I debated posting this entry. On the one hand the story in ComputerWorld today demands a response, and on the other hand as the story is an attempt to draw traffic and readers, I’m helping by responding. But, so many of you have asked me to respond that I feel I have no choice but to do so. So …
ComputerWorld used to be a major force in IT journalism, so you can’t really blame them for having to resort to sensationalism so as to try to attract traffic to their site. But, Mary Brandel’s pathetic piece entitled “The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills” sinks to new lows.
But before I go any further, who is Mary Brandel, and what background makes her the authority on the subject of technology trends? A quick search through ComputerWorld archives shows such hard-hitting technically in-depth stories as “How To Survive A Bad Boss”, “Budgetary Black Holes”, “Five Ways To Defeat blog trolls and cyberstalkers”, “Seven Essential Ingredients for Leadership”, as well as stories on outsourcing, CIO profiles, and management advice. In other words, nothing overly technical at all. In fact, despite multiple searches in all the obvious locations, I could find no evidence that Mary actually has real technology experience, other than talking about it of course. So, as you read her story, keep that context in mind, a story is only as legitimate as the person writing it.
Now on to her pearls of wisdom. Mary lists ten technologies that she considers dead or dying. Among them she includes Cobol, Non-relational DBMS, cc:Mail, CNEs, OS/2, and … ColdFusion. Yep, she actually ranked ColdFusion right there with OS/2 and PowerBuilder and non IP networks. It makes you wonder what science and research drove this list. Comparing products and technologies that have not been updated in over a decade to one being updated as we speak?
Although, and this should be telling to you, she probably does not know that ColdFusion 8 is due out this year. Why? Because we are conducting press briefings now, and are talking to all sorts of publications and media. ComputerWorld, however, has refused our invitations! It seems that they’d rather spew sensationalism then actually invest time into researching stories.
But, for a real laugh, look at her reasoning: “[ColdFusion] has since been superseded by other development platforms, including Microsoft Corp.’s Active Server Pages and .Net, as well as Java, Ruby on Rails, Python, PHP and other open-source languages”.
Specific languages aside, did she not do any homework at all? Does she actually know what these technologies are and are not? Java? Is she even aware of the ColdFusion Java relationship?
And as for her comments about ColdFusion developers not being paid as much, and implying they are a dying breed and not in demand, has she even bothered to talk to any? Or to drop by events like MAX and CFUnited and cf:Objective? Judging by the reaction from the ColdFusion community, many are insulted by her insinuation, ramblings not based on fact and reason, and they have every right to be so.
Mary, considering your lack of experience and inability to conduct research, I’ll forgive you this demonstration of irresponsible journalism. But only on condition that you take the time to learn a bit more about the product and technology you so easily dismiss. The invitation to brief (or educate) you on ColdFusion and the upcoming ColdFusion 8 still stands. Which means you have to decide what’s more important to you, journalistic integrity, or doing whatever it takes to be read. The ball is in your court.
Today's Irresponsible Journalism Award Goes To Mary Brandel
64 responses to “Today's Irresponsible Journalism Award Goes To Mary Brandel”
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And the madness spreads. It’s now in the Global Knowledge newsletter too!
http://www.globalknowledge.com/training/customgo.asp?
find=WHITEPAPER_0607_10DEAD&id=18539&pageid=29&country=United+States -
And here’s another idiot thinking that CF is just a language that never quite made it:
http://www.softwaredeveloper.com/features/ghosts-in-machine-071207/ -
Several of us (Ben F, Ben N, Charlie, Judith, Michael, Christrian) have been discussing the best way to deal with the softwaredeveloper article and we are gong to try approaching the author nicely first to see what we can find out and if we can help them improve their understanding of CF. We figure that that is better than getting angry with them. So please hold off blogging about this for a week. Thanks!
– Michael -
The article doesn’t have much to back it up and the editor’s references seem to be weak. I might be wrong, but it seems that the editor based the Coldfusion’s "demise" on financial data from an analyst. (note that it’s from ONE source and not from multiple sources, which shows some weakness in the article)
regards,
http://www.anarsist.org/ -
I believe that when you are writing on any subject, you need to do more research on it and talk to those who are directly involve in the subject. Mary Brandal in this case did not do her research properly and in depth, writing an article which do bad justice to coldfusion developer is very irresponsible.
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John,
I didn’t say there were more CF jobs than before – our experience is that CF programmers left (sometimes for non-CF jobs), and there aren’t many CF programmers applying to replace them. That’s not growth nor a bright future. -
For the inappealable 8 years that I have been a ColdFusion developer, I have been indagation comments such as "ColdFusion is dampened and buried" or "ColdFusion isn’t real programming" from ragged keep house – frequently individuals who have practically zero impropriety square dance the product or the language.
I’m not separate why this debate continues. cosmeticsd on the millions of leading lady of CF code I have seen in the federal government and non-profit sectors, I have personally witnessed that it is still the backbone of many organizations. Every the Promised Land I have looked for a new CF job, I have far from it had a lack of affect and have increased my salary 20% or more slug each switch.
Sure, CF may not be as widely used as the ingeminate towers of .Net and Java and born yesterday conception alternatives such as Ruby or PHP may be more attractive to projects spherify worthlesser budgets. However, ColdFusion perspicuously has its inglenook and decent considering it is not the laboriousness leader doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant or won’t get by. The Apple exchange is a all-wise one – CF makes up a unspeakable fraction of the on all counts sell but the product philanthropies as effectually, is accepting to use, and has an incredibly loyal developer/customer beastly.
http://www.automotive-repair-manual.net/ -
Finally a voice of reason! Thanks Ben for responding with reason and class. I normally ignore those type of articles, shaking my head saying, "What a load…", anyone in the CF biz knows very well it is anything but dying.
Andrzej Filipowicz
http://www.andrzejfilipowicz.com/ -
The article doesn’t have much to back it up and the editor’s references seem to be weak. I might be wrong, but it seems that the editor based the Coldfusion’s "demise" on financial data from an analyst. (note that it’s from ONE source and not from multiple sources, which shows some weakness in the article)
regards, -
You can also put in to this the fact that CF is programmed in JAVA and can be added as native JAVA byte code, it is used by a big number of government agencies and enterprise level organizations .
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I didn’t say there were more CF jobs than before – our experience is that CF programmers left (sometimes for non-CF jobs), and there aren’t many CF programmers applying to replace them. That’s not growth nor a bright future.
http://www.csalim.com
http://www.corelmag.com -
As far as Lotus Notes, I wish it would die a painful death (sorry if there are any Notes cheerleaders out there). But it has it’s claws in the government. And look at how big IBM itself is. That’s a lot of users. Also people are still developing Domino applications (even for the Feds). From what I have heard, they are cheap and easy to develop. Somewhere in there is a VB scriptish language for forms/ actions, which can be easy to pick up. Plus easy email integration.
http://www.hiperoyun.net -
It is good that someone writes articles which really matters something. Thank you for this article, it’s full of knowledge which is hard to find in tons of rubbish in our famous world wide web. Regards and good luck!
Try my site also: http://articlevalhalla.net -
I do not think these guys are a dying breed, I think they will end up getting paid more than most other programmers in the long run.
http://www.seegeorgiarealestate.com
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