From: Francis Hwang <sera@...>
Date: 2005-03-26T23:45:07+09:00
Subject: Re: comment on today's poll and more questions


On Mar 25, 2005, at 11:04 PM, Phil Tomson wrote:
> My question was more related to web programming: I have no web
> programming experience, but I do have Ruby experience.
>

In the long term I don't know if you absolutely positively have to be 
involved in web programming. But I do think that new languages have 
better chances of taking root in new domain areas, and web programming 
is one of those newer areas. But it's not the only one. Tim Bray has a 
convenient list at 
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/03/15/OneSunYear#p-7 :

"What�s Not Boring? Cellphones aren�t boring (of all the J2*E�s, I like 
one with �M� the best). Open Source isn�t boring. Dynamic languages 
aren�t boring. Web services and SOA aren�t boring, but we may have to 
destroy that village in order to save it. High-level support for 
CMT/TLP isn�t boring. Extreme Programming and Agile Development and 
Test-Driven Development aren�t boring.  Ajax isn�t boring. Distributed 
applications based on RSS/Atom syndication aren�t boring. UBL isn�t 
boring. Health-care informatics reform isn�t boring. Unified multimodal 
communication (think voice, chat, email, syndication, video, and 
whatever comes next) isn�t boring. Distributed identity isn�t boring. 
The intellectual-property wars aren�t boring."

Personally, if I were talking to a smart 18-year-old hacker today, I 
might tell him to skip web programming altogether and jump into 
podcasting and/or VOIP, particularly any efforts to enrich these 
formats with semantic data to make them even superior to conventional 
audio signals sent over radio or phone networks. I'd be in there 
myself, if I didn't have my hands full with all my web-related stuff.

But, as always, it's easiest to make a mark in a field that you're 
excited about.

Francis Hwang
http://fhwang.net/