I like to play around with LinkedIn’s Trends tool. Since I’ve been all gung ho about JavaScript lately, I wanted to get a general sense how those jobs have been trending.

Here’s the terms I used.

• C#
• Java
• JavaScript
• Objective C
• ASP.NET
• ColdFusion
• Ruby
• Python

Those are some of the biggest technologies out there. Here’s what I got and I was very surprised. JavaScript is actually the 2nd highest trending job at just over 2% of all postings. The only more prevalent term was Java at approximately 3.75%, and C# right behind JavaScript at about 1.6%. Now this is absolute numbers…

javascript,coldfusion,java,c#,asp.net,objective c,ruby,python Job Trends

Javascript jobs – Coldfusion jobs – Java jobs – C# jobs – ASP.net jobs – Objective C jobs – Ruby jobs – Python jobs

Now take a look at the relative numbers. As you can see, Ruby postings have been growing at a staggering rate compared to all others at over 2500% growth. Python and Objective C have also seen large growth in postings at over 500% growth.

JavaScript comes in at a respectable amount of growth at approximately 160%. For such a pervasive technology, especially for its age, it really goes to show how important JavaScript is as a skill for the next generation of software that will be mobile and cloud based. If you aren’t learning JavaScript as part of your tool set, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

The biggest loser, unfortunately, is ColdFusion at about 1% growth while many times in the past 4 years dropping into the negative growth realm.

javascript,coldfusion,java,c#,asp.net,objective c,ruby,python Job Trends

Javascript jobs – Coldfusion jobs – Java jobs – C# jobs – ASP.net jobs – Objective C jobs – Ruby jobs – Python jobs

Lastly, just for fun, I decided to throw Node.js into mix and see how it’s relative growth in job postings is going. All I can say is holy crap! It dwarfs everything else on the list at 4000% growth – and it took over the lead for most growth back in January and is still skyrocketing!!

javascript,objective c,node.js,ruby,python Job Trends

Javascript jobs – Objective C jobs – Node.js jobs – Ruby jobs – Python jobs

It’s been a bit hectic at work in the last 2 years. Well, perhaps hectic isn’t the perfect word, but it’s close. Since I started working here, we’ve gone through two complete development technology stack switches.

Back in the halcyon days of 2007, I had the unenviable task of shoring up some very hastily written applications (by database developers and a couple of hacks who were here before me) using ColdFusion and HTML/Javascript. I beefed up the corporate offerings by implementing industry-accepted practices and patterns, used well-established libraries and got upgrades to the ColdFusion servers.

Then, in late 2008, the decision was made to scrap any future development of HTML/Javascript user interfaces and use Flex instead. That was exciting because of two reasons:

• I got to learn a cool technology like Flex
• I didn’t have to port any of my existing ColdFusion code to another language.

Fast forward to 2010 and now the entire company is rolling over to the .NET stack. Now I get to brush up on my rusty C# skills which I haven’t used in almost 4 years; I get to learn the ASP.NET MVC architecture; I get to have fun learning how to connect our .NET applications to our Oracle databases; lastly, I get to estimate how long it would take to convert our entire ColdFusion code base to .NET.

I’ll still get to work in ColdFusion from time to time, but .NET is the future…. for now.  Perhaps 2012 will be the year we convert everything to Java!

I’m all for rolling with the punches and evolving my skill set to match what is needed for the organization to be successful, but I’m also no longer 24 years old with oodles of free time at my disposal (or the accompanying mental agility). Doing these massive switches takes a little more time at my venerable age.