When people want to learn to code, they often turn to a learn-to-code site. These sites show a list of buzzwords and a solution, assuming the reader will follow right along—except the typical reader can’t. It's as if there’s a conspiracy trying to make writing code look hard. Fear not—there isn't.

Tag this as an upcoming technology development to watch. A researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a new open source programming language called Ur/Web that proposes to “take the grunt work out of Web development,” as well as make web applications more secure.

College students who know COBOL earn more than their peers when hired after graduation. How much more? On average, new graduates who took COBOL classes, even if COBOL was taken as an elective, garnered more than ten thousand dollars in annual salary earnings versus fellow tech industry graduates.