As I sit here in my car outside Starbucks, NPR is doing a story on blogging. They describe a site with One Minute Vacations – sixty-second sound clips of people’s trips in various cities. You can jump online, take a quick respite from your busy day, and transport yourself to Ghana, Stockholm, or any number of interesting places. Nifty. I prefer photoblogging myself – Photojunkie is a great example. So I’m listening to NPR talk about a site about blogging, while I surf it, from my car. (Life doesn’t get much better than this – or does it?

Over the last couple of days, we’ve talked a lot at work about switching programming languages to Java. I’m blogging about this because I think it’s a pivotal moment in my career.

I don’t have any interest in learning Java: over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten more and more interested in true RAD tools. My recent research into integrated UML tools only solidified that push: it came as a shock to me that there are UML tools out there that will literally produce parts of your code if you do your design work in diagrams up front. The nicest (and most expensive) ones, like Rational XDE, even integrate completely into the development environment, so you’re using one tool to do all your work. How cool is that?

But back to Java. I’m faced with the prospect of moving to the polar opposite end of programming: doing everything in text editors, no wizards, no drag-and-drop, no work automation. Is that how I want to spend my day? Can I see myself staring at text editors for hours on end? No way.

So then, forget the company for a moment: what do I want to do for a living over the next five or ten years? I love doing analysis, project management, not text editors. Long morning already, I guess.