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Microsoft Programming The Almighty Buck IT Technology

.Net Programmers Fall in CNN's Top 5 In-Demand 602

GT_Alias writes "CNN Money is reporting that .Net programmers are one of the top 5 most in-demand jobs. Of the positions where recent surveys have indicated a labor shortage, .Net developers and QA analysts are the two that fell under the 'technology' category. According to CNN Money, .Net developers can make between $75-85K starting out in major cities, with the potential to make 15% more if they have a particular proficiency. Additionally, QA workers can make $65-75K a year with the ability to negotiate a 10-15% pay jump if they switch jobs. How does this information compare with the Slashdot crowd's real-world experience?"
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.Net Programmers Fall in CNN's Top 5 In-Demand

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  • Qué? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mathiasdm ( 803983 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @07:38AM (#14641166) Homepage
    Nothing for you to see here, please move along


    It must be because I can only program Java. *sigh*

  • I'm Job Searching (Score:2, Interesting)

    by B_un1t ( 942155 )
    Where should I go to start learning .Net programming? I need some good skills as I'm just looking for my first IT job now. Should I turn to the evil Microsoft for training in .Net or elsewhere??
    • by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:23AM (#14641276)
      You should just buy a book and learn it yourself. Do some real projects that you can demonstrate to the interviewers if you don't have any real world experience. You can use Mono if you want, or use the VS.Net Express Edition to get started. Once you get into more complex stuff, it'll probably be better for you to get real experience with the real VS.Net IDE. It's a pretty powerful IDE, and I like it a lot. There's a few things I'd like to change, but otherwise it's pretty good.
      • MOD PARENT UP! (Score:5, Informative)

        by TERdON ( 862570 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:43AM (#14641329) Homepage
        Damn that i burnt all my mod points this morning. This is EXACTLY what I'm doing right now, as part of my master thesis. For all the Swedes out there, that already have some programming skills, I would strongly recommend reading Anders Forsberg - Programmering i C#. It concentrates on the parts making C# different from other languages and cuts the crap out. Add to that some kind of .NET Framework overview book, and you should have what it takes to get at least decent on your own.

        Also, Visual Studio isn't a good IDE - it's a great one (especially compared to some of Microsoft's other software offerings). And I'm usually in the *nix crowd. Possibly vim or emacs are better, but they have a really high entrance barrier...
    • Re:I'm Job Searching (Score:4, Informative)

      by $1uck ( 710826 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:33AM (#14641305)
      Download the Express editions of visual XXX.NET and then go watch the streaming multi-media lessons. http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vwd/lear ning/default.aspx [microsoft.com] If you've done any real programming it seems fairly straight forward and the express software is similiar enough to the real stuff. The beginning lessons do a fairly decent job of showing you how to use the IDE which I think is probably just as tricky (if not trickier) than learning a new syntax.
    • by Anonymous Coward
      This is actually a crap shot. If you are just starting, do not lock yourself into one thing or another. Keep in mind that there are plenty of MS coders out, many who are currently unemployed (with more coming). In addition, if you read the article, it is for EXPERT .net coders (i.e. with 5 years experience). What was missed is that experienced *nix coders typically make 100K and above (also with 5 years experience or more).

      While you should learn this, you should also be gaining experience in java/C/
    • There are many great resources available for you. Grab yourself a copy of Visual Web Developer Express: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vwd/defa ult.aspx [microsoft.com]. This will allow you to mess around with the .NET framework and get a feel for the IDE - it is very similar to Visual Studio 2005. You will find lots of help on the forums at http://www.asp.net/ [asp.net] and this is a good starting point. The quickstart tutorials are great if you would like to wet your beak : http://www.asp.net/QUICKSTART/aspnet/Default [asp.net]
    • .NET is not the skill you need to "break into IT". Nor is any other platform or language.

      It's my personal opinion is that the mentality a successful programming career requires is something you almost have to be born with. You need to not only excel at solving complex problems on your own, but must enjoy it. There are plenty of very smart people (smarter than me) who can't put together a simple app - they just don't have the patience.

