Re:Software Engineers Will Work One Day For English Majors
by jiggy2011 on Monday April 23, 2012 @10:27AM
(#3878939)
To be fair far more programmers today (even new ones) will be familiar with .Net than they will be with Ruby (and complex JS probably).
I can see .Net sticking around for a while in one form or anther. Also AWS really isn't that complicated (at least from what I have used which is only really S3). Just think of it as another layer of abstraction around your Filesystem (FTP/Rsync with bells). You can figure S3 out in a few hours and I can't imagine EC2 being much more difficult if you're already familiar with Unix.
I think the crux of the problem here though is that you take a risk whenever you devote any significant time to learning a specific technology as to whether it will still be relevant in a few years.
This problem is made worse by the fact that often your employer will make that choice for you. Imagine being a young hire at your first coding job with ambitions of moving on to a career at Google after a couple of years to then be told that you are to be transferred to the COBOL/FORTRAN team where you will spend the next 2 years.
I think this is probably part of the reason that many developers are so keen to re-implement perfectly working systems in new languages. They will try and sell their boss on the benefits of technology XYZ and how it will be good for the business when really in the back of their mind they are thinking "I desperately want out of this job and XYZ would look great on my CV".
I can see .Net sticking around for a while in one form or anther. Also AWS really isn't that complicated (at least from what I have used which is only really S3). Just think of it as another layer of abstraction around your Filesystem (FTP/Rsync with bells). You can figure S3 out in a few hours and I can't imagine EC2 being much more difficult if you're already familiar with Unix.
I think the crux of the problem here though is that you take a risk whenever you devote any significant time to learning a specific technology as to whether it will still be relevant in a few years.
This problem is made worse by the fact that often your employer will make that choice for you. Imagine being a young hire at your first coding job with ambitions of moving on to a career at Google after a couple of years to then be told that you are to be transferred to the COBOL/FORTRAN team where you will spend the next 2 years.
I think this is probably part of the reason that many developers are so keen to re-implement perfectly working systems in new languages. They will try and sell their boss on the benefits of technology XYZ and how it will be good for the business when really in the back of their mind they are thinking "I desperately want out of this job and XYZ would look great on my CV".