Rocks and Apples
For programmers considering a career path, avoid stupid articles. This is the perfect response to a rather foolish article written by what refers to itself as Web Pro News. Their admittedly unscientific comparison of Coldfusion, Java and .Net jobs is akin to comparing apples to rocks. Lets look at what's being compared:
ColdFusion is a web application language that sits on top of Java and is owned/supported by one of the top computer software companies in the world (Adobe).
Java is an application language used for many things, including web applications, and is actually what is 'under' ColdFusion's hood. It is not limited to the same playing area as ColdFusion.
.Net is not really a single language but a number of languages under the same framework, but let's refer to it as a language for the moment as everyone else does. .Net is still a rather new language that has a 500 pound gorilla behind it, which is why it has such pull while so young (no one was ever fired for buying Microsoft...Yet). As with Java, .Net is an application language that can also be used for web applications but is not limited to it.
So we have a web application language vs. 2 full application languages. Not really fair. If the comparison was between ColdFusion and Asp.Net, then it looks more 'right'. If it was between Java and .Net alone it would also be 'right', but to take ColdFusion and put it against these two broad languages just is insane.
But let's take it the next step. Do you know how many job sites are out there? Well, using a single site that gathers information from a limited group of other sites as your base to say what jobs are around is, to be honest, just totally foolish. Yes, the writer of the article says that the comparison is unscientific, but that does not excuse what is basically a scare piece with no validity.
http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060213ColdFusionJobOpportunitiesGoingInert.html
Only my first CF job back in 1999 was actually aquired via a job posting website. Every one since then has been word of mouth through the local user group. I now also hire my developers through the user group. We are a tight community and I know who the good developers are and where they work in this area... and I don't need to go to some job site to post that.
My company could care less what technology we use in the back end, as long as it is overall cheaper, runs and is fast to develop in. CF checks all those.