der.hans wrote:
 > Oh, and in the end you just need one good, stable gig anyway :).

Bingo.  Getting in the door with the "wrong" skills can be hard, but
sometimes you can get in with one skillset and then gradually
redefine the job to use the skills you prefer using.  But the big deal
is that you become more valuable the longer you've been in a
given company or industry, if they give you room to grow and
stretch and swing your weight a little.

I work in a classic C application on Solaris, and we all have our
own development styles, but it's mostly along the line of standard
Unix development with vi or other source editors.  We also have
one important VB6 app, a fair amount of Java (mostly running on
Linux servers), and a hodgepodge of other stuff.

But a major asset is each person's growing knowledge of the
stuff we work with and with our customers' business.  We have
recently come through a year and a half of destructive management
and now we're back in a mode where the developers are seen as
the primary asset -- some who left have come back, the old crew is
rolling again.  Money?  Not rolling in it, but fairly competitive and
a few above-average bennies.

Bottom line:  you may be strong on the technology, or you may be
stronger on the particular business environment.  These are different
sets of talents.  Of course the real gems are the guys who excel at
both, because programming is a translation job after all.

Vic


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