Career puzzle for dotnet developer

[zgts]

Hi, All I don't know if this is a right place for this kind of topic, if not, I am very sorry. I majored Mathematics in university, then I worked as a dotnet developer for 3 years in a company. mainly I develop winform and WPF projects. Now I am confused about where to go. I admit dotnet is very strong and good for us to use, but it's easy. so many people work with dotnet so that dotnet developers are more and more cheap for employer. What's more, dotnet is in highly development, it changes every day. I am tired to run the race with Microsoft. I want to be a c/c++ developer or test engineer, what do you think? do you have any suggestion? Thank you very much!

[satalaj]

Be what you want to be :)

[Lost User]

zgts wrote:

Now I am confused about where to go.

That's a good thing. Doubt is the point where you start evaluating and prioritizing options :)

zgts wrote:

so many people work with dotnet so that dotnet developers are more and more cheap for employer.

..and employers tend to rent the cheapest, and they get what they pay for. .NET is easy to learn, and you can build impressive applications with a minimum of knowledge. There's a shitload of "how-do-I" video's on MSN on the most wanted topics, providing a gentle walk through. There's a lot of competition for those who perceive programming as "dragging components on a form". Sometimes it looks so damn easy that the youngsters get in over their head. Projects that are going way over their deadline, bugs that seem to come from nowhere and a performance that would only look good in a movie from decades ago. Then it's time for management to go and look for experience, the quest for the mathematician who can prove that 1 + 1 doesn't always equal 2 in computers. (Considering type, it might equal 3 or 11) If you find .NET easy, then move to learning IL assembly language[^], or dabble around in the Microsoft Enterprise classes.

zgts wrote:

What's more, dotnet is in highly development, it changes every day.

New stuff keeps being added, and they have to. It's like the stockmarket, standing still means that you're falling behind. The good news is that that the core and the semantics aren't changing that much, and it required dedication and learning-skills to keep up.

zgts wrote:

I want to be a c/c++ developer

C/C++ isn't that much in demand here, just two vacancies, compared to over twenty .NET jobs. Still, I'd love to learn Objective-C, as it would make me a better .NET programmer. Most concepts aren't bound to a language or framework, but are based on abstract ideas. Most of these idea's are described as patterns; logical solutions.

zgts wrote:

or test engineer

Fifteen years ago, people would have laughed at that statement. Today it's a growing business, with it's own lingo and techni

[zgts]

My thought is that I don't want myself to be a cheap guy for employer. Thanks, I'll think it over.