What's Hot? What's Not? Where Do We Go From Here?

Obviously any web developer needs to know SQL, JavaScript, HTML and CSS. The latter two continue to evolve so developers need to stay current. JavaScript is a conundrum. New frameworks keep appearing and, with Node.js, it has a strong server-side story these days. But it's a disaster as a language: even Brendan Eich, its creator, says there's a lot of dumb stuff in it. Fortunately, with CoffeeScript and ClojureScript, there are high-level alternatives that compile down to JavaScript.

So, reluctantly, I'd have to say JavaScript (and Node.js) is hot right now but web developers should also be familiar with Ruby on Rails and/or Grails (Groovy's take on Rails).

Technologies? Git, mxunit, Cucumber or Selenium and Ant or Gradle. It's important to use distributed version control properly, to know how to write unit and acceptance tests and to create automated, repeatable builds. I'd also recommend reading Jez Humble and Dave Farley's excellent book on Continuous Delivery, which talks about developing a good deployment pipeline. Check out Facebook Gatekeeper and the Etsy blog for more examples of slick deployment.

But it's also about providing business value. Read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, no matter how big a company you work for. And check out Lean Software Development by the Poppendiecks for more on delivering better business value from the code you craft.

A lot of the innovation today is happening in front-end development technologies and techniques as well as, of course, in mobile. Thankfully, most ColdFusion developers have a long history of being at the forefront of front-end web development techniques with HTML and JavaScript. Many in our community were among the first to publicly evangelize jQuery, for example. The JavaScript and HTML worlds are awash in new frameworks and coding practices, and while you can't expect to know them all, it is important to be aware of many of them, including Dojo, Sencha or Backbone.js.

Mobile is perhaps less of an obvious answer for a ColdFusion developer. However, mobile continues to change the industry in ways many of us never foresaw. Having some level of expertise in this area can really establish your credibility as someone ahead of the curve if you find yourself in an interview. Check out things like PhoneGap, jQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch, Flex, and Titanium, or even investigate native platform development.

Before anything else, you need to follow the advances in the core technologies you're already using (HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL).

HTML5 is now moving into the mainstream and CSS3 has recently had three of its modules (Selectors, Namespaces, and Color) recommended by the W3C. Expect more from CSS3 as HTML5 becomes more accepted.

JavaScript has not really advanced in the last few years but a number of libraries have grown up around it. These libraries provide APIs that give easier access to commonly-used JavaScript functionality. Some even provide pre-built Ajax UI elements for websites and/or mobile devices. I prefer jQuery both for its ease of use and advanced feature set.

The core SQL language has also hit a slump in its development so you should instead focus on its use by database servers. Know the latest language 'enhancements' that your favorite database server provides and how they differ from other servers.