Ask HN: Should Learn/switch to JavaScript Programming (a Java Developer)
I've been a Java developer for the past 4 years. Recently I've been reading and learning a lot more about JavaScript also.Some, people say soon Java could get replaced by JavaScript. Would this ever happen? Are experienced people at HN hearing less of 'Java' projects than say 5 years ago? Will I get a good job if I switch to JavaScript or will I keep getting good opportunities if I continue in Java, esp as Java 8 has managed to include some concepts of functional programming. What will keep Java alive and moving forward in the coming years, other than legacy support codes and stable community contributions.
What pushes Java and keeps it thriving today are big data and Android. It also has an enormous library and framework ecosystem.
As for language progress, think JVM, not Java. I program exclusively in Groovy. You also have Scala, JRuby, Clojure, and others that run great on the JVM and are more feature-rich than JS (even ES6).
Job market is entirely dependent on your locality. I'm an expert on California's tech job market, and even LA and Orange counties have very different job markets, different still from SV.
I see two orthogonal questions:
1. Learning Javascript => Yes, you're interested and it can't hurt.
2. Switching to a Javasript job => Depends on the market and what you like to do.
Good luck.