      You're reading slashdot - that's a good sign. But I'd be suspici
  • by adderofaspyre ( 800203 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @07:43AM (#14641180) Homepage

    From TFA: "Microsoft's software programming language .NET"

    .NET's a platform or function library if you will not a programming language. Not getting your facts straight doesn't inspire me to have a lot of confidence.

  • by kafka47 ( 801886 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @07:43AM (#14641181) Homepage
    If anything, many of the .NET and other programming jobs that I see coming across my desk are in the range of 85-100K (in Canada). And there are a lot of them.

    Also, I see a lot of new QA jobs emphasizing programming skills, thus driving up the wages. These days, excellent QA organizations will devote at least 50% of their efforts towards automation, either by building their own suites or leveraging off-the-shelf solutions. This is good for QA folk who eventually want to migrate into development, as they'll gain valuable skills along the way.

    /K

    • This is good for QA folk who eventually want to migrate into development, as they'll gain valuable skills along the way.

      The ideal QA person is one who actually enjoys breaking stuff, and will hone his or her skills at it for years to come. One who already wants to migrate to development can have the wrong frame of mind (as to what their job should be), as well as conflicts of interest (don't piss off the development manager). I say this as a developer who has great respect for good, professional QA people

  • by Sub Zero 992 ( 947972 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @07:44AM (#14641183) Homepage
    Are we talking ASP.Net? Are we talking SQL Server 2005 c# stored procedures gurus? Are we talking J# Nhibernate & Nant wizards? Could we possibly be talking about .NET Portable CLR professionals designing VOIP applications for Windows Mobile 2005?

    Honestly, wihtout specifying the phrase ".NET Developers" more precisely the discussion will become meaningless.

    My POV: a new college graduatre who can barely create encapsulated objects is not going to be pulling the same money as a Java turned C# enterprise framework analyst who writes the patterns published in those clever books.
    • Are we talking ASP.Net? Are we talking SQL Server 2005 c# stored procedures gurus? Are we talking J# Nhibernate & Nant wizards? Could we possibly be talking about .NET Portable CLR professionals designing VOIP applications for Windows Mobile 2005?

      Hmm, I have a feeling it's really talking about just that -- .NET developers. In general.
      Could be why they get such a large demand of them, in case they're summarizing the demand in general.
    • Someone who develops in the .NET platform perhaps? No it doesn't have to be one of the subsets you picked. Just like when you say a C programmer you don't mean programmers using C to develop embeded software for widgets on snowy Monday's of every leap year.
    • We're talking HelloWorld.Net. If you know about the other stuff, you probably make more money.
  • by eneville ( 745111 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @07:46AM (#14641190) Homepage
    Never underestimate the stupidity of large groups (the employers) of people. .net is just a freaking platform, its not like it is anything special, just another language that just depends on different things. Offers very little that most other languages offer in much the same way.

    Why isn't something that's more portable (perl/python) in such demand? Really bakes my noodle.
    • by Erik Hensema ( 12898 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @07:58AM (#14641217) Homepage

      Because .NET is the major development platform of the major operating system.

      Neither perl nor python are very popular for large application development, even on unix. So there isn't much demand.

      • Neither perl nor python are very popular for large application development, even on unix. So there isn't much demand.

        Bah, that's because we already solved all the problems ;)
      • Neither perl nor python are very popular for large application development, even on unix. So there isn't much demand.

        This may be changing. I've been interviewing with two companies recently, and they both either use, or plan to use Python for a major application. On one hand, the first company sells a Windows Server 2003 box with MS SQL 2005 and Python for the backend to their app. The client software? C# and .NET. The second company is selling a server running Fedora Core 4 and PostgreSQL, with C++ as th

      • Neither perl nor python are very popular for large application development, even on unix. So there isn't much demand.

        Are you kidding?

        Besides for Microsoft shops (relatively new development), most of the industry (any company with IT department older than 20 years) uses UNIX (and a fair bit of Perl/shell/C) for their core business. I'm not talking about employee computers (all those are Windwos), but servers, databases, etc., stuff that folks actually maintain/write code for.

