June 12. 2009 05:55

I hate to bring you down but if you think we are approaching the point where it is impossible to keep up then you may know less than you think. As you learn new stuff you will realise how much you don't know. The more you learn, the more that you realise how little you know.

We reached the point of not being able to keep up a LONG time ago.

Bog Saggett

June 12. 2009 06:46

I had the same problem. The feeling that things where moving way faster than I could keep pace off. I decided to slow down and to ignore technologies of which I was pretty sure I would never use and instead focus on technologies and products I would use on a daily basis. When I start on a new project I focus on the technologies being used for that specific project. In the end you became a generalist and maybe an expert in one or two technologies. The key here is to make sure that you can quickly pickup any technology.

Gabriel Lozano-Moran

June 12. 2009 07:21

I feel the same way. There's just not enough time in the day to learn all the things I want to. Being married with a new home it seems overwhelming. I could only imagine if I had children on top of that. I've always tried to stick to what pays the best and has the most opportunity. I only know a few from the list but I feel relevant. Hopefully I'm not becoming extinct :/

Ryan

June 12. 2009 08:52

Been seeing a lot of posts about learning myself...your post inspired me to write a post of my own: geekswithblogs.net/.../...t-do-it-righthellip.aspx

SanjayU

June 12. 2009 08:55

I feel the same way. It has been getting very overwhelming in the last few years with so many things coming out at once. I'm currently working on a VS 2010 plugin, my first ASP.NET MVC site and trying to learn the new parallel api in .NET 4. Also trying to study for WPF and ASP.NET 3.5 certification.

Nearly everything on your list is on my list. At this point I don't know if I'll ever be able keep up. Even at work I'm feeling like I'm falling behind, we do so many things at my company when a customer comes asking for something it's possible we may have no experience with it at all. While it's great that we can learn on the job, it can be stressful. In the last year we've done for the first time iPhone, Android, Silverlight, Surface, Entity framework, LINQ, LINQ to SQL, Symfoni(php framework), Django, Python and probably more I'm not aware of.

Jeff Klawiter

June 12. 2009 09:02

I know exactly how you feel about trying to keep up.  My "to learn" list is pretty similar to yours for both the MS stack and non-MS stack.  What I came to the conclusion of about a year and a half ago is that it is better to focus on your primary passions first and then focus on the things that you aren't focused on as much.

For example,  I used to try my best to stay up on .Net and the changes to Sql and everything.  I would attempt to refine my skills in all aspects and try to gain even more knowledge in stuff.  I ended up hitting a wall where I couldnt' find the time.  I ended up putting Sql on the back burner while I continue to focus on .Net.  I found that I keep up on Sql as the need arises instead of trying to be proactive with that one aspect.  I know what changes are in Sql 2008 at a high level; however, won't fully push myself to adopt them until I have a need for using such.

As far as going outside of the typical info (i.e. Ruby, HTML 5, etc.), I just focus on those technologies one at a time.  I tried to do my primary item (.net) along with F# and Silverlight 2 and really floundered for time.  When I cut my losses on Silverlight 2 and just opted for F#, things began to flow more until I got to the level I felt comfortable with.  Now I'm back to Silverlight and it's going better as well.

Languages and technologies always change.  If you're going to learn a lot of new things, take them 1 at a time else you'll never reach the level of competency you want until after that technology has already evolved again.

JamesEggers

June 12. 2009 10:29

Glad I'm not the only one feeling like I'm starting to fall behind.

George McCormick

June 12. 2009 14:17

I learn whatever strikes me as interesting or challenging, regardless of its marketability. I use the tools that make me happiest, and so far they haven't let me down. Times change, and so do my interests - I usually try to stay on top of current technologies, but I don't feel overwhelmed by the multitude of choices.

I too feel like we're reaching a singularity, but in a different way - .NET in particular has brought many different paradigms together through a common infrastructure, making it much easier to specialize in one area (functional, dynamic, static, procedural, etc) and still be able to be relevant to almost any given market. Other platforms will follow this trend, I suspect - it's a powerful thing.

Erik

June 13. 2009 18:12

May I suggest simplifications:

Choose Python or Ruby, not both. Ruby is not easy.
Silverlight 3.0, wait for version 4.0 or even 5.0.
iPhone Development: what are you going to do with it?

JL

June 16. 2009 22:45

I feel absolutely the same way. To keep up with microsoft technologies I read msdn magazine and several blogs, it does help

Alex Ilyin

July 1. 2009 00:14

Hi,

Nice article....Programming languages are the building blocks of computer science. New programming languages often emerge every few years. Recently I come across a new language called Scala. This new language attempts to unify object-oriented programming and functional programming. Its syntax is similar to Java and C# with some additional features.

r4 revolution