Advice

Here is a list of some dubious career advice that I've been given over the years. The degree of dubiousness varies.

1981 : "Stay away from COBOL...it's a dead language."

1982: "Structured analysis, structured design, structured code...everything else is crap"

1983: "There won't be any more batch processing within 5 years, everything will be online"

1984: "Find another line of work. 4GLs will make programmers obsolete."

1985: "What, you're still using VSAM? Get a database!"

1986: "Hierarchical data bases are obsolete. If you're not relational, you're not in the game!"

1987: "*Still* using COBOL? You dumb #$@!"

1988: "CASE tools will solve the application backlog"

1989: "Code reuse will solve the application backlog"

1990: "Forget CASE tools. Desktop development is much faster!"

1991: "The mainframe is dead. Go client server"

1992: "Find another line of work. Overseas outsourcing will put you out of a job"

1993: "OO analysis, design and development will solve the application backlog"

1994: "What? You're still using IMS??"

1995: "Forget Cobol. Learn C".

1996: "Forget C. Learn C++".

1997: "Y2K will be the end of the world as we know it"

1998: "Okay, maybe COBOL isn't dead....but it will be after Y2K is finished"

1999: "All future application development will be in JAVA"

2000: "The mainframe is the best platform for e-business"

2001-present: I stopped listening to advice. :-)

The jury is still out on some of these items.....