I don't know if I'm up to the standard of SlugBug, but I did do 6 years of IBM 370 Assembler in a TPF and VM/CMS environment.

After 6 years, I had enough and was given a chance to work with C language on IBM PC's, so I did. In the 80286/80386 era. Two years after learning C, I started learning C++. I did that for about 5 years, then wanted to learn Unix and databases, but my employer was happy to make me into a permanent Windows NT networking person.

So I changed jobs, in about 3 months, I was proficient in Unix, and pretty decent in Sybase. Then I went to work for BEA, and realized that I knew nothing compared to the freakkin geniuses they had there.

I learned completely new coding techniques, to get portable code in C between AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, and even Windows NT. Something that still can't really be done in C++. But I did C++, too, and continued in the career.

Then I got a chance to do a big Unix/NT integration with C and Tuxedo and MQSeries, and mainframe interfaces in COBOL and XML. That was very cool, took a year.

Now, I've spent the last 1 1/2 years learning Java and DB2. I'm pretty decent at that, too.

But, for all that experience, I do think that fear stops most organizations from progressing and there are examples today of companies who won't be around in 5 years, because they cling to technology that time clearly has passed by. The airline/travel industry is particularly at risk, because they are still dependent on TPF (Transaction Processing Facility), when the last known updates for it from IBM were probably sometime in the early 1990's, and only after American, United, Delta, etc. BEGGED them to continue the O/S support.

Now, someone needs to rewrite the major travel reservations systems like Apollo, SABRE, and Worldspan into Unix technology, but now there's no money to support such an effort.

So, I fear the entire airline/travel technology industry will die off, until some brave soul enters the market with new technology. First small beans, then in about 5 years, they will dominate the marketplace.

The bottom line is that as long as the business model works, people will keep things the way they are. As soon as the model shifts fundamentally, then it's a WHOLE NEW BALL GAME.

Recessions are wonderful tools for creating a whole new ball game, because the economics make the old model flat out impossible.