Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!aioe.org!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Joshua Cranmer Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: =?UTF-8?B?QW5kcm9pZOKAlFdoeSBEYWx2aWs/?= Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2011 02:52:05 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 31 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2011 06:52:07 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="bAymlyY9SkaJNa8Tz2rerw"; logging-data="11143"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/FNiqzU9nPvawgpgdTRSblFblqCaj8DaI=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.16pre) Gecko/20110305 Lightning/1.0b3pre Thunderbird/3.1.10pre In-Reply-To: Cancel-Lock: sha1:Tw9WupDFiaHS7oAdgnfcPlwbjEA= Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.java.programmer:4978 On 06/03/2011 08:13 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > In message, Michael Wojcik wrote: > >> [TIOBE’s] long-term data shows Java and C securely holding the top two >> spots for the past decade. > > With Java on a downward trend. > >> But as I noted, the TIOBE rankings are suspect. They're based on >> things like advertised positions and classes, so they mostly measure >> demand or perceived demand in various markets. > > Which is a good basis for deciding what skills to brush up on, don’t you > think? It is partially a metric of what employers are looking for and partially a metric of what people are willing to learn. In that vein, you would expect "trendy" languages--e.g., Ruby--to be overweighted and mature languages--e.g., Java--to be underweighted. Although Java has a confounding factor due to its widespread use as the first programming language. In the end, it probably doesn't matter. If you're a new entrant to the jobs market, you should probably have the flexibility to learn any language desired of you; if you've been in the workforce for decades, then your domain knowledge is what will sell you and not the languages you know. -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth