Which technology to embrace?

[Varun Nayudu]

Hi All,
Require your advice with regards to my career .

I am a Java developer with 5.7 years of experience in various technology. Have worked on technology like JSP , SERVLET (in my first company).
Then as I progressed started working on JSF and EJB 2. And now in the present company I am working on EJB3, ADF and SOA.

I feel like I am 'Jack of all trades' with little experience in all but non that I can say that I have completely mastered.
And now I am at crossroads between learning ADF or SOA.

I feel SOA and web service's are the technology of the future were as ADF is a temporary technology which will get replaced by others(Webcenter etc).

I am desperate to learn some thing that will be fruitful in the future for my career growth.

Please advice

[chris webster]

Well, you will have to decide for yourself where your own interests and career goals should take you in futuer.

But you might find some inspiration in Russ Olsen's entertaining talk on Programming In Interesting Times which begins with the stark reminder that "Your Programming Language Is Going To Die"! He basically encourages people to look beyond their current comfort zones and consider up-and-coming languages, technologies and ideas, rather than just the current mainstream.

[Varun Nayudu]

Thanks Chris,
Are there any forums or sites that can be help full to keep me updated .

I believe the thing that most of us fear is the uncertainty of the path we have chosen.
And also the unwillingness for learning new technologies and expecting to get paid.

I think we should introduce a new section in Java Ranch about New technology trends.

[chris webster]

Varun Nayudu wrote:Are there any forums or sites that can be help full to keep me updated .

Yes, lots - it depends on what your particular interests are. I like InfoQ which brings together a lot of technology news from a lot of different areas of the industry, with lots of conference talks etc. But there are plenty of other good sources of tehnology news, and many of them focus on specific areas.

Varun Nayudu wrote:I believe the thing that most of us fear is the uncertainty of the path we have chosen. And also the unwillingness for learning new technologies and expecting to get paid.

Like Russ Olsen said, there is at least one certainty: Your programming language is going to die! So it's a good idea to have more than one string to your bow, and also to learn about things beyond specific tools or technologies. For example, I'm an old database developer, and I'm moving into Big Data right now, but I'm more interested in learning generally useful skills (such as functional programming in Scala, data science or machine learning), rather than just learning about the current Hadoop MapReduce Java API. I'm hoping these skills will still be useful even if the specific tools/languages change, because things change so fast in this industry.

And you need to invest your own time in developing your skills e.g. via free courses from the likes of Coursera. Don't just wait for your employer to pay you to acquire new skills, because they may decide it's easier to hire somebody who already has those skills and relevant experience. You want to be the guy getting the job, not the guy who's being left on the shelf (or fired). If you're not learning something new, either at work or in your spare time, then you're falling behind. Unless you really want to be a specialist in legacy systems of course!

[arulk pillai]

Look at Google.com/trends and local advertisements. Subscribe to industry specific sites like infoq, Javalobby, etc.

[Joe San]

Varun Nayudu wrote:Hi All,
Require your advice with regards to my career .

I am a Java developer with 5.7 years of experience in various technology. Have worked on technology like JSP , SERVLET (in my first company).
Then as I progressed started working on JSF and EJB 2. And now in the present company I am working on EJB3, ADF and SOA.

I feel like I am 'Jack of all trades' with little experience in all but non that I can say that I have completely mastered.
And now I am at crossroads between learning ADF or SOA.

Please advice

To answer precisely to the title of this post, you are better of embracing any technology that comes your way. There is so much happening on the JVM. There are other programming languages and its associated frameworks that run on the JVM. You might want to explore them. If you see the list of forums here in Javaranch, it makes us feel that what we know is just so little.