career choice to Java or .NET

[Chris Uppal]

In what sense is it a
"career choice" to decide to learn either, or both? It's
like a carpenter making a "career choice" between a hammer
and a nail gun.

I suggest the sense in which the decision is thought to influence:

a) Whether you /have/ a career. (Of skip straight to the
"fries with that?" stage.)

b) If you do, where you start out, and what you start with.

c) If you've managed to get started, what further development
paths are available (or closed) to you.

I take your point, but these are not unimportant questions ;-)

-- chris

 

[Twisted]

I really wish you'd form the habit of quoting some

context when you reply to a Usenet message. Your stuff
is interesting -- not that I agree with all of it, but
it's certainly worh reading -- but when it's just floating
around unconnected to anything else, it loses a lot of its
value. Usenet groups are for discussions, not for isolated
bons mots.

Please direct your complaints to groups.google.com. When you hit reply,
you can paste in and painstakingly add >s, and such, or you can just
type. Guess which is easier? Guess what other newsreaders paste in
automatically whenever you reply to a preexisting post?

 

[yakovfain]

Here in New York City, the Java job market is the best ever. Recruiters
need people with any Java experience. I know a junior Java programmer,
and she had lots of interviews in different companies and just got an
offer for 70K ( she knew Java/J2EE/DB).


..Net is not a new thing on the market, so I doubt that people without
any business experience would be in better demand that in Java.

 

[Twisted]

Recruiters need people with any Java experience.

"Any" meaning "At least five years in industry". Hmm ... isn't Java's
fifth birthday next Tuesday? ;P

 

[James McGill]

"Any" meaning "At least five years in industry".

Where did the post specify five years? And I've missed your point,
since I think my first production work in Java was done in 1996, and by
then, I had already gotten past my initial skepticism of using a
language whose library documentation had stuff along the lines of "when
implemented, this feature will be..."

It shouldn't be uncommon to find people who got excited about Java as
soon as it became available. Anyone who *didn't* explore it, is the
sort who has no passion for the craft. How could you have possibly been
into computer programming in 1999, 2000, and somehow miss Java? Makes
no sense.

 

[Twisted]

Where did the post specify five years?

It didn't. All the want ads I ever saw specified five years prior
industry experience.

 

[James McGill]

It didn't. All the want ads I ever saw specified five years prior
industry experience.

And you always interpred that to mean "java experience?"
When I and most of my peers first learned java, we were all fairly
experienced C and/or C++ programmers.

 

[Twisted]

Still, people who have no industry experience programming on the job in
*any* language are still screwed...at least on this continent.

 

[James McGill]

Still, people who have no industry experience programming on the job
in
*any* language are still screwed...at least on this continent.

Without experience, you're going to be lucky to start beyond entry level
in *any* industry. Run this concept past a machinist or a bricklayer,
and see if it's any different there.

 

[Twisted]

Yeah, but there *is* no entry level programming/IT position available
in north america...not a one.

 

[Scott Ellsworth]

Yeah, but there *is* no entry level programming/IT position available
in north america...not a one.

I see entry level positions being posted and filled. They do not pay
terribly well, but they do exist.

Scott

 

[Twisted]

Entry level positions coding, or entry level positions polishing the
coders' shoes or some such rot?

 

[richardsosborn]

Here in New York City, the Java job market is the best ever. Recruiters
need people with any Java experience. I know a junior Java programmer,
and she had lots of interviews in different companies and just got an
offer for 70K ( she knew Java/J2EE/DB).


.Net is not a new thing on the market, so I doubt that people without
any business experience would be in better demand that in Java

how far is 70k going to go in new york though? aren't average
apartment rents
@ $2000. it's good to hear it's hot there. i worked there in jan 2001
and wish i stayed.
but hopefully that range is consistent with experience.

another opinion. i believe _software development_ featured the author
of "thinking
in java". he was present at the design discussions for .net. i guess
this is why they're
so similar. for newbies, it really is that similar. if you know java
you can look at c# with no training and have an idea what's doing.

 

[Roedy Green]

how far is 70k going to go in new york though? aren't average
apartment rents
@ $2000. it's good to hear it's hot there.

It seems so strange that anyone would live their or do business there
unless they were an investment bank.

It is expensive, dirty and dangerous. Surely by now computer folk can
now do their work in the cheapest, cleanest, safest and prettiest
parts of the planet.

 

[James McGill]

It seems so strange that anyone would live their or do business there
unless they were an investment bank.

There are lots of people with equity in the New York housing market.
Don't think in terms of moving there from someplace else.

 

[Scott Ellsworth]

Entry level positions coding, or entry level positions polishing the
coders' shoes or some such rot?

The ones I see involve coding, but not a whole lot of original coding.
You are likely to be doing error report reduction, maintenance
programming, code-level documentation, and bug response. Wit and
precision are valuable, but you are not designing anything.

<coot>If this counts as polishing the coder's shoes, then perhaps you
might want a different profession? Every software guy starts with
little experience, and that usually means little credibility.
Eventually, they trust you to in their code base.</coot>

More practically, an entry level coding position often does not involve
a lot of original and creative thought until you prove that you do more
good than harm, and maintenance programming often does that. During
that six month period, you are fielding problems, but you are also
learning the process, tools, environment, and code base. The time is
certainly not wasted, because they hope that you will not be introducing
those bugs into the code base.

Scott

 

[James Snow, Software Developer]

how far is 70k going to go in new york though? aren't average
apartment rents
@ $2000. it's good to hear it's hot there. i worked there in jan 2001
and wish i stayed.
but hopefully that range is consistent with experience.

another opinion. i believe _software development_ featured the author
of "thinking
in java". he was present at the design discussions for .net. i guess
this is why they're
so similar. for newbies, it really is that similar. if you know java
you can look at c# with no training and have an idea what's doing.

I worked in Multi-Media from 1995-1999, and then took a hiatus from
1999 to present. This spring I plan to go back into software as a
self-employed independent contractor, with C++ and Java, specializing in
client-server applications for small and med. sized buisnesses..(GUI to SQL)
..
what could I reasonably charge per hour on contract? 40 to 50\h?