Back in the day when I started programming java in 1999 the number of required skills on a job spec could be counted on a few fingers. As time moved on you could add a few more. Things like spring and hibernate where 2 changes that did really add value to delivering value add. Now though the list is soooooooooo long and my eyes glaze over every time I read a job spec.

The amount of churn in the industry has IMO become unacceptable and it seems that it is all about devs being able to just implement solutions using the latest and ‘maybe / maybe not’ greatest new open source tech that has been released.

Do roles exist out there where you can just know Spring and Java as I am getting the impression those days are gone and unless I want to, ‘yawn’, learn about pointless frameworks then it’s Homebase for me 🙁

I can’t be alone in thinking that it’s churn for churn sake and nothing revolutionary has come about?

Oh, and don’t get me started on daily scrum stand ups. Or should I say, daily ‘report to teacher’ stand ups.

You think your programming skills are extinct, I only really know COBOL.

You sound old. Are you old?

Get up to speed on the new stuff. Doesn’t take long, and with solid Java experience you can muddle through the new stuff both at interview and on the job.

Why don’t you try writing a framework? You could make gazillions!

I’m contracting in a big corporate – and if anything Java (along with Spring) seems to be making a bit of a resurgence. Job specs always come with a big list of skills, most of that is because they don’t really have any idea what they want – so they just list it all!

Sadly I don’t think you’ll find many roles that don’t involve ‘agile’ these days though. It’s all about scrum masters, and stand ups. In some ways I think that’s a good thing … gone are the days of waterfall style development with constant feature creep.

Have you considered going contracting? There’s plenty of work about for good devs at the moment.

I mean this in the nicest possible way but based on the tone of your post and your attitude to learning new stuff can I suggest that programming may not be the right career path for you?

I see your point around the number of required skills.

Most infrastructure job descriptions these days ask for

Windows
Linux
VMWare
Hyper-V
Citrix
Exchange
SQL (MS and My)
NetBackup
Veeam

.. for entry level jobs. All you’re going to get is a procession of bulls******s who maybe know one of those well enough to do the job.

But continual learning is a given in any IT career, surely?

My career was fortran 77. Never really got to grips with that newfangled fortran 90 stuff. But as a proper programmer friend said, you can write fortran in any language 🙂 (and I did write a simple app in Java for my own use once)

I’m unemployed now, but that is mostly through choice…

But continual learning is a given in any IT career, surely?

Yep. you could spend all of your work hours on courses and still not be up to date 🙁

8080 assembler anyone?

I’m a newer developer, been in the game for about 4-5 years now, and specialising primarily in Microsoft tech (.NET, MVC, C# etc).

I’ve interviewed for a few roles in the past 3 years and I would say probably 70% of what is asked for in a job advert is fluff.

There will be a few key things in an advert that you MUST have (for example, you need to know Java to be a Java developer…) but generally employers are fairly lax as to what they genuinely want.

The job I ended up going for (and getting) was asking for numerous languages and technologies I didn’t know, and in some cases had never even heard of, yet here I am a year later with all of those under my belt and more.

It’s not hard to learn these things if you have a good foundation of knowledge in programming generally, which I’m sure you have.

Just go for it mate, what’s the worst that can happen?

EDIT: Something else I might mention, these “pointless frameworks” are 9 times out of 10 not going to stick around, but learning them because you are paid too is never a bad thing, and generally one framework will give you knowledge towards the next. This massive insurgence of Javascript frameworks that come and go each year recently? Doesn’t matter. My Javascript skills have improved tenfold, as has my wage, by learning the pointless frameworks that I hardly ever have to use any way.

Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoyed solving business problems when it was a case of being able to get by knowing

Java
Spring
Oracle / Sybase
CVS or SVN
Eclipse

I enjoy learning new stuff, if I feel what I am learning really does add significant value. Time is precious and I will be honest and say that I have better things to do, eg ride my bike and go windsurfing with my spare time than sit learning a new framework.

