Java programming skills are a hot job ticket

by David Essex

January 27, 2001 —

Fact: The demand for Java programmers is hotter than ever. And that fact leads to two major questions. First, is it safe to stake your career on Java? And second, how serious are potential employers' Java development efforts, and does keeping your C++ skills up to date make sense?

Supply-side economics

Java's ascendancy over C++ in the job market is a done deal. Java mentions in January's help wanted ads slightly exceeded those of C++ for the first time, according to Bloor Research, a British firm that counted 40,000 online advertisements. Java accounted for 37 percent of all ads, doubling in the past year, while C++ growth was flat. Visual Basic and C also held steady at 25 percent each.

What's more, Java demand outpaces the supply of available programmers. Zona Research says there aren't enough Java programmers to fill all the jobs. Gartner Group estimates that less than half the demand for efficient Java developers will be met through 2004.

Reality check

Driving all the Java interest, not surprisingly, is nearly every company's push to Web-enable its business, whether it be with a corporate Intranet, a retail e-commerce site, or business-to-business links to suppliers.

Until a few years ago, Java was used for much less serious programs that ran on end users' systems, and C++ still ruled enterprise development. But that began to change with the introduction in December 1997 of Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), object-oriented components that run on servers. It was at that time that EJB was basically institutionalized as a platform. Late last year, Sun released Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), a description for an enterprise platform. Today heavyweights such as Informix, Oracle, and Sybase are working on J2EE versions that corporations should be able to develop on, says Bill Roth, a Sun product manager.

Independent studies confirm that corporations aren't just kicking tires but are using Java in some of their most important development work. According to Soundview Technology Group which surveyed more than 1,000 IT executives about their 1999 development plans, last year was dominated by Java (at around 85 percent) and Enterprise Java Beans (around 70 percent), far outpacing Visual Basic and C++. And a December study by Cutter Consortium found 51 percent of e-business projects employing Java. "Java has surpassed C++, which 37 percent of respondents are using," writes Cutter consultant Chris Pickering. He adds: "Java has entered the computing mainstream, so there should be no more fears about its longevity."

Why is Java skyrocketing in popularity? Technically, it has a lot going for it. "There are some good technical reasons that Java's taking off in the enterprise," says David Troug, senior analyst at Forrester Research. Troug and other analysts cite Java's platform independence and ease of programming as main reasons that people now prefer it to C++ and other languages. And thanks to EJB and J2EE, Java is getting the performance and scalability it lacked previously. Java's suitability for key corporate applications is still a topic of debate, but there's no doubt that major developers like BEA, IBM, Oracle, business-to-business vendor Ariba, and telecom heavies GTE and Qwest Communications are using it for much of their mission-critical development.

C++ (and VB to some extent) continues to be the favored language for software that's tied to a specific platform. Shrink-wrapped Windows software, such as games and office applications, and certain operating systems and their interfaces to applications, are still written in C++. But commercial C++ applications, especially, may come under attack as application service providers (ASPs) offer more Web-based alternatives written in Java, also the preferred language for squeezing apps onto alternative platforms such as Web phones and network computers.

Java training

Aspiring Java developers who are still in college are sitting pretty: Java has pulled even with C++ as a teaching language in universities. Gartner says Java and C++ are each taught in 87 percent of schools surveyed, after an 8 percent drop in C++ in the past two years. Java has been climbing steadily.

Java training has become a mini-industry, and the experts say one-week crash courses or boot camps offered by companies such as LearningTree are the best way to get up to speed. Corporations typically pay for such courses when they're taken by on-staff programmers, while some corporations offer on-site training at their own facilities. If they're offered under the auspices of Sun's Java certification program, the courses may be transferable to other companies. IBM and Oracle are among companies agreeing to recognize each other's Java certification courses.

Mentoring and on-the-job training are also common sources of Java knowledge. Java communities at portals like MSN and Yahoo are another good source of free lessons and tips, and remote-learning vendors like Brainbench and MindQ offer certification courses.

What skills do you need to become a good Java programmer? Bloor Research analyst Jon Collins, a programmer himself until a year ago, says a good grounding in object-oriented theory and understanding of the component-based programming paradigm are essential to making the transition to Java. "If they've done that, they've learned the principles," Collins says.

John Magee, a marketing director at Oracle, whose enterprise-development tools including the Oracle 8i database, were ported to Java, agrees. "It's very easy for C++ programmers to move to Java."

So should you bypass C++ altogether? These observers of the language wars seem convinced that Java will only grow in importance for the foreseeable future. C++ should continue to play an important though gradually fading role. "Given the choice of learning the two, I would advocate learning Java," Collins says.

Career advice

Getting your Java skills noticed by employers has become both easier and more complicated. It's easier because employers everywhere are looking for Java programmers, but it's also harder because with so much opportunity, finding a company that really supports its developers is difficult. "Look in all the traditional places -- the Web, agencies, jobs fairs, and so on," says David Pollard, vice president of recruiting at Keane, an IT software development and consulting firm. Significantly, Pollard says his company is using methods such as large-group on-site training to give employees Java expertise, rather than trolling for it in the tight labor market. "We're going to have to build this capability, not buy it," he says.

Other pointers:

Understand potential employers' business processes. Most university graduates who become Java programmers don't have that knowledge, which makes them less valuable as employees, according to one study.
Don't overlook one of the new online marketplaces, such as skillsvillage.com, that match independent contractors with employers. Other sites are markets for Java components and the people who develop them. Examples: componentsource.com and flashline.com.

ITworld.com