Choice

Once again I find myself at a crossroads I found myself almost a year ago. The only difference is that this time around I seemed to have moved down a few steps on one of the paths. The thing that rattles me the most is the fact that the view of the section of the road where it divides into the fork is not entirely lost till now. I still haven’t come to a sharp bend that would ultimately rob me of the sight of the other road, thereby allowing me the pleasure of the focusing on the road ahead, not look at the seemingly parallel road that somehow seems a trifle more easy. The choice that I have to make, for which I have consulted numerous people, websites and books, is quite simple. Whether I should go for Java Platform or should instead focus my energies towards .NET Framework. I know this must be quite appalling for few people, my constant thinking and wondering. To hell with it, take a coin and flip it, they would say. The very fact that I am on the fence for the last one year, stands testament to the difficulty I have faced in making it. Both the companies, Sun and Microsoft, are in no way on the brink of falling in the abyss. On the contrary, both stand tall even as smaller companies become a part of them, somehow akin to the Transformers, just snapping into place. Sun has made sure that Java is now supported on all the operating environments, and at the same time MS is currently making sure of that. The one thing that lies quite heavily on the shoulders of MS is that the Java Platform is older to .NET, and so has higher following amongst the geek population. But, then again stats make it quite clear that MS is leading seller of the software, thereby cementing in the need of the programs that would behave like native windows programs (frequent crashes included!). This easily achieved as MS is making .NET framework and so naturally (hopefully) its workability in the Windows Environment is guaranteed. The recent release of Windows 7 has acted as a stable pillar, without which critics would have completely written off the Redmond company. This was due to release of Windows Vista amidst huge expectations and the subsequent failure of Vista to stand up to them. Coming back to the point, I still have to decide between the two, for it would ultimately decide the map for the rest of my life. Or so I feel, however my course makes me think twice. Would it me fruitful for me to learn only one platform or should I become the jack of all trades and master of none? After all the Manager has to know something about everything, and not everything about something, or why would anyone call them managers, and employ them to sit around all day, making other people work? In the past I have studied C++ for about 2 years in my school days, the language that many say as the foundation stone of the programming world. However, over the past few projects I have somehow managed to get hold of languages that resemble the C language. It could just be my inclination towards the windows specific programming that makes me more and more dependent on the .NET framework. But, as many argue, Java is just an extension to the C family; albeit some more features. That also holds true for the C# doesn’t it? My decision is based not entirely on the reason of the monetary value, rather that I could spend the rest of my life in retrospect, what if? Or maybe, ultimately I should just let my mind adrift, and make the time’s stream take my boat to whichever bank it deems fit.