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Ask HN: Can I survive the rest of my life only knowing Java?

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Ask HN: Can I survive the rest of my life only knowing Java?

#1

Post by yellowbkpk »

I work for a huge company in the Midwest writing Java server apps (not J2EE). After seeing the front page post enumerating the top three things that programmers hate, I realized that my environment is completely saturated by them. One of the things my manager suggested I look in to is training to think about something else for a while, so I come to you guys.

What kind of stuff should I be learning to expand my horizons and learn new and interesting (marketable, too!) skills? Where should I go to learn them? Are conventions worth the travel/admission cost?

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Can I survive the rest of my life only knowing Java?

#3

Post by pmorici »

"Where should I go to learn them? Are conventions worth the travel/admission cost?"

The Internet and no.

edit: If your employer is willing to pay for you to travel to some great location to attend a conference I wouldn't turn it down. Not a wise use of your personal funds though.

Re: Ask HN: Can I survive the rest of my life only knowing Java?

#4

Post by dusklight »

Well there are still people making a living writing FORTRAN.

Can you survive? Yeah probably. Will you be happy? Are you happy now?

Conventions can be cool for social purposes, but if you want to learn something new that is substantial, that's not going to happen in a week. There is only one way to learn code, and that is to write code. No shortcuts :(

Re: Ask HN: Can I survive the rest of my life only knowing Java?

#5

Post by noodle »

you'll always be able to survive on one language. especially such a huge language that will leave a giant legacy footprint if another language becomes more popular. the question is, will you, personally and financially, prosper. you want to do more than survive.

it won't be easy, but its possible. check out grails and seam to push yourself into the rails-like environment running on java. i really like grails.

or, you can just do like others and learn rails or python.

Re: Ask HN: Can I survive the rest of my life only knowing Java?

#6

Post by arockwell »

You can make a living writing j2ee apps for the rest of your life, but I'm not sure you'd want to... Here's a couple of things that have recently helped me broaden my programming horizons:

Learning lisp from http://gigamonkeys.com/book/. I still completely suck at lisp, but my eyes are opened to what you can do with functional programming and metaprogramming.

Picking up Ruby and learning RoR. Any dynamic language would be helpful to know... take a look at both python and ruby and learn more about whichever you like better.

I've also gotten heavily into javascript recently because of jquery. I'm pleased with how flexible the framework.

None of these things are something you can go pick up in a one week training course. They're something you have to practice day after day to get better at. The most helpful thing you can do is to get a side project with some new language/framework and get cracking. Best way to learn imo.

Re: Ask HN: Can I survive the rest of my life only knowing Java?

#7

Post by geuis »

You need to learn something else. Java in particular is horrible about getting otherwise competent developers stuck in one kind of mindset about how to do software development. There may be some good practices that you've picked up but you are also being limited by lack of exposure to other ways of developing.

Re: Ask HN: Can I survive the rest of my life only knowing Java?

#8

Post by fp »

noodle wrote: post #5

you'll always be able to survive on one language. especially such a huge language that will leave a giant legacy footprint if another language becomes more popular. the question is, will you, personally and financially, prosper. you want to do more than survive. it won't be easy, but its possible. check out grails and seam to push yourself into the rails-like environment running on java. i really like grails. or, you…

  or, you can just do like others and learn rails or python.
I suggest learning Ruby, not Rails. Unless you know Ruby, you will not be able to really understand how Rails works. Ruby is way more than just Rails.

Re: Ask HN: Can I survive the rest of my life only knowing Java?

#9

Post by noodle »

fp wrote: post #8
noodle wrote: post #5

you'll always be able to survive on one language. especially such a huge language that will leave a giant legacy footprint if another language becomes more popular. the question is, will you, personally and financially, prosper. you want to do more than survive. it won't be easy, but its possible. check out grails and seam to push yourself into the rails-like environment running on java. i really like grails. or, you…

or, you can just do like others and learn rails or python. I suggest learning Ruby, not Rails. Unless you know Ruby, you will not be able to really understand how Rails works. Ruby is way more than just Rails.

whoopsies, thats what i meant

Re: Ask HN: Can I survive the rest of my life only knowing Java?

#10

Post by lacker »

Ruby and particularly Ruby on Rails seem to be particularly exciting for people who have just escaped the world of Java. Plus, web apps are the sort of thing where you can make a simple one and entertain yourself quickly. Just find a neat one day project and dive in.

The best way to learn is just to promise a couple close friends that you are going to make a particular thing in the next day or two, and then you will be forced to actually do it. You can get any information you need from the internet.

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