This week I was contacted by a colleague that I had worked with nine years ago. Both of us had dealings with a recruiter from years ago. The recruiter was trying to contact me about a contract opportunity, but had very out of date contact information for me, so he was able to link up with me through LinkedIn. After receiving a couple of messages in my LinkedIn Inbox, I was able to have a brief phone call with the recruiter.
He discussed two contracts at the same company he was trying to find placements for. The Markham based company develops Point Of Sale (POS) systems utilizing the application development tool Delphi. Two contracts were being tendered, one for six months, the other for twelve months.
I have had a long history with Delphi and software development. In my first job out of college, in 1987, I wrote over thirty thousand lines of Turbo Pascal. Turbo Pascal was the brainchild of Anders Hejslberg while working at Borland. As Windows became a prevalent platform to develop on Anders went on to create arguably the best RAD tool ever created: Delphi. My first work with Delphi was in 1995. I developed using Delphi for eleven years, from 1995 - 2006. To say that I knew the tool well was an understatement; I knew iterative techniques, writing well structured code, became very strong with Microsoft SQL Server, and generally tried to broaden and deepen my skills in software development.
All these points became irrelevant once it became apparent that the client would refuse to meet with developers that had no POS experience.
To me this is a good example of corporate myopia and shortsighted thinking, which in my opinion is widespread in this field.
I offer the following points/questions:
- Is Delphi a prevalent RAD tool any longer? Most would agree it isn't:
o Borland has sold off most of their compilers/IDEs, including Delphi
o Anders Hejslberg has since gone on to head the C# development team at Microsoft
o Delphi was superb at desktop application development, but now that web driven application development is the fashion-du-jour, most Delphi developers are now C# developers; C# is arguably the preeminent language of choice for web based development
- By focusing on such a small niche of software developers, those who are up to date on Delphi, made even smaller by those with experience in POS, the company is writing off a large group of intelligent, adaptable, and diverse talent that may be experienced in much more than POS application development
- Is the challenge of finding local software developers compounded even more by the exodus of software developers from the field? In my opinion, the writing is on the wall:
o "26 Ways To Know Your Software Development Project Is Doomed"
o "Are quirky Developers Brilliant or Dangerous?"
o "Coder, your days are numbered"
o "The death of the generalist software developer"'
o "Why a career in computer programming sucks"
o "If there's an IT labour shortage, where's MY job?"
Limited, inside-the-box and myopic thinking are rampant in the industry of software development. Due to the very limited breadth of people's perspective in this field, the field is withering.
Disclaimer
I write this article knowing I am biased against web based software development, and many people are enjoying their work producing websites. My viewpoints are my own perspective, and don't necessarily reflect an objective common ground viewpoint. I offer them here as a unique perspective, to be taken with several grains of salt. I encourage you to come to your own opinions on the "state of the union" in software development by reading the plethora of information available freely on blogs and the internet in general.
As a parting comment, I want to add that the colleague I knew from nine years ago is having challenging times these days. He commutes weekly from Toronto to Kingston, approximately a three hour drive.
He rents an apartment in Kingston, and returns home to his wife and children on weekends. Where has the idea gone that software developers could write code for their company at the beach?
That's my $0.02, and I hope it doesn't come off as sour grapes.
Richard