Java - where are you going?

I am a Java developer by trade. More specifically, a J2EE developer. Slowly, we are moving over to JSF development, and are looking for ways to blend AJAX into our app. I personally focus on middleware - and fortunately it appears that the healthcare market is screwed up enough that I could probably make a career out of it. That's the short term plan anyway.

Today, Scott McNeally (whenever I hear his name I think of Mr. McFeely - I guess the names sound similiar enough)- well, Scott stepped aside as CEO of Sun Microsystems. What does this mean for Java? The jury is still out. It looks as if the new guy will be more bottom line focused - and if that saves the company then that can't be all bad for Java (crosses fingers).

On a related note, I don't know where Java is headed, but I do know where jobs are. I came across that book from the Pagmatic Programmer site. It looks like I need to work on my defense a bit. A co-worker reminded me how much my current employer relies on outsourced development.

Edited 05/10/2006
I found this on Joel's site:

Here's something Pradeep Singh taught me today: if only 20% of your staff is programmers, and you can save 50% on salary by outsourcing programmers to India, well, how much of a competitive advantage are you really going to get out of that 10% savings?

w00t!

Welcome

Hey, welcome to my blog. It's more of a personal notepad really. I'm going to keep it professional - by which I mean J2EE software development.

This is the tale of a developer that's been "head's down" coding. Now that I have raised my head, I no longer recognize any landmarks. I am a man lost in the Java wilderness...

Ok, that sounds a little more dramatic than it really is. Maintaining this page is a challenge to myself to stay current in the field.

I've yet to work on a project where the powers that be cared if we were on the latest release of anything - or if we were using the most current frameworks, etc. Nor have I ever had a boss come and tell me to re-architect the product because it was fragile, it wasn't flexible, -or- they were concerned about my skills getting rusty. All of this falls onto our personal responsibility. We should be going out and keeping ourselves current, sharp, and dedicated. Otherwise, you may end up where I have found myself today. However, next year I won't have this problem. Will you?

Careful there fellow code-monkey, it could happen to you too.