        When I hear of a corp using MS SQ
    • Never underestimate the stupidity of large groups (the employers) of people

      So a company, who has it's infrastructure on Windows, should use a development environment not designed for it? Or worse, scrap Windows and install Linux? You know in a utopic world this would be a good thing to do. But not all companies are filthy rich that can afford the costs migration to the "cool *nix tech du jour". Some companies, especially the small and medium ones that are strapped for cash can't afford migration that means:
    • by lilnobody ( 148653 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:45AM (#14641330)
      Why isn't something that's more portable (perl/python) in such demand? Really bakes my noodle.


      Ever try and write an enterprise level application, even a web application, in perl? It's great for small internal applications; that CPAN doo-hickey works just great.

      But CPAN bites you back when you hit the limits of what those modules can do in a large-scale application. When you hit the limit of what is the easiest and arguably the best (and arguably not) ORM out there, Class::DBI, there's 150 different, incompatible modules out there to do what you want. Which one will be maintained? Which one silently overwrites methods deep within more established modules and doesn't tell you? Want one that adds support for limit and sort by? One module gives you that easily, but not with the same interface as the other 10 that are more full featured. Which do you choose?

      Don't even get me started on trying to send an email with Perl. CPAN seems to have a new module for sending email every other day. It's become less of a one-stop shop for the modules you need and more of the perl newbie ftp drop site for modules no one could possibly need or want.

      As an example, check out what's been uploaded today. Version 0.02 of JavaScript::MochiKit, helpfully described as 'makes perl suck less', with 15 classes and less than a page of documentation. Great! Just what I was looking for!

      There's also a module for interacting with MySpace, two versions in the same day of of an XML parser (writer? who knows, I didn't read it) for a data format used by the library of congress (from the same proud author of version 0.3 of Acme::Voodoo, described as 'Do bad stuff to your objects'), version 0.18 (version 0.17 was yesterday's) of DBIX::Class::Loader, a copycat of Class::DBI::Loader for this self-proclaimed CDBI replacement (which is probably needed, but god help a perl newbie who shows up on CPAN looking for ORM nowadays). It's 2pm my time (Austria), meaning it's 5:30 central time, and there are already 9 modules with version numbers less than 1.0 uploaded to CPAN.

      Now don't get me wrong, this is fantastic for a small scale app. I'm sure someone will get some use out of a MySpace profile accessor in perl. But what makes CPAN, and perl, great for small-time stuff makes it just terrible for enterprise applications.

      As for perl's portability...do you really expect to make an argument that a language that is, in quite official terms, defined by the official compiler is portable? Perl runs on windows, but since perl.exe IS the language, differences between it and the unix versions aren't even technically bugs...they just ARE! It's not a proper way to 'run a language', so to speak.

      I've been programming in perl for years. I get paid well for it. I don't plan to stop using it for my insignificant applications. But I know damn well why it's not in demand.

      nobody
      • by Anonymous Coward
        I have worked on large scale Perl applications. The key ingredient is intelligent programmers. Sadly many companies do not realize that spending 150K per person on two programmers is more efficient than spending 85k per person on 10. Companies would rather have lots of monkeys than a few geniuses. Syntactically restrictive languages are popular because of this. ORM mapping modules are more necessary in languages that enforce OO programming. I would rather be able to use more powerful techniques when a
    • See, the thing is: these days, real-world programming skill is not about the language anymore, it's about the libraries. You may be able to switch from Java to C# in a few days, but knowing the libraries inside out is going to take a lot longer.
  • by mikeburke ( 683778 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @07:48AM (#14641194)
    The article says you can earn big bucks if you know the 'dot net' language. Trouble is, there's no such thing (unless you count MSIL, which you don't).

    A whole bunch of langauges actually target the dotNet runtime (c#, visualbasic.net, j#, etc). My guess is that after a few years of head-in-the-sand, a metric crapload of legacy visual basic projects suddenly need porting to a platform with a future.

