Ask HN: Worth switching from PHP to Java? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Worth switching from PHP to Java?

7 pointsgotojava10 comments

I have around 8 years experience in PHP, and am not happy with how much I earn. From cursory research it seems Java devs can get much more. Is it worth retraining in Java, or would the time it takes to get to a reasonably high level outweigh the salary benefits? Or am I wrong about the salary benefits?

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If you like all the things that are positive about PHP I would not touch Java. Rather look into Nodejs or Go.

Those Java jobs that pay a lot in the banking sector etc are soul crushing. Slow release cycles and being a very little cog in a big machine...

For ultimate developer happiness look into modern Perl!

I should probably have said in my question that I find most dev work pretty soul-crushing. My aim is to spend a couple more years making some money then leave for something else. If I must be a cog then so be it!

Well if you really do not care, what you use and what you develop, you could look into embedded programming. If you have gained some experience there (a lot of companies are willing to give a newcomer a go in this area, since developers are hard to find) you can make a lot more money than beeing just another Java dude. That means mostly MISRA C and sometimes Java as well.

Out of interest why do you say "modern Perl" who and what are using Perl these days?

It can be summed up to: http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl_2016/index.html + http://www.mojolicious.org/ + anything from https://metacpan.org/author/MIYAGAWA

The language is sadly dying and no one of relevance is using it anymore more new projects.

Good stuff there. Other good links: http://perltricks.com https://www.effectiveperlprogramming.com https://github.com/hachiojipm/awesome-perl https://metacpan.org/pod/Task::Kensho

DuckDuckGo.com, booking.com and cpanel.com are some big Perl users.

Not completely true... PERL powers the backend of just about everything at Bluehost / Justhost / Hostmonster, and maybe other of the EIG brands... so there are at least some jobs in it, but shitty ass company to work for--take my word for it as someone who has!

Yes! If you have gained a bit of experience in Perl, you will feel a lot more productive and proud of your work. At least, I do. Also Perl is actually not about the hype. The Perl developers I know are usually quite humble and just want to have fun developing software and expanding their horizon. It is the ultimate hacking language! Because it is not so popular (because of lack of Marketing...) you might have to look a bit longer to find a Perl job, but they do exist and the search is worth it!

Check into learning Hibernate and Spring/Spring Boot, stay away from J2EE stuff unless you want to work with legacy.

could be your location? could be you don't know how to ask for more. there are php developers commanding ridiculous income all around the country and not just in silicon valley.

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