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Keep Up Without Losing Sleep
So much to learn, so little time—make intelligent choices on maintaining your expertise
by Peter Varhol

Posted October 10, 2003

The flood of new technologies, specifications, Java Specification Requests (JSRs), APIs, tutorials, proceedings of the Java Community Process (JCP), and early access downloads are enough to boggle the mind of a technologist trying to keep up with all things Java. As an individual, whether part of a larger development team or an architect directing the efforts of others, the ability to follow the diverse threads of Java and provide forward-looking value to an employer depends on the ability to quickly understand emerging technologies and put relevant ones to use.

But it's hard for a number of reasons. The sheer volume of emerging technologies is only one of the obstacles. The ability to understand where these technologies are in the standardization process, and when they will be supported by commercial software products and on what platforms, is another challenge. And identifying which technologies can be useful immediately to current and future application development efforts requires not only the ability to comprehend how to use technologies but also the strategic acumen to apply them to improve application development in support of business opportunity.

And there's still more to it than that. Other standards, such as those promoted by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Object Management Group (OMG), directly impact the value and technological progress of the platform, yet add still more complexity to emerging aspects. Following these technology standards' progress, figuring out how to integrate them into the framework of Java software, and using them in your unique environment raises the bar yet again. In many cases, you also have to keep up with the open source movement, experiment with software from SourceForge, and make sure you're up to date on the latest Apache projects. Good luck doing all this and still writing code on deadline on a daily basis.

I wanted to address this topic because it's a problem I have. Seemingly every time I check the W3C, java.sun.com, and similar sites, I spy a new draft that just begs to be examined in detail. I'm not personally involved in any of the standards efforts, although my employer has interests on several fronts. And while my own bias lies in JSPs and servlets used in J2EE applications, I am interested in a wide variety of other technologies, such as J2ME applications used on connection-limited systems. While some of these technologies are applicable to my day job, it is usually in addition to that work, done mostly in the evenings and on weekends.

As a result, I find myself spending several hours a week doing nothing but reading. And the additional thinking time needed, not to mention the time necessary to try out code samples, manages to fill more than the amount of time I can allot to the task. And for most software professionals, squeezing in enough time to write code, architect components, or coordinate one or more development projects can be added to that mix.