    • I don't think anyone takes J# seriously, and as for C# and VB.Net, they are pretty much the same language semantically, with different syntax. Sure, there are some small things in one that aren't in the other (like VB.Net WithEvents and Handles), but even so most people I know who can code in one easily understand the other. And all the framework libraries - BCL, WinForms, WebForms - are common to all .NET languages. Consider this: you can say that you are a 'Win32 developer', and that would mean that you k
  • Yes! They're Right! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04, 2006 @07:48AM (#14641195)
    I've been brainwashed by slashdot users and most of the IT crowd on the Internet to go ahead and learn open source languages and applications and not to learn .NET, as it is Micoshit.

    To my surprise, the IT crowd with the big voices on the net are not in-tune with reality.

    Most of the jobs out there require you to use .NET.
    • Most of the jobs out there require you to use .NET.

      That is clearly false: there is no majority platform or majority language out there. C# is a significant platform and .NET is as well, but so are Java (which is just as proprietary), C, C++, and PHP. You can make a good living with any of them, and if you're reasonably good, you'll know all of the languages and most of their standard APIs.
    • Most seem to require java and its still #1 by far in any job search.

      So I wonder about this claim?

      Its stupid to me as a good programmer is proficient in programming and not a language. Maybe the HR weenies think 10+ years in java programming dont count as webservice programming experience in c#.net, so they want all the newbies out of college with no experience. Idiots.

      But the spike may not reflect the large situation because not everyone has experience with.net because its new and HR folks filter qualified
  • by Traf-O-Data-Hater ( 858971 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @07:49AM (#14641198)
    I'm a C#/.NET developer here in Australia, been doing C# for the last 5 years within a diverse range of industries. Prior to that I was a C++ dev for about 12 years. Before the dotcom crash I was on a 6-figure salary, now as a C# hack I earn about the lower end of the figures quoted - in Australian dollars (about 3/4 the value of US dollars).
    One thing though, I got sick of the constant crap in C++ just spending more time on the stupid COM plumbing and myriad datatypes than actual applications work. Going to C# was a damn breath of fresh air. I LOVE it. I can actually get useful shit done that does stuff for the END USER of the the product and after all that's what the company pays me for. Perhaps I should just move to the US but with the god-bothering, shootings and rampant intake of GE food I think I'll give it a miss thanks. Oh and the lack of more than a week or two holidays... gackkk.
    • by jallen02 ( 124384 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @09:59AM (#14641564) Homepage Journal
      I get three weeks of vacation. Most folks do. God-Bothering.. bothers me too. GE food? Ehh.. we ship that stuff all over the world. Its hard to know exactly where your food came from.
       
      The shootings... I am not exactly sure what you mean by this. People do get shot yes.. but it is not like we all run around in fear of being shot. Statistically it is one of the least likely ways for you to die. Heart disease is much worse over here.
       
      I am no apologist, but please pick on us for stuff that is actually bad like our idiot politicians that are bankrupting the country and such.

      Jeremy
  • by faragon ( 789704 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:00AM (#14641223) Homepage
    As rule of thumb, may be it is better for you to invert in general Computer Science formation (generic OS, compiler understanding, computer architecture, algorithmic complexity, et al), not just the "follow the last wave formation". Most people doesn't ever consider that it is dangerous to be extremely especialized. This applies to any platform-specific developing environment.

    In the long way, you'll have to switch between many OS, compilers, languages, etc. Sometimes you have to be pragmatic, just to pay the bills, but take conscience about that the IT field is very variable in the surface, but sound in the fundamentals. This is why I recommend generic Computer Science formation when young people ask me for an advice (plus some other "last wave" preparation, just in case).

  • Why .Net? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by el_womble ( 779715 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:05AM (#14641234) Homepage
    I'm in the (un)fortunate position of seeing .Net and J2EE being used sideby side in the same application, and I don't get why people are using .Net in the enterprise. It can't be because CLR is faster than the JVM, it isn't. It may be fair to say that, for a bog standard application, .Net development is faster (Visual Studio is an excellent tool), but as soon as you start to push its framework (as all real applications do) the .Net teams fall behind the J2EE teams.

