The Most In-Demand Tech Skills of 2013

[brianmanahan]

I am not surprised Java is so in demand. it seems like every school is pumping out Java developers left and right, most of which can't tell you the difference between an interface and an abstract class (seriously, I would have conversations with technical interviewers about how incredibly easy the questions were and they'd say things like this).

not to mention the ones that capitalize it as JAVA :awe:

(i usually ignore any resumes where someone has done that)

 

[Aldon]

http://webonastick.com/php.html
Although I like php's ease of editing because it reminds me of ASP, one of the first languages I learned, PHP really is difficult to work with and I am surprised by its success.

The reason why it's successful it's because it is easy to get into. I've been doing things in OOP PHP and I've never found it difficult.

 

[Albatross]

I suspect that if you eliminate "Enterprise" software,Java would be much lower.

 

[Scarinx]

Keep working on my python skills so if its popular

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I'm slightly surprised at how high the demand is for java. I knew it was high, I didn't expect it to be double the demand of the second place contender. (and even higher if you consider "android" to be a subset of java.)

If you need to extend the functionality of COTS software, chances are that Java is supported.

At work, we are adding functionality to a CAD tool (the tool is NX by Siemens) and we are doing all of the work in Java.

 

[brianmanahan]

I suspect that if you eliminate "Enterprise" software,Java would be much lower.

i suspect if you eliminated enterprise software, you would eliminate most of the software market

 

[Fox5]

i suspect if you eliminated enterprise software, you would eliminate most of the software market

Agreed.

I actually wish my work used more Java. Most of the work is done in C. Not C++, just C. Embedded systems, open source software, and low level stuff seems to love plain old C, even though in lots of cases something higher level could easily be used. I try to squeeze Python in whenever I can, but it's more useful for quick one-offs than good solutions.

 

[slugg]

I'm a Java developer. I hate it. I really want to get back into .NET, but I don't have enough experience on paper in .NET to get a high enough paying job. So I'm kinda stuck here, you could say.

My main gripes with Java are that there are 13986139821 ways to do one thing and that the tooling just sucks. Choice is good, but too much choice leads to dilution. It's kind of like going to a restaurant and having 300 items on the menu; it's kind of hard to sift through the crap. Microsoft's menu is much smaller, but most of it is delicious and nutritious. I'm a huge fan of Visual Studio and Microsoft products in general; everything tends to "just work" and I spend more time developing rather than configuring environments.

Also, this whole notion that Java is cheaper to operate due to Microsoft's licensing fees is total BS. Actual operational costs, including personell and support contracts, tend to be equally or more expensive with a Java based stack. Most big companies use one of (or a combination thereof) the big 3 databases: Oracle, MS SQL, and DB2. Guess which one's the cheapest, by far?

Agreed.

I actually wish my work used more Java. Most of the work is done in C. Not C++, just C. Embedded systems, open source software, and low level stuff seems to love plain old C, even though in lots of cases something higher level could easily be used. I try to squeeze Python in whenever I can, but it's more useful for quick one-offs than good solutions.

Your job sounds fun. I'd love to work with you. My favorite language is C. Not C++, just C. I almost took a job doing image processing and machine learning in embedded control systems, but I really didn't like the location and their benefits sucked. Paid more than I make now, though. So now, once in a blue moon, I get a gig like this on the side.

 

[purbeast0]

definitely makes sense to me, just from when i was job hunting back in even 2012. but it was good for me because i wanted to do java, and i saw tons and tons of listings for it. i had done c++ for 5 years then did java for 2 years and liked java a lot more.

and considering that everything seems to be going "web-app" right now, it does not surprise me one bit that java is leading the pack. java just seems to be the most popular and easiest to integrate with the web-app infrastructure. i am surprised though that php was up there instead of javascript. that definitely doesn't reflect what i saw when doing my searches, but again, this was in 2012.

 

[brianmanahan]

I'm a Java developer. I hate it. I really want to get back into .NET, but I don't have enough experience on paper in .NET to get a high enough paying job. So I'm kinda stuck here, you could say.

My main gripes with Java are that there are 13986139821 ways to do one thing and that the tooling just sucks. Choice is good, but too much choice leads to dilution. It's kind of like going to a restaurant and having 300 items on the menu; it's kind of hard to sift through the crap. Microsoft's menu is much smaller, but most of it is delicious and nutritious. I'm a huge fan of Visual Studio and Microsoft products in general; everything tends to "just work" and I spend more time developing rather than configuring environments.

i am a java developer and am meh about the java language itself, but much happier with other JVM languages - groovy, scala, and clojure.

i REALLY dont like the fact that with .NET, MS is charging for everything. that is their business model, but its what keeps me from investing time in it on the side. want the VS IDE? gotta buy it. want the resharper plugin? gotta buy it. want TS version control? gotta buy it. want different major libraries? gotta buy em. want a server? gotta buy it. everyone is trying to make a buck off of it. no thanks, i will just use eclipse or SSTS + git + tomcat + java/spring/hibernate or grails.

and even though MS has "one way" to do something, they are often late to the game. it was hilarious that they were touting ASP MVC as the Next Big Thing back in '09 and '10... struts came out like 10 years before that, lol.

