Dead end tools and technologies you wished you hadn't bothered with

[bogeyman]

.Net
Java
Oracle
C++
Prince2
English

All totally useless in this market

On the other hand, the things I learned that have been worth most to me are: -

1) Various assemblers:
You can't really understand how a computer works without be fluent in at least one assembly language.

2) The C language:
The basis for so many other languages. Small syntax, enormous power.

3) Regular Expressions:
So useful. Saves so much coding.

What I wish I had never learned:

VB
Perl

[Spacecadet]

Yeah, I don't really know why Delphi died. It was like VB but done properly, good for throwing together visual apps IIRC. Showing my age (or lack thereof), the only time I used Delphi was at school.

Delphi sold off part of the business to codegear who released a 2007 version and a new version is coming out this year

I remember delphi from when I first started working in IT, only seen it at one company and wasn't something that I had to use.

One of their old company blurbs about Delphi made me smile:
"When you want to speak to (the) Oracle, go to Delphi"

[OwlHoot]

.. What I wish I had never learned:

VB
Perl

I've been making a pretty good living from perl for several years, so no complaints from me.

Still wondering whether to branch into .Net or Java if perl fades away (which it may do before long).

Java sounds better, if only because Microsoft keeps coming up with new elaborations like Silverlight etc.

I've long since grown out of giving two hoots about the technical advantages of one over another - I'll happily work with a pile of pony, and often have, if it pays the bills. Apart from anything else, even the most elegant language or framework can be debased and misused by thick developers, and it's their systems one must typically deal with.

[minestrone]

EJBs, especially entity beans.

Total waste of space. Still have it on my CV though.

I'm working on a greenfield EJB project at the moment. Previous 3 gigs were maintaining EJB apps. I love EJBs because so many people could ever get their heads round them. I truly am a EJBmeister

[threaded]

ASN.1

I remember that. Seemed kind of weird.

One of my favs, great for all sorts of dodgy reverse engineering tasks. And in forward engineering mode it's part of what I'm doing for a client currently.

Like they say, those that don't know ASN.1 are doomed to re-implement it ... badly.

And on that point there's, dum dum der, believe it or not, even a new mobile XML protocol that is basically a wrapper on a CDATA that contains ... ASN.1. Which makes me laugh no end whenever I think about it.

[eliquant]

Borland C++ and the OWL libraries, nicely kept OUT of my CV as to some employers its like I've taken a year out.


Ditto Microsoft Access.

[Green Mango]

Motif/X-lib
Occam
Coral 66

Spent a fortune on the books and went without pay to do the courses.

Never used them again.

[Sysman]

Motif/X-lib

Aargh! Did you know that the X11 server spec never considered running out of resources?

[cojak]

...and in a non-techie mode...

I consider courses that I did not get a ROI on.

ISO/IEC 20000 Consultant and Internal Auditer.

Not a sniff - no calls for this at all...

[sappatz]

software

the ultimate vaporware : Prince of wales II