    Java gives you choice. Choice of IDE, choice of framework, choice of application server and perhaps most importantly choice of platform. All that and it runs as fast as .Net and, if your on a budget, everything can be got for free. Need support? Buy WebLogic or JBoss support. Need training? Sun are more than happy to oblige. Need developers? You can't spit without hitting a J2EE developer. Need the source code? Sun will hand it over, for free, just don't expect any changes you made to be put back into the source tree, or them to give you any slack if you try and distribute at all - its not the freedom that OSS would like to give you, but its better than .Net.

    So is it any wonder that there are less .Net developers. If I was starting out in software development again, I'd be still be looking to start in Java, and expect to move over to Ruby on Rails (or whatever is flavor of the month) in 5 to 10 years. Assuming people who make IT descisions get smarter, and OSS continues to get stronger, I can't see how any company selling enterprise grade software will be selling anything but the time and experiance of their staff sans the licencing fees of the tools and server software to their customers. How else will western developers compete with China and India?
    • Re:Why .Net? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by azaris ( 699901 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:13AM (#14641253) Journal

      So is it any wonder that there are less .Net developers.

      More likely the story is that the old Windows developers are clinging to VC++ and VB instead of making the transition to the new .NET languages. Many of these .NET jobs are probably converting legacy Windows apps to the .NET platform. You can't just throw away a codebase worth years of labor and start over with Java, PHP, Ruby on Rails, or some other buzzword compliant flavor of the month.

      I know we have to deal with this transition at work, so probably many others will have to, too.

      • Many of these .NET jobs are probably converting legacy Windows apps to the .NET platform. You can't just throw away a codebase worth years of labor and start over with Java, PHP, Ruby on Rails, or some other buzzword compliant flavor of the month.

        Did it ever strike you that the "legacy Windows app" might have been one of the least stable buzzword compliant flavors ever? Compare the changes required from Win3.1, 95, 98, NT, and XP to GNU/Linux applications. The people who fell for VB have it even worse an

    • You sound like the Linux vs Windows people. Java gives you choice. That could be restated as Java makes it confusing. No matter what you say about it, it's easier to get up and going with .Net than with Java. By the time you reach the point where you contend that Java gets better, you're already using .Net, so why switch?
    • Web RAD (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NutscrapeSucks ( 446616 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @09:02AM (#14641375)
      Aside from any of the language issues, ASP.NET provides a really productive environment for web app development. At least for projects of a certain size, ASP.NET is much cheaper/faster to develop for than J2EE, and the resulting code is generally pretty clean and easy to maintain. Java has all this heavy infrastructure for large applications (Struts, Spring, Enterprise Beans), but result is that it's uncompetitive for the small-to-midsized ones.
    • Re:Why .Net? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by shutdown -p now ( 807394 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @09:15AM (#14641407) Journal
      If you want to switch IDEs, operating systems, and whatnot, then, indeed, Java is a better choice. But in many cases you just don't. The whole thing with .NET is that it works really nice in its native environment (which is Windows/IIS/MSSQL). There is a level of integration there between libraries, components, and tools that Java simply cannot afford (due to its cross-platformability). This is not to say that .NET is locked into this particular environment - you can use Linux/mod_mono/MySQL, for example - but it just won't give any advantages over existing solutions then. For MS shops, however, .NET is a blessing - and there are plenty of those.
    • Mod parent down (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by mattgreen ( 701203 )
      The thread is about the .NET programming market. Not why you think Java is better. But, hey, you're badmouthing the evil Microsoft so you're at +5.
    • Re:Why .Net? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gh ( 68417 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @11:16AM (#14641836)
      I agree with the other poster. This never should have reached a +5. Not only is it off topic, but the arguments are weak.

      It can't be because CLR is faster than the JVM, it isn't.

