The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills

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Mary Brandel looks at what's becoming obsolete

By Mary Brandel | Framingham | Monday, 4 June, 2007

1. Cobol

Y2k was like a second gold rush for Cobol programmers who were seeing dwindling need for their skills. But six-and-a-half years later, there’s no saviour in sight for this fading language. At the same time, while there’s little curriculum coverage any more at universities teaching computer science.

2. Non-relational DBMS

In the 1980s, there were two major database management system approaches: hierarchical systems, such as IBM’s IMS and SAS Institute’s System 2000, and network systems, such as CA’s IDMS and Oracle’s DBMS. Today, however, both have been replaced by the relational DBMS approach, embodied by SQL databases such as DB2, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.

3. Non-IP networks

TCP/IP has largely taken over the networking world, and as a result, there’s less demand than ever for IBM Systems Network Architecture (SNA) skills. “It’s worth virtually nothing on the market,” says David Foote, president of recruitment firm Foote Partners.

4. cc:Mail

This store-and-forward LAN-based email system from the 1980s was once used by about 20 million people. However, as email was integrated into more complex systems such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange, its popularity waned, and in 2000, it was withdrawn from the market. cc:Mail continues to be commercially supported by Global System Services in California.

5. ColdFusion

This once-popular web programming language — released in the mid-1990s by Allaire (later purchased by Macromedia, which itself was acquired by Adobe Systems) — has since been superceded by other development platforms, including Microsoft’s Active Server Pages and .Net, as well as Java, Ruby on Rails, Python, PHP and other open-source languages.

6. C programming

As the web takes over, C languages are also becoming less relevant, according to Stewart Padveen, internet entrepreneur and currently founder of online advertising start-up AdPickles. “C++ and C Sharp are still alive and kicking, but try to find a basic C-only programmer today, and you’ll likely find a guy that’s unemployed and/or training for a new skill,” he says.

7. PowerBuilder

Recruiters that have been around since the 1990s, such as David Hayes, president of HireMinds, remember when PowerBuilder programmers were “hot, hot, hot,” as he says. Developed by Powersoft, this client/server development tool was bought by Sybase in 1994. Today, PowerBuilder developers are at the very bottom of the list of in-demand application development and platform skills, with pay about equal to Cobol programmers, according to recruiter David Foote.

8. Certified NetWare Engineers

In the early 1990s, it was all the rage to become a Certified NetWare Engineer, especially with Novell enjoying 90% market share for PC-based servers. Today, however, you don’t have to look far to find CNEs retraining themselves. “It seems like it happened overnight,” HireMind’s Hayes says. “Everyone had Novell, and within a two-year period, they’d all switched to NT.” Novell says it will continue supporting NetWare 6.5 through to at least 2015, but has retired several of its NetWare certifications.

9. PC network administrators

With the accelerating move to consolidate Windows servers, some see less demand for PC network administrators. “You see the evidence for that in the demise of those programmes at [US technical institutes] and the loss of instructors,” says Nate Viall.

10. OS/2

A rough translation of OS/2 could be “wrong horse”. Initially created by Microsoft and IBM and released with great fanfare in 1987, the collaboration soon unravelled, and after repeated rumors of its demise, IBM finally discontinued sales in 2005.