I’ve read and discussed this topic for a little over a year now. I was and still am your classic open source style of developer. I write PHP almost every chance I get (mostly for freelance work). But, when it comes down to it…the market where I live doesn’t bode well for the open source market. Right now the to hottest languages are Java and C# (as well as ASP.NET). I’ve looked long and hard for positions where I could do more PHP or Python or even Ruby. But the fact remains to hold true that more money is made (when you still want to ‘work for the man’) when you stick with Java or .NET. Now, I’ve recently switch to more .NET development…but this article is worth linking to:

Give .NET a Break

I love reading what those guys over at ParticleTree.com post up…so read some of their other stuff too…especially their Web App Autopsy post.

So, in all, the foot is placed on the table from the .NET side of things…and my passion still sits with the open source arena. To each his/her own I guess.

Google released their new Web Toolkit last week…giving all of us JAVA Developers access to their coolness (or at least most of it that’s not still closed behind the labs at the Google Campus). I’ve finally downloaded it and run through all the documentation. Seems pretty easy…Install the latest JDK, Download the toolkit, unpack the packaged toolkit, start using the toolkit. Well, that’s what the site’s Getting Started page says.

So, getting started sounds easy…now you need to know how to set up, create a project…import this into your favorite IDE (Eclipse), and code away. They even give you a few samples (what they call the Kitchen Sink) to get started with and get use to before you start building your own apps.

There’s a lot more info on the site…so go check it out if you are interested in building great AJAX style web application using pure JAVA code that is compiled into valid JavaScript and HTML pages for final deployment.