      The performance of the two runtimes are comparable. Neither kicks the other's butt. Like all things, you can find a benchmark that proves one is better than the other. At the end of the day, the apps that both Java and .NET are being used to write, performance is not going to be the reason you choose Java over .NET or vice-versa. You'll see a bigger performance gain if you simply design the right architecture for the platform.

      as soon as you start to push its framework (as all real applications do) the .Net teams fall behind the J2EE teams.

      I would beg to disagree with this statement. Personal experience has dictated the exact opposite. But, it would help if you provided an area where you feel .NET falls down. Otherwise, it just comes across as someone who keeps spouting the /.-think that Java is better than .NET soooo nyah!

      Java gives you choice. Choice of IDE, choice of framework, choice of application server and perhaps most importantly choice of platform.

      All that choice, as someone else pointed out, can be confusing. If you're building an application for an enterprise system you want to know what will get the job done. Not only that, but you want to know that it will be supported in a meaningful way down the road. The fact that Java has hundreds of frameworks (most of which duplicate functionality of other previously written frameworks) is actually a disservice. It's the old "jack of all trades, master of none", but applied to frameworks. The frameworks also mimic the fashion/pop culture than being technical solutions. This week it's struts, next week velocity, the following week some other framework. Enterprise solutions prefer solid choices, not the fad of the week.

      You could make the argument that if the framework is open source, then you are guarranteed to have the framework down the road. But, that involves getting into the code and supporting the codebase. If it's critical to the company's environment they will do that regardless. In fact, likely the would have written/extended most of it themselves. The thing is that most of these frameworks are *not* critical in the "it gives us a market edge" sort of way. It doesn't make business sense to drain limited resources by supporting a toolset that turned out to be a fad and not properly supported down the road.

      and expect to move over to Ruby on Rails (or whatever is flavor of the month) in 5 to 10 years

      And that, dear /. poster, is exactly why many platforms like .NET do well in enterprises when compared to the many flavors of tools from the other platforms/communities. It's not that .NET (or Java for that matter) is miles above the rest in terms of technical superiority. It's simply that .NET offers a solid platform that business can depend on without wondering is this simply the flavor of the month.

      Despite what most /. posters think, Java was successful for the exact reason .NET is becoming successful. The platform serves as good foundation for building applications that can be supported many years down the road. Think of it as what COBOL use to be for business. It's not the choice that Java presented, but a solid API and platform that will be built upon and supported by big players like Sun and IBM. That doesn't mean the choice isn't important in many cases, but in the grand scheme of things it's minor.
  • demand is back up (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DeveloperAdvantage ( 923539 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:12AM (#14641250) Homepage
    Interesting, this past week there was another article about the potential for elimination of QA staff due to agile programming techniques:

    http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?threa d_id=38785 [theserverside.com]

    Software quality management is maturing into a discipline unto itself, and becoming much broader than testing. Manual testing is being replaced by automated tools.

    Up here in Canada, I have seen an increase in the number of .NET positions too, although I don't think it is any stronger than the increase in Java positions. The demand for software developers has really picked up, and, just informally from the ones I have talked to, most head hunters are reporting being overloaded with opportunities to place people, as much as a 250% increase in demand for people over a few months ago.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:32AM (#14641302)
    Let me guess: they can't find programmers with 10 years .NET-experience?
  • What's .NET? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Uukrul ( 835197 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:42AM (#14641327)
    Visual Basic .NET, C# .NET, ASP .NET, ...
    What the article says is that Windows Programmers Fall in CNN's Top 5 In-Demand.
    • TFA:

      Two tech jobs in high demand these days are .NET (dot net) developers and quality assurance analysts.

