OStatic

We've done several posts on how open source skills can arm job seekers with valuable differentiation from the rest of the pack, and lots of support for that concept continues to arrive. From working for commercial open source companies to working on open source-focused divisions at big companies such as Google, skills with tools such as PHP, Hadoop, and open source content management system platforms can be really valuable in today's tough job market.

In this post, Drupal founder Dries Buytaert took note of the very favorable trends in the job market for people with Drupal skills. In Elance?s Online Work Index, which analyzes the hot categories for tech jobs posted on its online marketplace, PHP-related jobs held the number one spot in July (as has been true since February). Now, Black Duck software, which maintains a large knowledgebase of trends in open source usage, is out with some notable statistics about which programming languages are showing momentum in open source projects, and how they're being influenced by growth in web applications.

PHP is not the sexiest language, and many people are quick to point out its deficiencies for Web application development. However, PHP is one of the most popular open-source projects, with a huge following, and many installations. Given that it is a relatively stable project, you might expect the PHP development team to be resting on its laurels. But no; in addition to a regular bug-fix release, the PHP QA team is sponsoring a test fest, in an attempt to improve the language's automated test suite.