Cool to Be Part of the C++ Crowd Again
C++ developers, themselves, can look at 2008 as a breakout year for their own careers as well. According to PayScale, a global online compensation research provider, the median salary for C++ developers is three to twelve percent higher than those of Java or .NET developers. And popular job boards, including CareerBuilder, Dice and Monster, show a robust demand for C++ developers within financial services, telecom, aerospace and defense and other large industries, comparable to job postings for Java and .NET developers.

"Some businesses have the misconception that they're locked into C++. The reality is that C++ is alive and kicking," added Foster. "C++ applications offer the same services found on popular platforms such as failover, interoperability across languages, and load balancing. More importantly, they can exploit concurrent processing without the large investment required for recoding to a multi-threaded model."