Which dev skills have the longest shelf-life?

[Ignis Fatuus]

Even with long lived skills the basic language might not change that much but APIs and development environments evolve, so although there are core skills that will always be useful you still need to invest a bit of effort in keeping up to date in order to be able to apply them to a real project.

WHS.

I have 20 years experience in COBOL but I can't get any contracts in it now. Likewise 5 years experience in C. But it's never just COBOL or C, it's MQ Series Websphere COBOL, or C and ERP, or whatever.

Oh, and only your last contract counts of course.

[SupremeSpod]

If you have a really good grounding in "C" you can't go far wrong.

[aussielong]

If you have a really good grounding in "C" you can't go far wrong.

What, like you do?

I'll tell you what, you nominate a time when you are free and I'm going to post you a few C questions on here to see just how little you really know. I expect real time replies.

[Scrag Meister]

Greetings!

I am a techie at heart and enjoy programming & software development. However, I also feel that life is too short to be re-training every few years in the latest here-today-gone-in-a-few-years programming-language or development-technology.

I've been trying to think of which skills are likely to have the longest shelf-life, from a point of view of earning a living. I'm not too bothered about earning the highest rate (whether contract or permie), but I am concerned with having enough opportunities such that I can work in whatever area of the UK I like (e.g. Manchester, Birmingham, London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Leeds).

An idea I had is that the newer and more advanced languages/dev-technologies seem to have a shorter shelf-life, such that they get updated or even replaced by something else a lot more frequently than the older and simpler languages. For example, VB skills were in huge demand in the late 1990's but nowadays it seems to be C#.Net and Java that are the more in-demand programming skills. How many versions of C# & .Net have there been over the last 10 years? Meanwhile, older skills such as C, C++ and COBOL are still lingering around and not being updated or replaced anywhere near as frequently.

I'm thinking that maybe my time would be better spent learning an older language such as C, C++ or COBOL, which may not be in as high a demand or as well-paid as C# or Java programming, but might keep me in work longer with less need to keep re-training.

What do you esteemed CUK'ers think?

Thanks,
TTheTTTTT

I've been commerically programming BASIC of different flavours for 25 years and it's still going strong. Longer if you include learning on a C64 31 years ago.

Commodore 64
QuickBasic
PDS7.1
VBDOS
VB3,4,6
Odds and end of VB.NET but never for long
VBA Mainly Excel, Access. My bread and butter for the last 11 years.

Not that I would recommend that as something new to learn, java, c#, python are very popular at current ClientCo.

I've been doing ABAP for 15 years.

Who is ABAP? Does the wife know?

[Lockhouse]

In general, (and there are lots of people here who have successfully peddled the same skills for years), I stick to modern technology and slowly change my skills over time. As far as I'm concerned it's adapt or die. I'm data-centric; at the moment sticking with SQL and the MS toolset. I'm on SQL 2008, BI and C#, also Excel VBA is a large part of what I do. Over the past 25 years I've only learned three new programming languages; Clipper, VB and C# (I started on COBOL). I think even the laziest person could manage that. When something else comes along that looks like it's going to overtake C#, I'll just change languages, but that's not my real value to a project (non techie communication skills are my real thing). The intrinsic skill of using electronically generated symbols in a logical format to instruct computers doesn't change, you've either got it or you haven't.

[d000hg]

SQl and C++ I'd say. Especially now mobile development brings C++ back as a modern dev language again.

[Ignis Fatuus]

In general, (and there are lots of people here who have successfully peddled the same skills for years), I stick to modern technology and slowly change my skills over time. As far as I'm concerned it's adapt or die. I'm data-centric; at the moment sticking with SQL and the MS toolset. I'm on SQL 2008, BI and C#, also Excel VBA is a large part of what I do. Over the past 25 years I've only learned three new programming languages; Clipper, VB and C# (I started on COBOL). I think even the laziest person could manage that. When something else comes along that looks like it's going to overtake C#, I'll just change languages. The intrinsic skill of using electronically generated symbols in a logical format to instruct computers doesn't change, you've either got it or you haven't.

That's right, but alas the gatekeepers don't know that.

I'm data-centric too, and I've sometimes tried to explain to agents that, for example, I do have 14 or whatever years experience in unix (shell programming I guess they mean) but that's not my skill, it's just a tool in the toolkit.

Can't think why I bother.

Anyway, you are right, your real skill lies behing the toolkit, but you have to keep the toolkit up to date or the gatekeepers will ignore you.

[Lockhouse]

Anyway, you are right, your real skill lies behing the toolkit, but you have to keep the toolkit up to date or the gatekeepers will ignore you.

I've edited my post slightly but the gist is the same.

It sounds like I'm similar; I don't sell myself as an out and out developer, more tech lead\tech BA\data consultant. I'm not after vanilla developer jobs but I can always fall back on that if I need to.

The "trick" though is picking the right tecnhology and taking or making opportunities when they arise. For example; I knew I was moving to an Agile team so I sent myself on a ScrumMaster course and got my certificate. When the current ScrumMaster left, hey presto! Not that I'm advocating Agile, but my point is you have to keep thinking just a bit ahead.

[DimPrawn]

Database related work.

Never known any Oracle or many SQL server dev/admin peeps ever be on the bench for more than a few days at a time.

Most of the time they sit on their arse waiting for something to go wrong whilst producing invoices.

[SupremeSpod]

FORTRAN IV.

I've nearly got it to the stage where the rocket doesn't crash any more.

Don't confuse metric and imperial, it's easily done.