GitHub, the popular code repository service, has to serve two masters. It's well-known for hosting popular open-source projects, but it's also working to acquire more large and small business users to privately store and manage their proprietary code.
COBOL offers the promise of job security and above-average pay. Even some of the cool kids are doing it.
The shift toward network automation and virtualization offered by Software Defined Networks will increase demand for DevOps professionals. If you have both technical expertise and business acumen, you may soon have new IT career options.
Enterprise bug bounty programs are increasing in popularity. They offer cash to hackers who find and report security vulnerabilities and are an effective way for large organizations to beef up the security of their software.
Microsoft and Google are fighting yet another public relations battle, this time over the HTML5 video standards to be used in the next generation of Web browsers.
Some early programmer names are familiar to even the most novice of software developers. You may never have seen a line of code written by Bill Gates, or written any application in BASIC (much less for the Altair). But you know Gates' name, and the names of a few others.
Several weeks ago, Lynn Greiner's article on the state of the scripting universe was slashdotted. Several people raised their eyebrows at the (to them) obvious omissions, since the article only covered PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl and JavaScript. As I wrote at the time, Lynn chose those languages because hers was a follow-up to an article from three years back. Plus, most IT managers are familiar with at least one of those well-known scripting languages, even if they haven't personally written a line of code in one of them.
The software development department might envision a marvelous solution to the company's IT or business need, but the technology goal can't be achieved unless the Big Boss commits to the new strategy. How do you get there-and ensure that the user need really is filled? The key, say three former CIOs, is accurate business process requirements, a common language for the business and IT to communicate, and executive steering.