blogs.techrepublic.com.com — If you?re a developer looking to get ahead in your field (or in some cases, to simply stay employed), this is not a good time to be complacent. Justin James lists the skills you?ll want to work on now to maximize your future job prospects.
Apr 1, 2009 View in Crawl 4
jsebrechApr 2, 2009
The future of web development is building it all client-side, either in flex, or in javascript (AIR being the combination of flex and javascript in a single run-time). On the server-side you only have web services left, which PHP builds just as easily as coldfusion.Server-side html generation is dead, even if it doesn't realize it. It doesn't scale, and it makes it more difficult to build high-quality user interfaces.
SonolinApr 3, 2009
Microsoft does some things well. It may be true that their techniques/laziness is quite unacceptable at times (good example: internet explorer..). However, they do some things GREAT. (I quite like the .net platform, for example, and it is great that there is an open source MONO project that makes it more widely usable.) Moral of my comment: don't hate a product simply because Microsoft came up with the idea. That is pure ignorance, sir.
covertbadgerApr 3, 2009
LINQ not functional? It introduces lazy evaluation, anonymous types, map/filter/fold (in the form of Select/Where/Aggregate respectively), encourages working with non-mutable data, etc. All of these are functional techniques. The similarity to SQL is superficial, probably because LINQ-to-SQL is MS's big marketing trick. LINQ is useful without any underlying database.
jayselleApr 3, 2009
@DubbsaccGetting a CS degree isn't supposed to teach "programming". To a solid developer it's just syntax.There are always exceptions to the rule but I generally prefer to work with people who understand basic concepts like deterministic vs non-deterministic problems. Recursion. B-trees. Why you have to allocate memory for variables.CS also teaches problem solving skills through courses like Calculus 1-3, Physics, Chemistry, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Discrete Math, etc. Not specific to programming but certainly helpful.Your run of the mill .NET developer might be able to slap a web page together and make it look pretty but to me that's amateur hour.
mrducksworthApr 4, 2009
I'm glad I left my study, 'because' I wanted to learn more. I barely learnt anything the first year, and should have sought out part time work within the first four weeks, to study at home. Though, having now got a job in the industry, I need to move closer to get those learning hours back!
guireApr 6, 2009
You can be a web developer with out knowing css or html and even little JS. Most CSS and frontend JS(all the flashy crap) work should be a designer/integrator's job. I've been working as a web developer for a few years and have never had to learn CSS.
aristotle0dudeApr 9, 2009
Java and .NET. Check and on everything else except mobile development and RIA. I've been thinking of getting into iPhone development as a hobby.I'd also add SQL skills to that list. Nothing will bring down a multi-tier system faster than poorly written SQL queries in stored procs.
hivoltage815Apr 9, 2009
And is a terrible article IMO.
boricuaenigmaApr 10, 2009
I agree with Chewie67. MS does get bashed way too often. Most of their software does the job. It's really certain aspects of their software that can be annoying, but the same is true of any program or language. There are parts of it that shine and other parts that are just blah. There are times when I do something in the LAMP stack that I'm just like "blah" I hate LAMP, but I'm an everyday LAMP developer. I've stopped my bashing of MS. They are at a point that their stuff works, and for the most part, works well. My grievances is when an aspect of it doesn't work like you would expect it to work or when I find something is bloated or time consuming to do.
tf2medicApr 18, 2009
Seems like a pretty accurate article. I've had to use 9 of these skills in the first 3 months of my post-college life. I don't know how to develop RIAs, but I hope they don't become popular for the sake of my iPhone.
dcmusicfusionApr 20, 2009
No Ruby on Rails love!@!>!>>!>>!>!>!??!?!??! This isn't link bait at all........Never.......
codejustinApr 27, 2009
This was pretty helpful. I'm debating which "field" of programming I want to pursue. Seems like web programming s really taking over "static" programming.
jimv1983May 16, 2009
In response to the "Free does not always equal better"3 big examples that come to mind:Bloodshed Dev C++ for c++ or Mono Develop for C# vs MS Visual Studio. VS wins no competition.Open Office vs MS Office. MS Office wins again.The Gimp vs Photoshop. Adobe wins this one.So yeah free not always better.
boomwavAug 28, 2009
Head first is WAYYY cooler to read. However, GoF book is a way better reference when you need to use the real stuff.
boomwavAug 28, 2009
Finishing by degree in Software Engineering in Montreal. You see a bunch of that stuff in the first year. The rest is all about project management. Good stuff.
boomwavAug 28, 2009
The idea is not to apply them blindly but if you're a programmer and have a design presented to you, understanding patterned use and their goal really help making the thing work. Design patterns are used as a solution to recurrent problem, it won't make you a good analyst.Common sense is enough for most of them. However, the idea of design patterns is also to give a way for programmers to share these abstracts thoughts in common words. If you tell someone you've used the command pattern to make you undo and redo, he will really fast makes an idea of how things works.IMO.
phpwebguyMar 17, 2010
Everyone has there own opinion on what language is best. Just use whatever makes you happy or brings in the most money.