the Forty-Second Parallel

I'm always interested to hear what people like Tim O'Reilly have to say about about current trends in programming languages. I wouldn't call myself a programmer per se, but I do a fair bit of programming in my life as a web developer/web designer/systems administrator.

I've taken a fairly common tack in building my languages skillset. Started out with DHTML/Javascript. From there I picked up Perl and began gluing the web together with CGI scripts. Next came PHP and all it's "glory". Took a detour through the world of VB6 until I decided I preferred building web applications. Tiptoed through ASP.NET/C# long enough to get my hands dirty. Tried really hard to get Python to work out in the realm of web applications in the days before Django, TurboGears, Pylons, etc. And here over the past couple of years I've enjoyed building things online with Ruby on Rails.

In some cases, I picked up a new language/technology because I was curious about it and wanted to see what it was about - that's how I got started. In others, I took a stab at learning something because (honestly) even if I couldn't make use of it in my current position, I hoped it would add to my resume and come in useful somewhere down the road. I don't think my actions are in any way unusual - and that's brings me to O'Reilly.

Looking at the O'Reilly book sales numbers, it probably comes as no surprise that Ruby on Rails is one of the hot sellers right now. There are probably a number of reasons for this - hype, scarcity of good online documentation, or that it's actually a really good web framework. For whatever reason, people are interested in learning more about Rails, which is great. The disconnect, though, comes when you try to translate big book sales to job opportunities.

Now, I'm not saying that there aren't a good number of places looking for Rails developers these days. And I'm no expert on job markets and technology adoption. But, looking at the job market in my region (and that's all that matters to me), the big techs in demand are the enterprise heavyweights - .NET and Java. Sure, there are a smattering of odd positions that mention Python or Ruby as "nice to haves." But, in my highly unscientific survey, they are the definite minority and tend to be sys admin type positions.

Of course, I could broaden my scope and take into account positions all over the U.S. But, at the moment, I'm not in a position where I would consider uprooting and relocating to another region just for a job. My career is a segment of my life, not the other way around. Does that limit me? Sure. And that's a choice I've made and consequences that I have to deal with.

So what's my point? Simply that national book sales are a poor indicator of skillsets in demand by your job market. Because, for a lot of people (if not most), their job market is local first, then regional, and national last. In my case, if I were to decide that I wanted to look for a new job and wanted the best shot at finding another web development position in the area, I'd have to get busy brushing up on my ASP.NET. Would I rather use Ruby or Python? Definitely. But, pragmatically speaking, you can't get a job swinging a hammer if no one's using hammers.