In 1996, anyone who learned Java was one step ahead of the curve. An "experienced" high-value Java guru in 1998 had two years experience. Of course, just having it on your resume was not enough; you needed to be good; but it was certainly worth something to know it before everyone else.
What are the hot new technologies of the future? I am looking not just for interesting innovation, but for technologies which will be in real, widespread demand, and which are not currently popular.
Web and the technologies that make it work
User-centric design, stop being a geek, think of your users
Communication skills
The business of software
I know these are not technologies. It's the things software engineers proactively avoid. Technologies on their own, oh well, they come and go. If you spend your time on learning stuff that will be deprecated, you're working against yourself. If you build up a pool of other, well, let's call them cosmotechnological skills that you can take with you on the next ride, you only win.
Of course it's impossible to predict the future but my guess would be that we will not see such a radical change in following 10 years as what we've seen for past 10 years. The technology became mature enough that we no longer struggle with technical issues as much as we've been to and there is no real demand for something radically new (think of Silverlight, WPF, new programming languages) as what we have now is good enough and works.
Therefore my guess is that usability, user interface and user experience will be major theme for following 10 years. Something that Apple is doing for ages now but that's because they are always ahead of its time.
Try to get more involved with scripting languages. I think they will become one of the most important ( if not the most important ) "technology".
My employer of 4 years recently went bankrupt and the one thing I noticed in the UK job market was that there had been a phenomenal growth in c# work. 4 years ago there was java and c++ work, now that seems to have been mostly replaced by c# work. It is of course possible that the types of employers who are recruiting in a recession are those that use c#.
In broad terms I'd say there are three predominant and interlinked trends which I believe will become increasingly dominant:
The growth of the internet as the platform for delivering content and services. Increasingly the web is taking the place of the desktop, and this will continue (in no small part thanks to Google). However, it will not just be browser-based interfaces, but technologies like Adobe Air, Silverlight and maybe even Java will be used to deliver content straight to the user without the need for traditional installations.
Mobile platforms, especially the next generation of phones, will also become a huge market. Again, the internet will be the platform that drives the content.
Distributed, "cloud" computing will start to emerge.
Taken together I think you will see less and less traditional, thick-client applications that are installed on desktops. Instead, remote applications will be run on distributed clusters and asked via thin-client, browser-based technologies (often on mobile, small-screen devices), with all application data being stored online.
right now if you wanna try your luck making mega bucks in short time - learn the iPhone SDK ;-) once you are bored with it, try learning another thing which big money is involved... its a short life n so much to learn and explore ;-)
Parallel programming
Functional computing (some applications like WolframAlpha - not sure)
I don't think proficiency with hot new technologies is such a distinguishing factor in the jobs market as it was 10 years ago. Our industry is wiser and no longer believes that a new language or methodology will circumvent all the problems of the past.
I say this as someone who would like to believe that his current skills in C#, ORM/LINQ, AJAX, JavaScript frameworks and iPhone ObjectiveC are the route to instant fame and fortune.
If you were looking something new to read up on, everything I just mentioned is worthwhile investigating but the learning curve with ObjectiveC will have you weeping in frustration compared to a managed language like C# or Java.
Microsoft no longer has an end-to-end software stack arm lock on its customers so I am yet to be convinced that SilverLight, WPF and F# will go as mainstream as earlier MS offerings.
Edit:
In some respects trying to spot the next big thing is a lazy route to career development. If you are good then jump in where the technology is hot today and demonstrate your ability.
The ability and experience to scale medium-quality web projects that gained huge traffic but still feature legacy code.
This includes strong nerves, Web development and OS Administration skills.
On the bottom line it includes
Especially interesting here are currently concepts like:
It would be in your interests to be relevant in the coming years as a programmer/design engineer. To that end, you need to align yourself with the paradigms that will be used more and more:
It is nearly impossible to see into the future but i don't think there will any other technological shift as big as java in 90s.
I can't tell you what will be popular, but I know what won't be: VB.NET!
There's no point in trying to guess the technology of the future. Even if you're pretty good at guessing, the technology that's gonna be hottest in 5 years might not even be in development yet.
Look at Java. It was released circa 1994 (?) and became hot around 1998. If someone asked in 1993 what technology to study, he couldn't even have gotten Java as an answer...
Technologies come and go and are relatively easy to study. If you have the core programmer capacities and an ability to adapt, your future will be precious whatever happens.
If you have to choose technology to work with, I'd go with whats already established and popular (e.g. C++/Java/Python), and not some fad that 'might' be the future.