As I mentioned last time, I'm now mainly chasing Ruby on Rails (RoR) work.
(Don't worry, I'm not going to get too geeky on this blog. If you want geekitude, though, see my coding blog, Attack of the Codosaurus, at http://www.codosaur.us/. Here on Dare2XL, I'll throw out the names of some technologies, but won't expect you to know what they mean, other than what I'll explain. Bear with me.)
I've come to the decision that, while I'll do pretty much anything on a contract, I'll only actively hunt those in RoR, and a "permanent" position must be using RoR, or something equivalently modern, or have a very good reason to be using something older.
"But Dave," many of you are wondering, "you've got decades of C experience, some C++, and so on, much more than you've got in Ruby at all, never mind Rails! Why eliminate options like that?!"
You say "eliminate options", I say "focus". To-may-to, to-mah-to. It may look counterproductive, and in the short term perhaps it is. But it's absolutely vital long-term, and if you've been reading this blog long, you know I always try to think long-term.
Sure I could chase C work, and probably land some. But then my career would be right back at Square One, or maybe Two (C++). Meanwhile, most of the industry (and its job market) is already at Square Three (Java/.NET) and moving onward. I've at least got a toehold in Square Four (Ruby/Scala/etc.). I am not giving that up without very good reason... such as maybe going to Square Five (mobile). The time and energy I might spend on chasing C/C++ jobs, could be better spent on chasing RoR jobs, or at the very least leveling-up my RoR-fu.
So now, dear readers, as usual, it's your turn. How have you decided to eliminate options, focus, cut your losses, break the bonds that drag you down, whatever you want to call it, sacrificing short-term opportunities for long-term progress?
One of my coworkers is excited about Java 8. Given Java's broad set of enterprise tools, many of which are open source, compared to any other language, I wonder if Java 8 would count as Square Four.
ReplyDeleteCould be. If so, I'll gladly do it on the same terms as something I already consider modern. However, I've given up on keeping up on the changes in Java and chasing Java work, due to the history I've outlined earlier. (In posts that upon review, seems to make this post redundant. Oh well.)
ReplyDeleteDo you think Java 8 will be sufficiently different that I'll no longer get the usual "you don't have five years of Java experience so bugger off"?