>So the safest career choice in Europe would be java? I thought that was the way things were 2-3 years ago, but not any longer. I am surprised that dotnet hasn't taken hold more over there by now...

DotNet is beginning to spin it's wheels taking quite a few bites out of PHP for small business - where data integration is used they are competitive. The lowest, nearly static level stays in PHP.

There are some large DotNet sites, but most of them had to fight a bit in the HW trenches. And they have nearly the same failure rate as other big projects.

When it comes to business interprocess communication or large sites where there is any kind of big iron in the cellar java is quite massive over here. Around 2000 we were going for larger chunks even in corporate web dev. MS wanted to host the app during dev time just to get the foot into the door. Wasn't even considered. Politics <g>. Also I don't know the situation on college/university in the US but here java is often tought replacing pascal from the eighties. So safe in regard to number of job openings yes, but competing against a lot of others with java background as well.

NOT knowing either c or java on the other hand fences you in too often - you don't have to always code it, but must be able to communicate on interfaces, interproc communication, embedding and stuff like that. And it helps tremendously if you not only can sling the lingo but actually go in and fix the stuff the others are talking to death<g>.

The brainy young and cheap ones often go to dotnet, python or RoR, as they don't have a large, sometimes inefficient staff of java programmers, large test teams checking most platforms and so on. But compete with the rates of smart students ? I'ld rather be fixing the blunders of the large company staff, where even (especially?) inefficient people are paid handsome money - they won't try to pay me less.

Being able to solve problems is the main thing keeping me/most of my peers in business - If you are able to "see" the critical path of possible implementation risks before everything is documented in commitee-brained manner you can steer around most issues plagueing other coders. And this is language independant, although you should be able to adopt to the flow of the language. In vfp build your code around cursors, in python work with dictioinaries and in java use the collection interfaces. Don't copy-translate line by line, use the inherent strength of each approach. Too many programmers just repeat was once worked well somewhere else but is inadequate in current surroundings.

I came to day to day programming from datamining / implementing data structures too complicated for very early pc's and still have some interest there. This is probably also just a personal knack of mine, but I advise to search for your feeding grounds based on the strong sides of your personal profile. Find non-hostile niches WITHOUT closing your eyes to other feeding grounds. And have the backbone to leave if the fun is not there anymore, even if the "fun" comes back with a lesser paid gig.

regards

thomas