Going about it all the wrong way. You need fundamentals, not technologies. Get yourself a list of buzzwords; read each one out and ponder for a minute how it m

Going about it all the wrong way. You need fundamentals, not technologies. Get yourself a list of buzzwords; read each one out and ponder for a minute how it might be written, how it might work given the limitations of the platform(s) it runs on (you know your Posix/java/win32, etc internals, right?) If you can't mentally visualize how that thing works internally, or how it might be implemented, do some research until you have a firm understanding of how it functions internally. If you don't still get it, research the underlying techniques. As a programmer you're not required to implement every tool you might use, but you sure as hell need to grok its form and function at the lowest level. This frothy trend-hopping is just pure wankery. Don't be one of those suckers. Learn the primitives of everything. You also need that tireless spark, the desire to figure things out and learn their innards; so you don't have to poll others for what you should hack on. (btw, am I the only one who finds the question irksome in a very personal carpet-bagging way?)