Put down the Java manual ...Step away from it now

[FarCenter]

Apparently, there is a perceived shortage of C# and Java programmers. Certainly a good percentage of all job ads are for these languages.

That’s good if you already have these skills, but a much weaker signal when deciding what to learn if you’re a newbie. As far as I can tell you’re not allowed to graduate from high school in India without at least some skill in Java. And every computing course on the planet is based on it. The only difference between good and bad courses is whether you do real programming in C++, Haskell, F# etc as well.

...

As it matures, the entry level goes up and increasing competition for jobs drives it still higher. So starting off in Java now is like walking up the down escalator: maybe you get to the top, but you will be sweating.

It’s less bad for C# because few universities teach it, but the same logic applies. Is there any hope ? No. As a techie you have to gamble your career roughly five-six times between now and retirement. You will get it wrong, and have to take up minicab driving or, if all else fails, government IT.

...

But the least welcome advice is that you’re going to have to start learning the next skill before this one starts to crumble under your feet. I can’t tell you when the Java bubble will burst and neither can any one else who is being honest with you.

But when it does, the sheer volume of Java people means that any niche “near” Java will get filled up very quickly as the crowd begins to look for the fire exit.That means you need to look at things that aren’t like Java at all such as GPUs, functional languages, AI etc. That’s hard work and you’re doing long hours already, but if you want to keep being paid twice the average person, that what you’ve got to do.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/04/programming_skills_java_bubble/

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Education is something that you never complete.

[tridim]

1. I hate IT.

I hated it for about 10 of the 12 years I worked in it.

IMO it's the worst "professional" job in the world.

[FarCenter]

2. It lacks a legal status

There is no professional engineer license, no medical license, no bar exam, etc. to limit entry.

[slackmaster]

11. There's no crying in IT

Plenty of misery and thanklessness, but no crying.

[Speck Tater]

3. I started with assembly language in 1963

moved up to FORTRAN, then way way down to COBOL, then back to assembly language on the IBM 360 mainframe, then to ALGOL, followed by BASIC, then to PASCAL, then back to assembly, then to C then to C++ then to PHP then to JAVA. Of all those languages the only one I truly HATE with a bright purple passion is JAVA. The devil himself invented JAVA to torment programmers, hoping to drive them to one form of sin or another, thus gaining their eternal souls for his own.

[KoKo]

4. K&R! Thanks for this....

[ixion]

5. good advice, but Java isn't going anywhere anytime soon

keep in mind that Android is written in Java, and that Java powers millions of embedded devices, and it runs anywhere. I agree that it will, at some point, fade away, but I don't see that happening in the next 10 years or more.

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

6. My mom nearly dropped dead when I told her that I had to learn Fortran in a Grad class

She hated Fortran with a passion (she helped manage the mainframes used by the Tx Dept of Human Services in her day)

That class was around y2k.

My final project was to create a model for water flow in and very anisotropic system (like a utility trench fill versus the surrounding soil/rock)
After plotting the results of the various runs I had these wonderful colored plots showing that water preferred to flow in the trenches - big shocker I know.

I even had one set that had two trenches intersecting at right angles. The plot looked like a cross shape. A guy in the class commented out loud 'You're a Heathen right? Does this mean you found Jesus?' getting laughs from everyone. That was the most memorable thing from that class.

[Xithras]

7. I teach CS, and I start every Into to Programming course with the same conversation.

"The languages you learn before graduating will not get YOU a job in 10 years. In 20, they won't get ANYONE a job, unless they're porting old apps to another language. In 30, few will remember they even existed. Most of you will work at least 40 years before retiring. If you chose this career with the idea that you will learn a skill set that will carry you to retirement, go talk to your counselor and pick something else."

We teach our students the foundations of computing, and a couple of languages to get them started, but make it clear that a successful career in IT isn't something you earn in a college classroom, but is the result of a career dedicated to constant learning and reinvention. Successful IT developers and programmers must constantly keep their eyes on the horizon for the "next big thing", and be ready for it when it arrives. If you wait until your skills are obsoleted and you're laid off from your job to pick up something new, you're going to find yourself locked out of the job market.

Success in this field requires constant vigilance. It's not for the timid, or those who are just looking for a 9-5 job that they can forget about on weekends.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

8. Interesting thread.

Very insightful.

[lurky]

9. I'm with Xithras, sort of. If you have a strong CS background,

you can pick up any language in a few days. The language is just an interface you use to talk to the computer. Once you have a solid understanding of algorithms, language constructs, and what's going on under the hood, then everything else kind of falls together. Choosing a language becomes a matter of picking the right tool for a particular job.

On the other hand, this still requires you to keep up with the changes to stay relevant. And a lot of people get into IT jobs by reading books or getting trained in a particular technology, like Java, rather than going to college for it. They are the ones who are most vulnerable when the technology they are married to becomes obsolescent, falls out of fashion, or whatever.

I don't think Java or C# are going away any time soon. For the same reason we still use COBOL: There's too much existing code out there and nobody wants to rewrite it. My impression is that most new projects use something different, though, like Python or Ruby. And some things never go away. The project I have been working on for the last couple years is almost entirely in C, no plus plus, no nothin'.

[phantom power]

10. You don't necessarily have to take up minicab driving

You do have to become good at selling yourself as a problem solver, and as somebody who can quickly pick up new skills.

I generally frame any discussion of particular languages I don't know during interviews as a situation for "pick up the manual(s) and get busy." Hiring managers who know anything about software and software engineers will usually understand this fact of life.

Not that I haven't ever been worried about having to drive a minicab.

[Lithos]

12. Java is just a language

The real power is in knowing how to use it, how to think and most importantly know not only how to solve problems, but to actually know something of the problem itself (Domain experience). You can't believe just how much bad code is currently being written. Just remember a language like any other technology is a tool. How many people really would hire a carpenter if all they knew how to do is swing a hammer, but couldn't measure or cut wood to size? Pretty useless.

As for languages, the current focus today is on Javascript, Ruby, Python/Jython, and the JVM languages such as Scala and Clojure. The hot technologies are the highly scalable databases (based on Map Reduce, etc.), Security, and Networking. The problems they are trying to solve are ones of agility, speed and scalability.

L-

[hunter]

13. An article about Java by a headhunter looking for someone with high frequency trading experience...

Oh my.

Satan's bankers are looking for a programmer.

[kentauros]

14. I'd go a step further and say, "Put down the Java and the Flash,

and stop creating webpages using the Michael Bay School of Web-Design!" More animation! More popups! More explosions! EXTREME!!! :P

[Jamastiene]

15. The last line in your OP is the answer.

I would say that no matter what line of work you are in nowadays, your education is never complete. Technology is advancing so fast that anything you learn now is just one tool. It is not the be all end all answer. It is better to keep learning and keep up with the latest technology in whatever field you are working in, no matter what job it is.

BUT...

Always remember...

You will be replaced by a robot sooner or later. As fast as technology, in general, is advancing, robots will replace ALL of us in the future...except those who maintain, build, and program the robots. Even those people will have to constantly keep learning newer robotics technology as it comes along.

Either way, we can never stop learning. If we do, we will become obsolete.

[hunter]

16. Eventually the robots will maintain, build, and program themselves.

And then we'll sort of be like pets. If we're lucky.

I'm practicing my cute puppy begging face.

Feed me Mr. Robot, Pleeeeeeez!"