Orjan

I'm realizing I'm outdated. Totally. at least when it comes to programming

I started off with Pascal. Not the worlds most famous language perhaps, but it did what we wanted to,and pretty easy to learn. Then I jumped on to C and C++ (combined, in the same high school course sadly enough) And I got most of it, but never really got deeply in love with OOP, as I've blogged about before.

Then the web arrived. (yes, I'm that old so I were programming before Internet boom.) HTML was the new thing everyone should learn. It's no real programming language in that way, but still a language to learn. I did some stuff in mid 90's style, and knew the most valuable about it at least. Went on to college, and more C/C++, now in structured programming, JSP was the way. Nonono, not what you think. Jackson Structured Programming was this meaning. not Java Server Pages. They were hardly invented. Very Well, structured programming there were. Java was spoken about but no-one really knew what it was.

Shell scripting and Perl became famous now among my co-students, as my college had implemented shtml, ssi pages, server parsed html. wow, I could let the user know what time it is. A year went on and I did military service (it was compulsory for a year here in Sweden back then, it is now too, but hardly 10% does it any longer, cause of costs), and after that, I heard of java applets.

Wow, tremendous. interactive bits and pieces on the web page. I actually created an applet. it was to look like someone was typing on a typewriter, bot in different speed and stuff. It looked good, to be 1996, I mean. But Java were nothing much back then. I skip it.

I started working, skipped out college, as I got fed up with studying. coudn't do anything about it. I started work with network stuff, no programming. Hardware, Software. Hardly any programming. Web design opened up, and I got a little bit more interested again. PHP came to me, how I don't know, but it did.

Now I've been programming PHP and MySQL for a few years, spare time projects. CSS came as something new, oh well, something for the layouters, I skip it. JavaScript came. something for the layouters that wanted activity on the pages. I skip it.

So, here I am today, 2009 I can write and understand. I can program PHP/MySQL, and I have knowledge ow how to program. but what are people looking for today, to get a job in computer business, now with financial crisis and everything.

Java. Javascript. I was just out on the swedish governmental-run job agency looking for jobs. 800 advertisments in the IT sector. For the whole country. (we are only 8 million, so the amount isn't too bad, seldom been over 1500). Out of these advertisments, almost 150 wanted java programmers. 90 wanted HTML/CSS Layouters with Javascript knowledge. 10 wanted PHP programmers. yey. I'm not in the two largest citys, so I need to move a few hundred miles to those jobs.

All I can conclude now is that I have skipped out parts that outdated me totally from the job market. big time. So here I am, confronting the unemployment I'm in with no real future on the job market. The only thing to do today is to learn Java. Or you won't get a programming job. not in Sweden at least.

My next step is to try to learn java. and I actually thing of going back to college and do a proper education. graduating at 37. not 27 as most people. Ten years lost cause of that darn fed up situation. cause of skipping the trends not suiting me or my current jobs. Sure, I have work experience. but no education or knowledge as people wants.not now, when they fire thousand after thousand everywhere. So I'll apply to restart college this fall. Hopefully I do the right thing this time.