I'm surprised that Java isn't on here. I have seen piles and piles of Node jobs, and lots of Django positions (in the "cooler" corporate shops), but it seems like Java is still an outlandishly entrenched language, at least in giant companies. Do you think Node is better to learn for employability because every CS program in the country is churning out Java devs?

I think it's more the "JS" and less the "Node". If you're building a web application, for the most part, Javascript is part of the equation, especially as frontend dev has shifted from "write a few lines of html" to "render an application".

From there, Node isn't that big -- it's a few libraries for interacting with the system. The assorted framework stacks and whatever haven't really sorted themselves out yet.

From a technical standpoint, what Node does well is that it's basically async-IO-by-default, which is very nice for real world performance, whereas in most-every other environment I've worked with async-IO feels like an unwieldy addon where example code is hard to come by.

Java doesn't get much love. I've been looking for remote employment opportunities (I'm not based in the US), and a huge percentage of the postings I see are for Node.js and RoR. For Python shops it's almost always a requirement for Django experience.

Probably a bit of selection bias. Conservative companies are more likely to use Java, and less likely to offer remote working.

Well, I was speaking within the context of web applications, but I do think Java wins in the "business app" realm, which most younger people want nothing to do with.

Also, 3 to 5 years from now is where I'm aiming at (JS will be "stable but still cool").

I don't think Javascript will ever be stable the way Java is. It will probably end up close to where Python is today. It's not just matter of time, it's a matter of fundamental design choices in the language.

ASP.NET/C# is eminently employable, and ASP.NET MVC is not even bad. But given free reign, I will choose Django.