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I started with Visual Basic (the old one) for some months, after that I moved to Delphi, after noticing it's dead I started working with WPF, then I heard about the birth of WinRt (API that metro style apps use) and that this will make WPF dead, I stooped all this, I'm now interested only by (HTML/CSS/JS/ASP.NET MVC), and I am always thinking if this will still work for the next coming years (HTML/CSS/JS for sure will still work but ASP.NET MVC nobody knows), I really hate the fact that computer science changes so fast, I am regretting all the time I spent (for about 3 years) reading ebooks practicing technologies that I don't use and that I will never use, so do you have any suggestions, comments, advices? Because I start thinking about giving up and looking for some other job that has nothing to do with computers

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Change technologies. COBOL is the way to go for long-term stability. – thiton Feb 21 at 11:54
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Will be closed as not constructive, there isn't even a real question in here. You must know yourself what you want to do. CS is learning, day for day. Get over it. Not everything you learned is lost. You started to learn about loops with some language once. You don't use this language, but you still know what's a loop. Tools come and go, knowledge and experience stay. From the right perspective it's actually fun, nothing stays long enough to become boring (ok, html,css,js... and Cobol never dies...) – thorsten müller Feb 21 at 11:54
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Your point has some validity to it, but your beef should not be with computer science, but more with how Microsoft switches and deprecates their APIs. The plus to all this is that I think they're going the right way, ditching most of their proprietary stuff for more open-standards stuff. I'm not an expert on MS dev, but if you can currentlly make MS apps with HTML/JS/CSS keep on doing that, it's a lot less likely to be dismissed/changed like their proprietary APIs have. – Shivan Dragon Feb 21 at 12:06
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While the question may sound quite depressive, it is a valid and interesting question, and it may have some illuminating answers, too. So please stop downvoting... – Landei Feb 21 at 12:24
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And what does all this stuff have to do with computer science?!? – SK-logic Feb 21 at 12:56
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closed as not a real question by thorsten müller, thiton, gnat, Jim G., Ozz Feb 21 at 12:31

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

2 Answers

up vote 12 down vote accepted

Computer science doesn't change fast.

All the things you are describing are specific technologies, which do change fast, but are more like engineering than science.

For me at least computer science speaks more to algorithms and data structures, which change much more slowly and in general are more transferable than specific technologies anyway.

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up vote 4 down vote

First, the ideas behind these technology changes are often quite old. E.g. we see now functional features spreading in mainstream languages, which come from quite mature languages like LISP, ML and Haskell. And if you really understand a certain concept (e.g. closures/lambdas/higher order functions), it's much easier to grasp a certain implementation of it. Try to accumulate high-level, "meta" knowledge, which can be applied in completely different languages, frameworks etc.

Second, learning itself can be a lot of fun and very rewarding. Maybe you learn the wrong way, maybe you have first learn how to learn. Everybody has a different learning style, and you need to find yours. For me a style featuring cooperation, participation and immersion works best, yours could be different. Try to remember which topics you loved in school, and how you learned them - maybe the same techniques work for you today, too.

Third, you should see change also as opportunity. Even a guru of framework X or language Y has to start over as everybody else when technology Z emerges, and this is your chance to surpass your colleagues. Eventually, if you get tired from programming, this could be your ticket for going up the carrier ladder, and if you are high enough -> no programming.

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+1 I think this is at least as good as my answer – jk. Feb 21 at 13:06
No programming makes me sad – Clement Herreman Feb 21 at 16:43

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