You should be able to evolve, I followed this path

C
C plus plus (couldn't find the escape code to enter a plus :) )
VB
C# (Java didn't have intellisense and I don't spell )
C#
C#

JavaScript (not the ugly stuff, frameworks such as angulare)
and lots of other things along the way such as SQL, Razor , Powershell

IMHO node is the way forward and we will see more single page apps built with modern frameworks utilising typescript / ECMAScript

The patterns and approaches you have learnt with Java will come with you.

For the first few years of doing c# I always had respect for the Java people and the adoption of TDD and there approach to source control management. I would say c# has now moved on in that area.

PS

If you are wondering if I have Microsoft socks… erm I do 🙂

This why programming is a shit job. It’s hard to leverage experience. I don’t mind learning new stuff but it is a lot of the emporers new clothes.

I’d say I do 95% of my learning whilst actually at work. I’m the exact same, I can’t be arsed to do anything after work, the time hits 5 and I am off.

If you know Java, Spring and Oracle and you have an IDE, Eclipse, you have a version control system down, then you are employable.

When you get thrown in the deep end and told to build something with a tech you’ve never used – rejoice. You’re being paid to learn.

I have better things to do, eg ride my bike and go windsurfing with my spare time than sit learning a new framework.

Can’t say I’ve ever sat down in my spare time and thought “Right, time to learn this framework then”.

Mostly I get by with a summary understanding of what a framework has in it, so that I know where to look when a suitable problem comes up.

Maybe your heart isn’t in the technical stuff anymore – time to move into BA?

I started work life as an RPG400 programmer. I moved into java briefly, but most of the time I’ve been trying to learn more about the subject matter – e.g. finance / logistics / whatever.

I now write specs & design new systems + a shed load of other documentation (but let’s gloss over that boring bit).

TBH, it’s a lot easier than learning a new framework…

‘d say I do 95% of my learning whilst actually at work. I’m the exact same, I can’t be arsed to do anything after work, the time hits 5 and I am off.

If you know Java, Spring and Oracle and you have an IDE, Eclipse, you have a version control system down, then you are employable.

When you get thrown in the deep end and told to build something with a tech you’ve never used – rejoice. You’re being paid to learn.

This ^

Being completely realistic about it as well – outside of programming, most people think it’s this mystical thing that nobody can do – in reality, it’s just problem solving using a language that the computer understands.

If you know one language, especially one like Java, then you know most of the modern languages. We’re doing OOP here, it’s not like we’re changing paradigms.

So you need to learn a new language – just do it. We get paid VERY well for doing this mystical art that everyone thinks is impossible – your ability to learn is the only reason you earn this.

call yourself a ‘Software Design Consultant’ talk about all the stuff you’ve done in terms of building solutions, managing build lifecycle, you know all the words 🙂

don’t focus on the tech, focus on the capability

good luck

If you know one language, especially one like Java, then you know most of the modern languages.

You can no doubt pick up the syntax pretty fast, but that’s only a small part of it – to me “Java” means Java itself (including concurrency, garbage collection, monitoring etc.), Spring, Hibernate, Tomcat, Maven, and a long list of other bits and pieces. I can certainly read a C# program and work out what it does, but I would never claim to “know” the language.

but I would never claim to “know” the language.

Of course, neither would I. However if I were to sit you down in front of a computer and asked you to develop me something in C#, I’m almost positive that in a couple weeks, leveraging your existing knowledge, that what you gave back to me would at least somewhat work and I would be able to understand exactly what you were trying to achieve.

However if I were to sit you down in front of a computer and asked you to develop me something in C#, I’m almost positive that in a couple weeks, leveraging your existing knowledge, that what you gave back to me would at least somewhat work and I would be able to understand exactly what you were trying to achieve.

Yes, that’s certainly true, but try selling that to employers 🙂

So you need to learn a new language – just do it. We get paid VERY well for doing this mystical art that everyone thinks is impossible – your ability to learn is the only reason you earn this.

This.

I’m banking on it as my contract ends tomorrow (yay! End of 55 mile each way trip to current client!) but don’t need to learn a new language though, thankfully.

concurrency, garbage collection, monitoring

This is the technical aspect of java that I enjoyed the most. Analysing heap dumps and tweaking vm args …

A contract role is probably the way to go when I do decide to get back into it.