Thanks. Haha... Nope, I have never received a "kickback" in my life, and so I kindly and generously assume your "supposing a kickback" was meant as a joke. But, for all who might read this online, we should and need to be clear, because without integrity there is no honor and without honor, all is lost. So, in my view, it's best to not joke about a person's integrity and especially not mine It's not really a joking matter, in my view, but I understand it was meant to be a joke and so no harm done in that. But let's also be clear, Ihave never received a "kickback" in my entire life and would never accept one. That's just me. I prefer honor and integrity to money and always will. I have done very well financially by dealing with everyone honestly and with high integrity.

Regarding "the trend line", I can would like to mention a few things.

First of all, like many here, I know many long time, very talented unix people who are out of work and/or struggle financially. On the other hand, I don't know a single very talented Javascript or Python programmer who is struggling to find work or great a high paying job they like. Encouraging people to build on top of their great core unix or linux skills and expand into newer technology areas is nothing different than I have always done my entire life. Learn a technology and build upon that knowledge to learn more technologies and keep improving my / your skills.

Second, for the "younger generation" I see that they consider the unix shell a core, basic skill (not the ultimate skill) which they need to do "generally, good enough" to move on to bigger and greater things. For example, getting around the unix shell makes it much easier to trouble shoot a node.js problem when you are trying to figure out why your web app is not compiling. Those great system admin skills come in really handy when troubling-shooting a Restful AJAX call across the network and the ability quickly dance in the unix shell is a great skill to have. But, for those who watch a lot of YouTube tutorial videos, we see that most YT'ers treat the shell as a "fundamental" skill set before moving on to the "red meat" of their tutorial.

People who have great unix and linux shell skills have an advantage over those who do not have great knowledge of the shell; but they must build on that knowledge to learn new tools and frameworks like Javascript and Python. Being a shell expert is not the end game, but a building block to bigger and better things, if you want to command a top salary these days.

Recently, I was taken aback a bit when someone kinda attacked me (privately) for promoting Javascript here at unix.com. Their attitude toward me (surprisingly to me, but then again not surprising) was something like "this is a unix forum and so go somewhere else if you love Javascript so much!!" I thought to myself, I run npm and node.js in the unix shell no different than I used to run awk or PERL or curl years ago. I love all those shell tools and remember the days I was infatuated with PERL, but that was 25 years ago. I do not process text in PERL anymore because there are newer tools which like run in unix shell in 2019.

So, when I login to my unix-like shell on a linux server these days, I tend to run very powerful tools like node.js and NPM when developing code. I troubleshoot problems in the shell as well, but I generally don't process a text with shell scripts. Generally when I process text, it will end up being rendered on the web, so I need to process the text in a way which makes it interactive and reactive in the web environment using a standard format as a JSON object.

I love the unix and linux shell; but there a lot of very "2019" cool technologies to learn and run in the shell, so it is not correct in my view to call the V8 Javascript engine (or any technology written in C++ and which runs in the shell), "not unix". UNIX embraces and encompasses all of those technologies. The shell is fundamental.

For those who are at a stage of their life where they are finding it hard to find the work they enjoy in unix or linux because of the long downward trend in unix in general, I encourage you to build on those skills. Like I mentioned in many post here, I work in the unix (actually linux) shell every day and I tend to login and bring up five shell terminals every morning when I wake up and have a coffee. I cat and vi log files, review the health of critical systems, and then fire up npm on my unix desktop (MacOS) and start developing in Javascript, writing and checking code syntax in Visual Studio Code. When I deploy to the server, I use ssh and scp and work in the shell to vi files as needed and check logs. The shell is fundamental, but the shell is not my objective of the day.

In my view, when we are great at one language or tech area, we can be great at other languages and technical areas, and so it is best to remain very flexible and to stay on top of the state-of-the-art, if you want to maximize your earnings potential and stay on top of the game.

Change is the only thing which is constant.

"Rust Never Sleeps" - Neil Young.