2005.04.13
Before the hike Andy mentioned he thought that conventional wisdom was that Java was kind of passé at this point, though he couldn't name what was supposedly taking its place. Shawn, who was actually a technical recruiter for a bit, disagreed, though we all agree that Java isn't too cool for desktop apps, and that J2EE, especially EJB, isn't that well loved.
I found the TIOBE Programming Community Index, which tries to quantify the popularity of programming languages based on "availability of skilled engineers, courses and third party vendors". (Hmm, I think a lot of us would be more interested in job listings, not skilled engineers...) Java and Perl, my favorites, are near the top. Overall I'm kind of suspicious of the methodlogy, or maybe it's just meant to be for managers more than for the coders themselves.
Any opinions on what's good to focus on going into the future is welcome. PHP might be finally maturing...it definately didn't feel ready for prime time when I learned a bit of it back in 2002. It is nice that it has all the libraries built-in. (Paul Graham thinks that can really push a language.) Like if I wanted to port and enhance my personal online flat-table database app, make it a serious opensource thing...would PHP or Java/JSP be a better bet for me, career-wise and then just from an "ease of distribution" standpoint?
Article of the Moment
Slate on The Most Popular Baby Names of 2015--interesting study in how they map to economic levels. (Effect more so than cause.) Is "Aviva" really a name people are considering? It sounds like a prescription medication or maybe a dot com.
My favorite hypothetical baby name continues to be "Sky". So my hypothetical child can hate me forever, of course.