Shifted my profile from android developer to web application developer. Bad decision?

Question

I am a masters student pursuing my final semester in an industry, training. Until recently I was working as an android developer, but alas I did not find the assignment challenging enough. Seemed like I was not fulfilling the purpose of learning the "art of programming" because the IDE made my life far too simple.

I made a request to my mentor and he then transfered me to a HTML5 web application development team (developing HTML games). Here I use javascript and canvas to do most of my work. Its fun because I use the text editor and am not immediately made aware of where exactly I am going wrong. Also, once I run the script if I have errors I have to go line by line to check where I made a mistake or what is the flaw in my logic.

Now to me that seems more challenging because, I am learning more about programming then I could ever have hoped for. Canvas is not fully used in mainstream so it involves a lot of rnd. I am using JavaScript canvas libraries and they are not adequately developed to suit all my needs, so I go about learning how to solve my problems by interacting with the people who wrote the libraries in the first place to find out what could be a work around and gain new perspectives all the time.

I short I love what I do, until recently. I was speaking to my mentor at my university and he told me that I should not have accepted the profile I am working in now. As I was earlier working in Java for android, it was more 'respectable' than 'web-development'.Also there is very limited scope for web application developers unlike Java developers and that I should try and shift back to Java development profile!

This is all very unsettling because as it maybe obvious I have very little understanding of programming and I am doing all this in a effort to be a good programmer, but there is no point of being a "good programmer" without any job prospect.

So my question to you is, did I make a mistake quiting android development? What do I do, please help me make a decision and hopefully one that is more practical than do what my hear should desire! thanks

Answer 1

First off, when it comes to programming languages and areas of focus, do what you like doing. If you want insight into what the current trends are in any given programming language, you can look to the Tiobe Index ( http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html ). You will notice that Java is at the top of the list, so yes, it would be practical to learn it and hone your skills, but it isn't the only way you'll make money in programming, and surely is not your best bet if you'll be miserable doing it.

Answer 2

Ultimately, if you want to be successful, doing something you're good at and enjoy is way more important than what's deemed "respectable" by others. Even relatively "unpopular" skills and languages have people who use them and are successful. You clearly enjoy web programming, you should keep doing it. Good luck!

Answer 3

It's hard to see how debugging canvas and fighting with a platform that is poorly documented would be more exciting than Java programming. It's definitely not more complex. Or at least it's the wrong kind of complexity - definitely not the type that required you to learn the art of programming. I believe a normal person would be thankful that somebody wrote a good IDE and that they don't have to reinvent the wheel.

But you are not a normal person. Instead, you seem to be a guy that:

• likes dealing with details
• has a lot of patience and perseverance
• you don't get frustrated easily
• you like when things go wrong because you can fix them. And nobody else can ;-).

If I'm describing you well then, my friend, maybe you should be a sysadmin instead :-).

Answer 4

hm. so i'm searching a person with skills in programming for android....possibly you'd like to get in contact? mike -dot- 1803 -at- web -dot- de