I work for state government and have been in Java/J2EE development for about a year. I have over 10 years experience in client-server development, but have always wanted to do Internet programming. Now that I’ve got that opportunity in Java, I’m finding I’m not happy anymore. The tools are primitive, compared to the slick Microsoft IDE I’m used to. Most of my team has a ton of ego but hardly any experience (some of them weren’t even programmers before this job). I’m constantly butting heads with several big egos and also fighting the tools. (The language itself is nice.) So now I’m unhappy every day and starting to withdraw into a shell. I miss friendly faces and the Microsoft toolset. I also miss being a pro at what I did.
So now a friend is offering me a job which will be some Visual Basic 6 and some VB.NET (maybe even some C#), depending on the project. I am strongly considering it. The only reason right now I can think to stay in Java is a possible pay increase IF I leave state government employment, because companies seem to be paying more for Java. This would be nice, but I’m miserable now. I can’t imagine staying here long term.
Any advice you can offer would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Brian
