Java to Ruby: Good career move?

IamtheWalrus

I have been offered a job as a Ruby on Rails developer. My commercial experience is 7 years of Java. I'm a little wary of making the switch.

Can anyone advise me on the advantages/disadvantages of switching? The new job is initially a 6 month contract, being trained from scratch.

srsly78

Pay rise?

RoR is a trendy web development language, but is not as broadly applicable as Java. There are a lot more java jobs around.

IamtheWalrus

srsly78 wrote: »

Pay rise?

RoR is a trendy web development language, but is not as broadly applicable as Java. There are a lot more java jobs around.

Are you asking if I got a pay rise?

I'm aware that Java is still popular but would having Ruby in my CV benefit it much?

srsly78

Only if applying for Ruby jobs, which seems trendy but niche.

Draco

Why not give it a go? If at the end of 6 months months you don't like it or don't see anything worth while in the area you can go back to Java. You'll have gained 6 months of experience in something new which I always think is worth while.

If you spent another 6 months just doing Java would you be any better off than now?

IamtheWalrus

My only concern was that if I spent 6 months on Ruby, and after that I was applying for Java roles, would an employer see it as a disadvantage that I hadn't been doing Java for a while?

Creamy Goodness

IamtheWalrus wrote: »

My only concern was that if I spent 6 months on Ruby, and after that I was applying for Java roles, would an employer see it as a disadvantage that I hadn't been doing Java for a while?

Java is not going to change THAT much in 6 months. if an employer sees that I spent 6 months doing something completely different and it bothered them I wouldn't want to work for them.

I've done the something similar to yourself OP recently moved from PHP (web) to Objective C/Java and couldn't be happier.

change is good, DO IT!

IRLConor

Q: What do you lose by learning another language?
A: Nothing! You're not going to forget all your Java skills.

Q: What do you gain?
A: Some varied experience and a slightly different perspective.

My career has gone like this so far:

• Job 1: PHP
• Job 2: Perl, Java, C, C++
• Job 3: Java, Shell, Perl, little bit of Python
• Job 4: (not a lot of coding) PHP, VB (Classic ASP), JavaScript, ActionScript
• Job 5: PHP, Perl
• Job 6: Python, PHP, Ruby, Shell

IMHO you should never think of yourself as a "Java Developer" or a "Ruby Developer" or any sort of "$LANGUAGE Developer". The vast majority of languages in common use have enough similarity to make it easy to pick up new ones and enough differences to prompt you to think differently about the ones you know. The important parts of your job are language independent, so don't get hung up on the language you're working in.

srsly78

It's not just about learning a new language, it's about quitting his job. Grass is always greener far away etc.

OP if you are getting a decent payrise then go for it, otherwise hell no

@IRLConor: All I see from your history is "web developer" really. C++ looking horribly out of place there.

IamtheWalrus

I am currently between contracts so I won't be quitting anything. I am trying to figure out if the switch is beneficial to my CV.

I think I'm leaning on the side of taking it.

srsly78

Well it's certainly better than the dole anyway.

ChRoMe

IamtheWalrus wrote: »

I am currently between contracts so I won't be quitting anything. I am trying to figure out if the switch is beneficial to my CV.

I think I'm leaning on the side of taking it.

You are a contractor? Go for it.

IRLConor

srsly78 wrote: »

@IRLConor: All I see from your history is "web developer" really. C++ looking horribly out of place there.

Jobs 1, 4 and 5 were web development jobs (actually, #4 wasn't really a dev job, but the dev parts were web dev.). The rest weren't.

EDIT: Barring some tweaks at Boards.ie (job #5) I haven't done any front-end work since job #1.

srsly78

Writing website backend stuff is still web development imo. What else are you gonna use php for?

IRLConor

srsly78 wrote: »

Writing website backend stuff is still web development imo.

Agreed.

Jobs #2, #3 and #6 still didn't count as web dev though. #2 was working on a network monitoring platform. #3 was a data warehousing project and #6 has been working on the backend of 2 PaaS products.

srsly78 wrote: »

What else are you gonna use php for?

Glue code for the lads working on the other chunk of the product.