[hobonumber1]

Completely agree with this. However, when I talk to developers who aren't based in tech hotspots, they often tell me they are lost because they dont know what they should learn, because there's so much out there. The side effect of this (which I have seen) is that people write off every new OS project that comes out, because they feel by the time they learn it, something new will be out there. I don't agree with this philosophy but it's something that I have seen with my own eyes.

[einhverfr]

One of my views is that you should figure out what you want to make before you figure out what you want to learn. Once you have a functional idea of what you are doing, then it is easier to pick something similar, or look to library repositories (CPAN, gems, etc) and decide what you want to do.

If you aren't in a tech hotspot and you aren't chasing jobs, it doesn't matter what you learn. It matters what you make and how you can sell yourself.