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To me as a programmer if you are not continuously learning new technology you will become obsolete after a few years or at minimum it would be more difficult for you to find a new job in technology that was popular 10 years ago.
John
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There are thousands of programmers out there working on COBOL, VB6 and Delphi applications that will only be rewritten when there are no resource left to fix and extend them.
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I agree with you 100 percent but tell me one thing, do you think its enough to 'learn' new technology 'on your own' in order to avoid being stuck in an obsolete technology domain?
I mean, I have a good experience in MFC and so far hav been working on Desktop applications which we all know, has a very limited market left now. So though I've started learning and experimenting with Dot Net and Web Development, I constantly feel uncertain as to whether it would even yield me any good, without a proper(official) experience? My present organisation does not work on Dot Net and in my knowledge, no new company will consider me for these new technologies without a proper(official) experience. So what should I do?
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I completely agree with you. The others in my office think that I am mad for devoting some of my own time to user groups and conferences. I am trying to introduce better practices but it is very difficult when you get comments like "you are not a proper programmer until you have written 1000+ line functions"!
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i.j.russell wrote: it is very difficult when you get comments like "you are not a proper programmer until you have written 1000+ line functions"!
Who ever said that needs a to be re-educated with the judicious use of a clue-bat.
1000+ line functions are for either juniors who don't know any better or morons who shouldn't be developing software.
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i.j.russell wrote: "you are not a proper programmer until you have written 1000+ line functions"!
show me the programmer that said that and i will show u a terrible programmer 
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you have interviewed some muppets then... but i dont disagree with you there are people out there that are like that and build up those misconceptions.
for example i am an embedded developer and have applied to a few well paying PC based dev jobs, but because i have experience mostly in embedded realm PC realm is far to complex for me, when in reality i would state the exact opposite. all these script kiddies being churned outby Uni's having learnt java, C#, and other "managed" programming environments have little to no idea about a stack, heap, function pointer etc.
A real engineer realises that his work environment is changing faster than most other professions so you have to keep up with the play.
I myself have always had a passion for gadgets and the tools that make them so i find myself playing around with things all the time.
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... I choose topics, that I may need in the future, not only current-work related.
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Ditto, anything not work related is to further expand my resume making me more marketable.
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At times I get paid to further my hobby-related interests. 
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