Why Do Companies Do That?

The Linux Foundation has announced a new job posting website dedicated for Linux. That's right - people get paid to work with Linux.

But, why do companies do this to themselves? The listings include things such as one for a "Director of Technology" that states "you should be comfortable with OO Perl, databases (especially MySQL), ORMs such as DBIx, etc." or one requiring "Strong Scripting skills, Perl or Korn Shell."

Others state you must be conversant in "ASP.NET", "MS SQL 2005 / 2008" and "Active Directory" though I'm unsure why anyone wanting to hire a Linux person, where the best ones traditionally will be very anti-Microsoft, would need those skills. Perhaps the poster missed the fact that the domain name ended with "linux.com"

The biggest thing that jumps out at me is how many of the job postings required expertise in obscure or outdated technologies. I'm sorry, but I lump Perl in with that bunch. There has to become a point at which it's easier to build from scratch a version 2.0 of whatever it is that you do, than to try to continue to maintain 150,000 lines of Perl code even when integrated with DBIx. Languages like PHP and even Python allow developers to write cleaner, easier to read code in half the time.

It's thinking like that which causes companies to fall behind the curve. Businesses like Youtube appear overnight and grab market share or create new markets simply because they aren't tied down by old technologies.

Of course the reverse can be true as well - constantly updating your software to try and stay on the bleeding edge is even a worse idea. But I think it's safe to say, if you still have COBOL in your organization anywhere, you really don't have a place in today's marketplace. I don't care how COmmon or Business Oriented COBOL was as a Language. And even Blaise would probably consider his namesake to be too difficult to use in business. And I say that with the utmost respect as a Pascal developer for almost 15 years.

But, I think the one job posting that takes the cake requires "Excellent communication skills." We are talking about Linux geeks here, right? ;-)