The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills.

ComputerWorld has a list of the Top 10 Dead (or Dying) Computer Skills. Anyone care to guess what technology holds position number five?

You guessed it. Number 5 is ColdFusion.

To quote: "This once-popular Web programming language -- released in the mid-1990s by Allaire Corp. (which was later purchased by Macromedia Inc., which itself was acquired by Adobe Systems Inc.) -- has since been superseded by other development platforms, including Microsoft Corp.'s Active Server Pages and .Net, as well as Java, Ruby on Rails, Python, PHP and other open-source languages."

While you and I are anxiously awaiting Scorpio and CFMX 8 and the new features it brings, the rest of the world has apparently moved on.

According to Foote. "It was really popular at one time, but the market is now crowded with other products," he says.

Which is true. As I wrote in "Is ColdFusion still relevant?" ColdFusion has been caught in the triple crossfire between free and open-source solutions like PHP, Python, and sexy little languages like Ruby; Microsoft's .NET platform (also free); and high-end enterprise-class solutions like IBM's WebSphere and BEA's WebLogic.

ColdFusion is a powerful web platform and technological tool set that allows you to rapidly build enterprise-class applications... but what happens when the rest of the market doesn't see it that way? What happens when it's seen as "just another" scripting language, and further: an expensive one that has to compete against "free" technologies like .NET, Java, and open-source languages like PHP and Ruby?

There may be thousands of web sites and businesses that are using ColdFusion today... but that's no guarantee that they'll continue to do so. Just consider the complete list of "dying" technologies, and reflect on how popular and pervasive they once were as well:

1. Cobol
2. Nonrelational DBMS's
3. Non-IP networks
4. cc:Mail
5. ColdFusion
6. C programming
7. PowerBuilder
8. Certified NetWare Engineers
9. PC network administrators
10. OS/2

Like it or not, believe it or not, but the perception is out there, and it will only grow stronger if Adobe and we, as the ColdFusion community, don't get together to fight it.

Which brings us to the real questions: Can we do so? Will we do so? And what will it take to do so?

That's it for now. Think about it. Or feel free to go back and resume drooling over Scorpio's new CFImage tag. But just consider that .NET, Java, PHP, Python, and Ruby can do those things as well...

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Continued in Will Adobe do a better job of marketing ColdFusion? Can they do any worse?