>>it will be running incredibly valuable line of business code for long after both of us are dead. Good for Java, bad you us as a career option. Unfortunately

>>it will be running incredibly valuable line of business code for long after both of us are dead. Good for Java, bad you us as a career option. Unfortunately the more entrenched it is the more legacy projects you get to work on. The new things, the important things, sort of things which people are ready to invest big money on will happen in some other stack. I know of a few friends of mine who've so far worked mostly on COBOL their whole career so far. Through COBOL is still pretty much in use, they have problems getting into good projects, switching jobs, getting good compensation. People seem to look legacy stacks like a burden they need to carry on unwillingly. So tend to provide the bare minimum funding to keep it up and running. Most of the times they are only running, until something better is found to replace them. Learn Java if you want. You will still get a job, but you shouldn't be surprised if something like scala has more interesting projects, good money and better opportunities. This happens with all technology. As with these things, the sooner you adapt to something- the better.