[ebiester]

I'm a primarily JVM developer as well, but full stack.

The answer to you is maybe, but it's not necessary yet.

In 3-4 years, 80% of greenfield web apps will be using a single page framework. Perhaps it won't be Ember, but something from the next generation. However, the results are better for the user, and as more developers learn it, the more it will be expected as common knowledge.

Increasingly, your contracts will end up being on the back end, and your full stack opportunities will dwindle. Look at the jobs today that say jQuery or javascript. Most of those will be out of your range.

That might be fine for you -- if you stick to back ends or maintenance programming, your jobs won't dwindle. Greenfield apps will slowly dwindle, or you get in with a client who expects you to learn it, or you decide to use it on a project because you see the direction the winds are going.

Me? I have an angular.js and knockout.js proof of concept on my resume now.

[sc0rb]

This is the best answer I've received to my concerns. You're predicting that people will move from backend to frontend for the MVC layer (or w/e will come next) and this is why you are keeping up with these sorts of developments.

Good answer.

[ebiester]

The move has already come in B2C apps. B2B is lagging and internal apps and consultingware will be the last, as normal.

The problem I see is that the frontend models are not designed for internal apps in mind. Yet. They're not designed for a mediocre developer. I think we could do a lot better for that use case. Right Now, it's faster to do a server-generated app with no ajax. I don't think that has to be the case.

[sc0rb]

I currently work with a few very popular B2C ecommerce platforms and none of them have made the move to this sort of thing yet, the best we've got is Spring MVC with AJAX.