Software Technologies Good For a Rookie

When starting out in the software development field, it can be very challenging to figure out which tools, technologies or platforms to learn. Nothing is more frustrating that spending 6 months learning a piece of technology only to find out that it is obsolete or the prospects of finding some meaningful work in such is technology is bleak at best. Moreover, software development is advancing at such a blazing pace that hot technologies of yesterday are legacy today. The pace at which new development technologies are coming to market can be overwhelming.

Based on my years of experience in this field at various levels in the software development ladder, I learned that one can no longer tag themselves as a C# Developer, Java Developer, Mainframe Developer etc. Nowadays a developer is someone who can learn a new development language or paradigm in a short span of time (typically 1-2 months) and be able to write complex business applications. Then s/he should be able to pick up a new technology as situation demands.

That said, we are human and we need concrete answers. So without further ado, here are some of the hottest technologies of today.

1. JavaScript: 5 years ago, it would have been blasphemous to include JavaScript in the list of top 5 computer programming languages, let alone it being on the top of the list. But things have changed. Business need more agility and want to develop apps quickly and be able to ship MVPs at a rapid pace. If there is one thing JavaScript is better at than Java/C#, it is rapid development. So get your JavaScript on. However, learning JavaScript along will not help. Make sure you read the rest of the list below.
2. Java: Yes, the good old, polarizing, Java. To be more precise, I am talking about Java Enterprise Edition. A lot of big enterprises still trust the dependability of Java. It is my personal opinion that a good Java Developer can pick up any other development language with ease.
3. Python: The language of geeks. Python enables rapid development without requiring a huge platform setup (unlike Java). Plus, knowing Python will earn you the respect of the geek community.
4. Angular: Not traditionally a programming language in the literal sense of the word, it is a platform of choice for rapidly developing beautiful Single Page Applications(SPAs). This is where your knowledge of JavaScript will come in handy.
5. C#: C# made Microsoft cool again. It is the language of choice for development on the Azure platform, which is a distant second to AWS in cloud penetration. Plus C# looks and feels very natural to Java developers, so there is no dearth of developers who speak both Java and C#.

We will talk about some good resources and learning plans for these technologies in my upcoming blog post. Until then, happy learning.