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It's all over for C. Ruby and Python have replaced C as the programming language of choice for developers who aren't churning out Visual Basic daily. At least, that's what the rumor mill suggests.

The awful truth about C programming can be found online, by anyone with a few minutes to search. C programming jobs have entered the La Brea tar pits, where Internet time and the elements of other languages will combine to drag them to a slow death.

Before you break out that flamethrower, it's not me saying this. It's the buzz, the whispers, the trendy Web 2.0 developers, talking about the demise of poor unlamented C programming.

The searches don't bear out a demise of C programming demand, at least not today. So how do the job markets compare for C, Python, and Ruby? Actually, it isn't even close right now.

In a purely unscientific exercise, I performed some searches at the job vertical search engine SimplyHired, which returns results from a variety of sources.

For aspiring Ruby programmers, a whopping 325 job postings appear, 123 of which were listed as full-time gigs. That's a nationwide search of the United States.

Python fares better, with 2,322 job listings and 890 of them full-time. Forget about being the top Python snake-handler at Google, though. They hired Guido van Rossum, Python's inventor, in December 2005.

C programming? Try 23,770 listings, 10,008 full-time ones out of that group. About a third of those postings mention Java as well, in 7,801 total listings with 3,332 full-timers in the bunch.

I know there will be people who will take issue with the programming market and job availability. If you're a programmer with a particular point of view on the job market for your skills, tell me more on http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=284258 class=bluelink>WebProWorld. I would like to revisit this topic again.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.