You are going to have to learn all kinds of things that you may never use but you must learn them.
You must learn new languages, you must learn new frameworks.
You must always keep your books open and be reading them so that you’re ready when a new language or framework hits the mainstream.
Never allow yourself to go down into a fading technology. If you’re a Java programmer right now, you are at risk. Because that technology is beginning to fade. You want to have other languages in your belt. If you’re a middleware programmer that has never done GUI, you’re at risk. You want to learn other technologies like GUIs or databases or sockets or services. All of these you have to be juggling all the time, learning all the time.
It is not enough to depend on your employer for that knowledge.
You have to spend another 10-15 hours a week, on your own, on weekends, at night doing what every professional has always done; that is to groom your career and learn and never stop learning.
