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Top Web Tech Skills: 10 Years ago

This is an article I'm posting just for fun. We'll get back to bootstrap startup advice next time.

I ran across a spreadsheet I made in 2000, when I was just figuring out what skills I would need to become a professional web programmer and get paid the big bucks. I had pored over numerous job postings on Dice.com, and from that I created this data:

Top Web Skills 2000

Here's the raw data (bold items are graphed):

Skill Job Postings
Perl 134
Unix 74
SQL 65
Java 58
Oracle 45
JavaScript 39
Apache 26
mod Perl 18
XML 13
NT 11
DBI 9
Solaris 9
SyBase 8
PHP 7
ASP 7
Photoshop 5
ColdFusion 4
Python 3
IIS 2
Flash 1
DreamWeaver 1
Visual Basic 1

C++ at the time had 35, and is not included because it wasn't necessarily web-focused. And HTML is not included because I already knew it.

Also, in order to determine what field I should be in and the best place in the country to work, I consulted this PDF - the Information Technology 2000 Salary Survey from Kforce.

(click for full size)

Skills, pay, and location in 2000

Glad I ended up on the West Coast, which at the time was the money spot.

For those curious, my first professional gig (after a good year and a half of studying web programming) was for a company just south of Seattle, and the pay was $50,000 per year. Not bad for entry-level, 9 years ago.

Hope you enjoyed this little jaunt in the time machine.

Next post: how I finally grew to love JavaScript

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