TechRepublic Blog puts ColdFusion on life support

Another day passes, another blog post published on a tech site about the impending death of ColdFusion. But this one comes as more of a slap in the face than previous posts, as it comes from the blog of a very reputable technology publication: TechRepublic.

TechRepublic, a site brought to you by the conglomerate known as CBS, is a reputable publication that many IT professionals go to for information.  In addition to their unique content, the site brings in articles from various feeds on the web, and is a great source of tech related news.  One of the sources of that information is a company called Global Knowledge, a "worldwide leader in business training".  They specialize in Microsoft and Cisco Training (nerd note: that was foreshadowing).

Global Knowledge is the source of a recent article titled "10 dying IT skills". Written by Linda Leung, this article is an attempt to compile a list of dying IT skills in the tech industry. The theme of the post is a popular one for tech blogs, as it requires little to no effort to construct on the quick. For the most part, the article does an adequate job of listing skills on the verge of death. COBOL, HTML, Novell NetWare, etc. COBOL only still exists because it is too expensive for some banks to switch from and HTML should be scrapped for XHTML or DHTML. But then the article jumps the shark with its inclusion of ColdFusion as a dying skill. And thus the ignorance of another tech author is exposed.

To suggest that ColdFusion belongs anywhere close to this list is insane, and proves no real research went into writing this post.  For starters, comparing ColdFusion to COBOL is irresponsible.  Spouting nonsense this ridiculous is punishable by flogging in some countries.  Then, it suggests that Adobe doesn't have the money to compete with the marketing of Microsoft and Sun.  Interesting theory.  And this says nothing of the logic in saying that ColdFusion is a dying skill simply because the job searches performed by the author for CF jobs was less than that for PHP jobs.

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Not sure where Adobe is going with this ColdFusion campaign

In the past, Adobe has received some criticism about not promoting or advertising its ColdFusion application server framework. So, in an effort to combat that critisicm, Adobe launched a new campaign. And that campaign...features the Governator. Yes, that's right, Adobe recruited the likes of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to help get the word out on power of ColdFusion. Or, as they put it, to help"programmers be significantly less girlie."

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