I have to disagree; I've seen a growing demand for Linux software 
developers, however, not in the same league as .NET or Java Business 
Application Developers. Linux embedded systems programming is a high-paying 
job for a programmer, and involved more on the engineering side of things. 
There's also web application developers that code web apps that likely end 
up running on a Linux/UNIX server. There's no shortage of PHP jobs out 
there, for example.

On 9/15/05, Trent Shipley <tshipley@deru.com> wrote:
> 
> I think you are right ... application development under any form of unix,
> including Linux, is scarce to the point of being nonexistant. There is an
> excellent reason for this. *nix seldom lives on the desktop, so there is
> little or no demand for application development, because so few people use
> *nix applications.
> 
> Obviously one can make a nice living in the *nix world as an 
> administrator.
> As a developer one's options are more limited than in the MS world. First
> there is no clear biz-wide language comparable to VB.net. For that matter,
> there is no OS-wide RAD comparable to Visual Studio. More importantly, 
> there
> is no way to quickly whip together a brand-new stand alone application the
> way you can with VB.
> 
> 
> 
> Here are my impressions of some development realms.
> 
> A lot of what passes for application programming in the MS world becomes 
> shell
> scripting and glueing in *nix.
> 
> Bash|Korn, PERL|Python ~~ VB
> It is easier to learn to do this in MS than *nix and you only have to 
> learn
> it once.
> 
> There is plenty of call for web programming in *nix.
> 
> PHP ~~ VB
> Each is comparable. Note, however, that when you learn VB for web
> programming the fundamentals get reused for application and shell
> programming.
> 
> Enterprise programming:
> 
> DB+SQL dialect+Java+Shell Script+Glue Script
> ~~ DB+SQL dialect+Java|C#+VB
> 
> This actually works better under *nix than Windows.
> 
> Kernel, device, and embedded programming.
> LOTS of guru level C, maybe some C++ for the lazy, a little assembly
> ~~ same as *nix.
> Probably MORE work using BSD and Linux as embedded operating systems.
> 
> 
> Application programming (such as it is in Linux)
> Java|(C, C++ ,TCL)|TCL|Thin client (any language + PHP and browser)
> ~~ Java|C#|(C#, VB)|VB
> 
> ==================
> 
> The big advantages for Windows from an application developer's 
> perspective.
> 
> Windows HAS (GUI) applications.
> 
> Windows HAS users who consume GUI applications.
> 
> Windows has VB, a learn once use everywhere for everything business 
> friendly
> language. (That is, programmers with widely varying levels of experience 
> and
> talent can be productive using Visual Basic).
> 
> Windows has Visual Studio, a learn once RAD environment for all projects 
> in
> nearly all OS languages.
> 
> On Thursday 2005-09-15 12:42, Josh Coffman wrote:
> > 'tag
> >
> > Here's my dirty little secret. I'm a windows
> > developer. I'm pretty good at it and make a good
> > living. I've switched to linux at home(except a dual
> > boot for some side-work) mostly because I was tired of
> > MS annoyances, the cost, and I was generally curious.
> >
> > One area I've still see MS more favorably is in
> > development. Part of that is because I've been doing
> > it for a little while. (Ok, maybe more than a little.)
> > While I like Eclipse, I haven't seen dev tools that
> > come close to Visual Studio even with it's stupid
> > annoyances. Although, CVS has got to be better than
> > SourceSafe; that's what I call crap.
> >
> > Also, I have no idea how one would earn a living in
> > linux other than network or server admin stuff. So
> > please educate me. What do people use develop apps?
> > What sort of salaries or contract rates are out there?
> > Anyone else ever made the switch from MS-dev to linux
> > dev?
> >
> > -j
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
> > Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
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-- 
.dh