If yes, then every employer is advocating those skills and so am I.

Re:Many businesses are open-source based accidenta

[NateTech]

Yeah there's never been any crappy Java code on the DailyWTF.

Now that Java is open-source it makes rainbows shoot out of my ass, and my poop smell minty fresh.