After two summers during high school where I had the pleasure of working with Visual Basic and Access, you couldn't pay me enough to program with an MS designed language again. And, even though I have a basic understanding of Java, very few interesting web sites use Java as their foundation. But apparently, the marketplace has figured out the price of your soul. This post gives me an excuse to mention that I work for one of 60 Great places to Work in the Washington DC metro area, and we're looking to hire more developers.

IT employment specialist Robert Half Technology's 2008 Salary Guide found application and senior web developers versed in Java and Microsoft's languages can add another 10 to 12 per cent on top of the salary range for developers. Those skilled in LAMP and AJAX can add around five per cent.

Java and .NET to drive double-digit wage growth. 

Frustrated co-worker:

If they know so much about web site standards, how come they can't freakin make an href tag without calling me?

Why do newbies like to tightly couple systems to the point that a simple change is very likely to result in everything breaking? Is it just a lack of experience, ie not having a big system fail on you? Its a shame if failure is the only thing you learn from. The other part of the equation is that too often we're measured by how much code we write, not how much good code we write.