On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Henry Paul <[email protected]> wrote: > From what I have seen in regards to salaries over the last few years, I > think Java has remained much more relevant than .NET has to the > industry. Maybe part of that has been the emphasis on such simplified > software development that crappy apps can be cranked out much faster now. > > In fact a senior Java developer currently can make 2x what I do as a > senior systems admin. Yikes. Almost makes me wish I had gone into Java > development right out of school. > > -Henry
Those who know me, know that I'm the biggest Java bigot on the list. However, I'm noticing more and more that employers are willing to pay well for a variety of programming languages. Where I work now I program about half the time in Java (the skill I was hired for), and the other half I program in Ruby (Rails 3), JavaScript (Node.js), Pig (Hadoop), and of course shell scripty stuff. It's fun. Wondering if this multi-language trend was specific to my company, I've checked out some other high-paying jobs in the area and they've wanted everything from Ruby, C#, C/C++, PHP, Objective C, Python, and of course Java. I think you can make good money using any language, so long as you rock at it. Though, you can't go wrong with strong Java skills -- it still tops the market for now. I think it's good for everyone to know a little Java (just to be familiar with the platform), but if I were starting out now with no specific skills in any given language, I think I'd go with Python, Ruby, or JavaScript. In short, just pick a language that you enjoy using, and really dig in. You can't go wrong. -Bryan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
