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Which Language To Learn?
LordStormes writes "I've been a Java/C++/PHP developer for about 6 years now. However, I'm seeing the jobs for these languages dry up, and Java in particular is worrisome with all the Oracle nonsense going on. I think it's time to pick up a new language or risk my skills fading into uselessness. I'm looking to do mostly Web-based back-end stuff. I've contemplated Perl, Python, Ruby, Erlang, Go, and several other languages, but I'll put it to you — what language makes the most sense now to get the jobs? I've deliberately omitted .NET — I have no desire to do the Microsoft languages."
The more expensive .net development is the less likely it will be used. No, it is a very smart thing to do. Plus who will use it when it is a shitty solution? There are lots of better ones out there. People like you are contributing to the problem.
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I recently had to revisit my former life in programming and "update" my language repertoire (from assembly language and FORTRAN) in order to maintain and update a client's website--written in .NET. I am slowly converting everything to PHP and Javascript because, basically, .NET sucks more ways than a French whorehouse.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
That's because you're a neckbeard who's idea of "a hard workout" is sitting on 4chan for 12 hours a day, occasionally wacking off when you work up the energy.
Except for the whole non-portability thing. And the chewing a leg off every five years because they forgot to plan a migration strategy thing. Other than that, yeah.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Like he was saying: a severe case of reality deficit disorder. Maybe you need to try some construction or janitorial work for a few months to help cure that.
Yeah, Perl is basically a big steaming pile of bad ideas masquerading as good ideas, covered in a thick brown sludge of obfuscation.
Nice little straw man you've built there. Sun never built Open Office or Solaris in Java, but you can''t be foolish to think that that was a vote of no-confidence in the future of Java.
Sun also didn't have a track record of killing development platforms, pulling the rug out from under the feet of developers who used them. Microsoft does have such a record, and has shown its willingness to do exactly that time and again.
And let's face it - while a lot of copying and catch-up was done for the first few iterations of .NET, that was over and done with after the 2.0 release and ever since then MS has been blowing past everyone else out there.
Really? In what context?
For web development, some sort of LAMP stack has been far more popular than .Net since forever and still is, with Java possibly fitting in above .Net as well.
For system software, C is still king, and C++ is a close second. No VM-based framework is likely to change the story here.
Ditto for embedded code, which is a huge part of the overall software development world.
Software for mobile devices is a fast-growing field, but again, most of them can't use .Net, and Microsoft themselves have been reluctant to rely on it even for WM7 because of the performance implications.
In short, if you really think MS is somehow blowing past "everyone else out there", I respectfully suggest that you haven't really looked "out there" much lately.
Visual Studio is arguably the best IDE out there
Very arguably. I haven't used the 2010 edition yet, so maybe you can help me out. Has it got the basic code navigation tools back that Visual C++ 6 had yet? And does it include even basic refactoring in all of the supported programming languages yet?
Linq was a total game changer
Sorry, but only someone with very limited experience in the programming world could claim that with a straight face. LINQ is a cute feature, sure, but both the underlying concepts and the programming language/platform features used to implement them have been around for decades.
ASP.NET MVC fixed the travesty that was the past decade of Webforms
Right. Do let us know when building a basic, efficient, standards-compliant web app with the Microsoft stack is less painful than having your teeth extracted, and has an expected longevity for the code base that is greater than 2–3 years. Until then, I suspect most of us who do this stuff for a living will continue to use Python, Ruby, Perl, PHP, or even Java, in preference to trusting that Microsoft's latest tools will last longer than any of the previous ones have.
The future looks really bright for .NET, and not so much for Java.
Reports of Java's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Java the language has been a pain in the **** since forever. However, the JVM platform is well established, and there are several potentially interesting languages targetting that platform with ideas at least as interesting than anything in recent .Net platforms. None of this stuff is going anywhere in the near future.
I'll judge .NET's success on two factors - employment opportunities and continued innovation and development from Microsoft.
The trouble with that combination is that the best employment opportunities using Microsoft tools tend to arise because there is so often something new and exciting in Microsoft world, where supposedly expert developers can command a premium price for a brief period because most people don't know how to use the new toys yet. Unfortunately, to maintain such a lucrative position in the developer hierarchy, you have to constantly update your knowledge of MS tools and technologies just to stand still. If you don't, you fall
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.