 

[brianmanahan]

Most big companies use one of (or a combination thereof) the big 3 databases: Oracle, MS SQL, and DB2. Guess which one's the cheapest, by far?

postgres :awe:

 

[Aldon]

i am surprised though that php was up there instead of javascript. that definitely doesn't reflect what i saw when doing my searches, but again, this was in 2012.

You can't do much with JavaScript anyway. Database? PHP. Server-side? PHP. Easy? PHP.

 

[Markbnj]

You can't do much with JavaScript anyway. Database? PHP. Server-side? PHP. Easy? PHP.

You might have been missing some recent developments. Check out node.js.

 

[Aldon]

You might have been missing some recent developments. Check out node.js.

Anything else?

 

[slugg]

postgres :awe:

Hey I LOVE Postgres. But for large firms, it's just not popular. Large companies like to pay for support and have a "real" product when it comes to their beloved data.

But personally, MS SQL is my favorite, followed by PostgreSQL if you need something free. For small projects, you can still get away with MS SQL Express if they're hosted on a Windows box.

 

[Cogman]

Hey I LOVE Postgres. But for large firms, it's just not popular. Large companies like to pay for support and have a "real" product when it comes to their beloved data.

But personally, MS SQL is my favorite, followed by PostgreSQL if you need something free. For small projects, you can still get away with MS SQL Express if they're hosted on a Windows box.

From what I've seen, MS SQL has some of the best tools out there (for windows) SQL studios is much better than things like the postgres admin stuff.

That said, I've never dealt with oracle. From what I've heard, it is not all that great and pretty expensive.

 

[smackababy]

That said, I've never dealt with oracle. From what I've heard, it is not all that great and pretty expensive.

I haven't done a ton of high level DBA stuff, but all the ones I worked with HATED the Oracle DB we used. Plus, it was very expensive.

 

[slugg]

From what I've seen, MS SQL has some of the best tools out there (for windows) SQL studios is much better than things like the postgres admin stuff.

That said, I've never dealt with oracle. From what I've heard, it is not all that great and pretty expensive.

You pretty much nailed it. The tooling is second to none. Plus, the actual DBMS is really good.

 

[brianmanahan]

FWIW my data analyst actually uses microsoft access to edit our reference data :awe:

 

[DaveSimmons]

i REALLY dont like the fact that with .NET, MS is charging for everything. that is their business model, but its what keeps me from investing time in it on the side. want the VS IDE? gotta buy it. want the resharper plugin? gotta buy it. want TS version control? gotta buy it. want different major libraries? gotta buy em. want a server? gotta buy it. everyone is trying to make a buck off of it. no thanks, i will just use eclipse or SSTS + git + tomcat + java/spring/hibernate or grails.

If you use .Net at work, your company pays for MSDN and you get every tool, program and OS including servers, for one fee. Most professional Java and PHP tools cost money too, so I'm OK with that.

For hobbyists, some .Net stuff is free some is not, but that's true of other stacks too.

 

[Aldon]

What kind of PHP tools do you have in mind?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Sad to see that C++ is dying in the enterprise. It's one of the few languages that is open and not governed by a single company. It's probably the most powerful if used correctly as well. Java is a huge pig, the same thing written in C++ will be 10 times more efficient, and also wont be subjected to locking yourself into a very specific platform (OS/Java version).

 

[smackababy]

Sad to see that C++ is dying in the enterprise. It's one of the few languages that is open and not governed by a single company. It's probably the most powerful if used correctly as well. Java is a huge pig, the same thing written in C++ will be 10 times more efficient, and also wont be subjected to locking yourself into a very specific platform (OS/Java version).

The problem with a blanket claim about C++ being "10 times more efficient" is that in the realm of where Java is, that doesn't matter. Your biggest places of inefficiency is going to be database connections and the internet. It doesn't matter if you code does perform that much faster, you're still waiting on the data to transfer just as long.

And, you're not locked into any OS on Java (so long as that OS has a JVM). And, as for version, that is true to a point, but even then, you get a long time before a deprecated method is actually removed from the latest Java version.

 

[douglasb]

Sad to see that C++ is dying in the enterprise. It's one of the few languages that is open and not governed by a single company. It's probably the most powerful if used correctly as well. Java is a huge pig, the same thing written in C++ will be 10 times more efficient, and also wont be subjected to locking yourself into a very specific platform (OS/Java version).

This is patently false in almost every conceivable scenario.

 

[Cogman]

This is patently false in almost every conceivable scenario.

Well, memory consumption maybe. A well written C++ app sips memory, a well written Java app will consume a large chunk of memory, GC, and move on (The "real" memory consumption might be comparable).

That said, this usually isn't a huge issue. We are in the age where 1gb of ram is super inexpensive. Memory consumption generally only matters in memory controller situations.

http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/java.php If this can be trusted (and it isn't horrible) java is anywhere from 1->4x slower and uses anywhere from 1->10x the memory (but again, the "memory" usage isn't really all that good IMO just because the GC allows a lot more memory to be allocated than C++'s typical eager memory freeing.)