Are You Updating Your Skills?

[vrathore]

I've been getting a curious response from some of the people I've told
about the latest addition to my skill set. When I tell them that I've
taken the dive into Ruby on Rails (RoR), the first question they've
asked is "Why would you want to do that?". Well the answer is quite
simple. Around the middle of the year each year, I make a concerted
effort to learn a technology that I'm not familiar with yet. Last
year I got into Spring/Hibernate, Flex was the year before. This
year, I've decided to double my efforts. This year, I'm committing
myself to the dual challenges of learning RoR and Silverlight.

I have long contended that any developer, as long as they have a solid
background in a structured language (Java, C++, etc) can easily pick
up any other programing language once they get past the rudimentary
syntactical differences. I believe this fact (I learned in C++ back
in the day) has allowed me to pick up languages quickly and add to my
value as a developer and a consultant. This foundation has helped me
professionally because I have been able to increase my value to my
employer, year over year. It has also helped to keep me sharp as I
often find myself switching between 3-4 different languages in a given
work day. Without this challenge I'm sure I'd grow complacent and my
skills would drop off at some point.

So, am I bragging? No. I am challenging you, the complacent
developer, to take the time, take the plunge, choose something you
don't know but have been wanting to learn and dive into it head on.
It can be Flex, C#, Java, Ruby, PHP, whatever. Just choose your
target and go after it with passion and a desire to make yourself
better and make yourself a better developer.


- Andrew Powell
My RIA Expert

cheers

Varun Rathore

[Venkat Viswanathan]

Hey Varun,

When I started reading this article, I thought that it was your first-hand write-up. It was only when it got over, did I realize that it was Andrew Powell and not you :(

Regards,
Venkat