Development Skills that are future proof

cguy said:
My take (after nearly 40 years writing code) is that if you're looking for technologies that will future proof your skills, you are probably doing something suboptimal.

I've seen a lot of technologies come and go. The thing that has kept me gainfully employed has primarily been things outside of specific technologies. I know C/C++/ASM much better than most, but I am far from a C++ language-lawyer, spec quoting type (and I've encountered a bunch of them :p).

I've had to pick up new technologies all the time, but nobody is going to pay me what I get paid because I know an API, framework or language. I get paid well, because if I'm asked to do something, I get it done in the best way possible, and if I'm not asked to do something, I figure out what I should be being asked to do, and do that. :) This also means really learning whatever business/domain I'm in reasonably well, so that I can make these calls.

My advice is to learn the "theory" (CS/Stats/Maths) - that is important forever, but also watch and learn the process (and people) of software engineering over time, so you have a good sense of what, how and who. Also, please be judicious when it comes to job hopping - don't stay at a toxic company, but if you are overly hoppy you're going to learn a lot about peripheral contributions to small projects, but next to nothing about the domain, core software engineering skills, large projects, etc., which will eventually cap your career.
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Completely agree and will only add this: Learn how to identify and solve problems, writing the code is secondary and sometimes not needed.
 
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Little Mac said:
You see a future in c# but not .net?
Are you including .net core?

In all honesty I'd say build up a portfolio and keep it up to date annually. I'd rather hire someone who can think for themselves than someone with x experience in one or more technologies.

Coders are nimble... the good ones anyway.
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Would you hire me? I'm on the market. #ShamelessPlug
 
Surely you can find something to settle with for the next 20-30 years, but it's going to become very boring.
I became a software developer because I like learning new things. Yes, the learning curve is steep, but you get to play with new toys all the time.
When I started out my career, I could never have imagined that I would be writing code on a Windows machine that gets published to a container running on Linux, and spawn little brothers and sisters as demand increases.
If you don't want to learn new tech all the time, maybe look at alternative career options that allow you to stay in the IT space, but shift your focus (project management, full-time scrum master etc).
 
jbrunevader said:
That... arguably is just a different way to express "it was always (as I'm fairly sure you're aware) a temporary solution"... the goal was always to unify the formally dissimilar frameworks.

In short...
.Net core is dead... .long live .net 5, .net 6, etc.
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.Net Framework is dead. .Net Core lives as .Net 5.

They just kept them separate while the whole of the .Net framework was migrated to .Net Core.

It used to be .Net Framework 4 and .Net Core 3.
Now it's just .Net 5.

In fact:
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.Net and C# - C# and .Net are very dynamic and constantly gets new features and updates. Unlike some other languages (cough cough Java) it is constantly becoming more streamlined and incorporates many features that some of the cool kids like Ruby etc introduces.

JavaScript - There's a new framework released every time a child cries, but even with Angular or React or BackboneJS back in the day it is still JavaScript at it's core.

Java has a big install base, but most devs rather use some other language running on the JVM if they have any choice. It's C#'s older much less talent brother.

Python seems popular, especially for machine learning and datascience. I've never used it.

PHP also seems widely used, but I also never used that.

I don't think C++ and SQL will ever die, but I also don't think there will be 1000s of job openings for it like with the other languages.
 
Barbarian Conan said:
I don't think C++ and SQL will ever die, but I also don't think there will be 1000s of job openings for it like with the other languages.
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I agree with this - it will be very unlikely to see the number job openings for C/C++ at the level of those currently used for the various web technologies, however, the supply of those who can program it are also dwindling, and like you say, for various reasons they won’t go away anytime soon.

This makes for some really great niche opportunities. One should always look at the supply of skills, not just the demand.
 
cguy said:
I agree with this - it will be very unlikely to see the number job openings for C/C++ at the level of those currently used for the various web technologies, however, the supply of those who can program it are also dwindling, and like you say, for various reasons they won’t go away anytime soon.

This makes for some really great niche opportunities. One should always look at the supply of skills, not just the demand.
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Interesting. I thought that the demand would increase for C++ because of the demand for IOT.
 
cguy said:
I agree with this - it will be very unlikely to see the number job openings for C/C++ at the level of those currently used for the various web technologies, however, the supply of those who can program it are also dwindling, and like you say, for various reasons they won’t go away anytime soon.

This makes for some really great niche opportunities. One should always look at the supply of skills, not just the demand.
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Niche is good in a large market.. horrid in SA. Granted the way the country is going if you a specialist in anything you but still in SA you almost niche haha.
 
Look at the wonderful cult following for certain languages. Got to love seeing a language that will be irrelevant in ten years time have a cult following now.
 
While I am a proponent for xaml and strongly typed programming, HTML/Javascript/CSS are not going away soon. Blazor may be something good to get under the belt.
 
randomcat said:
Interesting. I thought that the demand would increase for C++ because of the demand for IOT.
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That is definitely one factor creating more C/C++ jobs, as is HPC software development, any kind of performance critical software and also programming for custom devices/CPUs. I just don’t think this will ever reach “web level” popularity.

The above are what I think are becoming niche areas. There are so many more web frontend/backend/fullstack jobs in comparison, with a workforce fueled by online courses, boot camps, and (some) degrees that don’t teach any C/C++, hardware concepts, architecture, etc. There’s high demand, but also high supply.

Amusingly, I ran through the Offerzen survey to see what they ask, and there were several “framework” and “cloud” platform questions, without even a “none” option (you could click “other” and enter “none” I suppose). Even more amusingly, is that the highest bracket for CTC is “R150k+”.
 
krycor said:
Niche is good in a large market.. horrid in SA. Granted the way the country is going if you a specialist in anything you but still in SA you almost niche haha.
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There are a lot of people doing niche remote work from SA these days. Those dynamics have changed.
 
The IOT devices have surprisingly high performance. I see them going much the way of web coding where quick turnaround is more important than peak performance. Things like MicroPython and Espruino (JavaScript) are already popular.
 
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