      No mysteries here. Obviously, a company that uses many of the first needs even more of the second and other support. The base pay $65,000 is your average big dumb company salary because everything cost two to three times as much as it should for them. Only big dumb companies, aka Microsoft Partners, would be moving to the latest and greatest M$ junk, so this spike in demand is predictable. The eve

  • Resume interest (Score:4, Informative)

    by Grad_2006 ( 951942 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @08:53AM (#14641357)
    I am graduating this spring from a major state university in the south. In our program we have learned such things as C, C++, PHP, Perl, Ruby(currently learning), Java, Javascript, and various other things in the Unix/Debain Linux environment. It was recommended by the Managing Principal of a software consulting firm that I learn the .NET suite on my own. Since I have done so and put C#.NET,ADO.NET, and ASP.NET on my resume the interest in my skills has gone up considerably. Just about every interview I go on now the employer is mainly interested in my .NET knowledge. I have found that the automatic code generation in VS 2005 allows me to spend more time on security and correct by design (not correct by testing).
  • Crossover skills (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vinniedkator ( 659693 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @09:16AM (#14641412)
    Take any valued development skill like Java, C#, Oracle or SQL Server and add a few years of practical business knowledge such as securities trading, financial analysis or international taxation and these salaries can easily be doubled. I've seen hedge funds in my area looking for C# developers with securities trading system knowledge willing to pay $120k to $150k.

    There is a lot of money to be had if you can understand business people and turn there needs into tools and applications quickly.
  • by ThePyro ( 645161 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @09:24AM (#14641434)
    That definitely fits our experience in the Dallas area. We've tried twice in the last 6-8 months to hire another .NET developer, but both times we've come up short. Hundreds of resumes were submitted, and only about 5-10 of them had the .NET experience that we requested.

    And unfortunately, the guy we ended up hiring had lied on his resume about his 2 years of .NET experience... he was hoping to learn "on the job" as it were, and we ended up having to fire him and rewrite all the code he had written, which was, of course, awful.

  • I use .net (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Oz0ne ( 13272 )
    I like the .Net CLR alright, it serves my purposes well. Outside of large corporations I have yet to find a client who is interested in a java solution for anything. Most people's experience with java is limited to bad web pages, so the view is tainted. This carries through to most busineses. It's ignorance, yes. But honestly, how many people/companies that need an application know or care how it works--as long as it does the job?

  • by ninja_assault_kitten ( 883141 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @09:37AM (#14641479)
    The only people who would dispute the superiority of Visual Studio, C# and ASP.NET would be those who've never spent more than 2 hours in any of them. And that was just .NET 1.x :) .NET 2.0 is like stepping into a time machine and move 10 years ahead of anything else out there.
    • The only people who would dispute the superiority of Visual Studio, C# and ASP.NET would be those who've never spent more than 2 hours in any of them.

      I dunno. I agree that if you don't have conflicting language requirements, C# would be a superior alternative to VB. However, I've found the Visual Studio IDE to be frusteratingly buggy -- I work in my source tree on a remote CIFS share (which is the only possible unusual thing I can think of), and VS 2003 hangs, crashes, and has a tendency to stop being abl
    • Compared to what?? I'm a 5 year veteran of server-side and client Java development, I recently built an app in C#/.NET mainly to see how it is. Some thought:

      Visual Studio sucks. Really. I can only believe that everyone who loves it so much has never used a decent IDE before. Where's the refactoring? Where's the analysis? Where's the (working) real time error highlighting? Where's the customization (what if I don't want double-click to open the fricking GUI editor every time)? I could go on. Installing Resha
  • article is a freelancer with a BA English. The research probably was doing a search on Monster.com and seeing how many "jobs" cames up (we all know how that works) and then this person probably talked to their friend who's heard how much (complete guess) her .NET developer friend is making. That's about it. These folks make shit (this article probably got the authoer $200 at most) and they have to pump this crap out as fast as they can to just eat.

    These writers don't know anything.

  • And Tomorrow... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @11:00AM (#14641786) Journal
    And tomorrow it will be something else. You know, I've been an amateur to semi-professional programmer for over twenty years now, and at least once every couple of years I've heard the same spiel about this language or that platform. Oooh, "language x" or "library y" is going to revolutionize the industry. Abandon all your C++ code, it's irrelevant and you'll be a starving artist if you don't immediately shift gears, etc. blah blah blah

    The real skill that a programmer needs if he or she is going to make it is adaptability. Stop thinking in terms of languages, period. At the core, unless you're having to do some pretty wild coding, most work pretty much the same. Think in terms of projects. If you're a freelancer, you'll want to have your finger in lots of pies, and if you're an in-house programmer, well, you know, the boss man is going to tell you what you're coding in. Flex the conceptual skills, because last week it was Delphi and VB, yesterday it was Java, today it's .Net, tomorrow it will be Ruby, and who the hell knows what next week will bring.

