How to be retro-over
You want to scare away smart prospective employees? Then cling to these legacy technologies. In truth, I am tired of hipsters and would like them to go away, but unfortunately I need to hire the smart ones. Like me, you should get rid of this stuff.
1. Exchange
If you run Exchange (or god forbid, Lotus Notes), then your employees probably don't like their jobs and you're probably not attracting people with a lot of options, unless you're paying top dollar and they're sticking it out strictly for the money. Hosted Gmail is all the rage -- with the added benefit of being automatically backed up by the NSA. Oh well, email was never secure anyhow.
2. MVC-2
If everything is Post-Process-ReRender, then your users probably don't like you. They expect AJAX-y Google-like experiences for everything they do.
3. Microsoft Office
Installing stuff is so passe. Sure, Microsoft is reaching out to iOS and Android, but I've been reading and making minor edits to articles for a long time. I edit on three devices, and I do so thoughtlessly without effort and without syncing.
4. PL/SQL
If your apps are mostly PL/SQL with a light sprinkling of Java, no one likes working on them. Everything is waiting for the data team and every change is painful.
5. Triggers
Never use triggers. Please. Just. Stop.
Look, folks, it's the tech industry -- you need to have an eye on the future and embrace what passes for progress! If you still think Ruby on Rails is cutting edge, you're in for a sad awakening. If you really don't have to keep up with the JonesCos, there is always CobolScript.
This article, "R u mdrn? How to lure hipster hackers," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Keep up on the latest news in application development and read more of Andrew Oliver's Strategic Developer blog at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.