    Like it or not, the programmer is just as much a slave to consumerism as anyone else, though it comes from a different angle. Managers and customers are sold platforms and languages by marketing guys (you know, the kinds of guys that get these sorts of articles planted in CNN), and you're going to have to adapt. It's really sucky, but that's the nature of the game. It's not like the olden days where a guy could learn Cobol and have a job until he dropped dead into the card reader.

  • by chrisdrop ( 325589 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @11:28AM (#14641889) Homepage
    I have been working in NYC hiring developers that do C# development at the expert developer level for some time now. I am currently working for a boutique consulting firm .. Finetix (http://www.finetix.com/ [finetix.com]) .. doing software development for the major investment banks and hedge funds in NYC and London mostly. They do Java and .Net development - and the .Net pull is STRONG. We cannot hire enough STRONG developers. I have been interviewing developers for full time and/ or consulting positions for the better part of the last 4 years in the NYC area. The market for software devlopers that can program C# is very strong right now. A friend and collegue of mine posted last week on his blog http://magmasystems.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com] that the baseline salary for strong C# AND Java devs in NYC area is ~150k$. I agree with this. I can say that companies want C# devs for building DESKTOP APPLICATIONS in the major banks, funds etc. Swing does not cut it yet - sorry. VB is old and dead. I hate to break the news to all you Flamer Style OSS or die slashdotters - but MS makes a great programming model for building insanely rich desktop applications.On top of that EVERYONE IN MOST PLACES HAS A WINDOWS DESKTOP. Traders that make millions of dollars doing what they do DO NOT WANT WEB APPLICATIONS. They need RICH desktop applicaions (always N tier communicating with web services, message queues etc.). There is a super strong need for REAL software developers (not ASP kiddies or VBers just awakened). That all said - I am typing all this on my laptop running linux, I can code in C# as an expert, Java at the mid level - I can program Ruby some as well as some C++, and lots more. I can say that having lead teams of developers - YOU CAN DO AN AMAZING AMOUNT with C# and .Net. I have led teams to build both the 30th and the 60th busiest sites on the web for a former client - all .Net/ C#. It works. I have seen one after another huge class desktop/ N tier 'smart client' application be build succesfully using .Net on the client at least. It works. It pays the bills. Do not discount or flame it as it shows you do not understand it. Accept that C#/ .Net is here - it is ready for the enterprise. People are making great money doing it.

    Enough ramble from me;
    Chris
  • by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @01:30PM (#14642488) Journal
    I am a MIS major and focusing on Java right now since its the number 1 language sought after. For someone with limited experience should I be focusing on c#?

    I am having flashbacks to 1998 right now with the mcse craze. The ones who had MCSE on their resume got the highest paying jobs. I wonder if the same is going to happen with c#?

    After all I will be competing with folks with 10+ years of experience in Java on their resumes when I hit the job market.
  • by Barcoder ( 702403 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @01:21AM (#14644698)
    So, while this article says that demand is high for "Developers who are expert users of Microsoft's software programming language .NET...". You should focus on the key-word here, "expert". I think what they are infering here are people who know the ins-and-outs of the framework and the language, the software engineering process.

    We have high demand for "expert" .Net developers. But the pool is so limited. Most candidates we interview come from non-enterprise groups. Their knowledge of the framework (or any framework) is limited. And they lack sound software engineering experience.

    We do find plenty of Java developers with enterprise experience and from rich software engineering experience. We've hired Java developers for .Net positions, and in all cases they have transitioned well and exceeded expectations.

    So, for my company at least, we have high demand for "expert" .Net developers which is being met by java developers.

    My company's experience might be unique considering we are in NYC, and many of the Java folks we interview are from large financials.

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