It has been a good while since this industry has had a significant shake-up, where the world as we know it changes almost overnight, and our skills and practices are all made obsolete. We generally seem to have one every few years or so, and according to my calculations, it has been about 7 or 8 years since the last one.
I am sure there were other events, but the first I can recall was the introduction of Object Oriented programming in the 80's. This paradigm shift left multitudes of mainframe COBOL and RPG analysts behind, forever to toil in a world of green on black terminal displays. Then in the early and mid 90's there was an explosion of "client-server" and "N-Tier" applications in the business world. These were all the rage, and again the flock was divided. Many OOP purists were left in the dust, trying to fend off the "younger kids" that embraced the 3GL and 4GL tools of the day. But as luck would have it, only a few years later the terms "client-server" and "N-Tier" took a back seat to the newest technology explosion - the age of the Web. Right or Wrong, everyone wanted to be on the web. Try as they might, the n-tier supporters could not withstand this assault. To this day, there remains a contingent of developers that cling to the world before the web - in the Microsoft kingdom, we call them "Windows Forms Programmers", or perhaps the slightly more dignified "Smart Client Developers". But the significant majority of development work admittedly goes into Web applications.
So for the last few generations of the industry, roughly every five to seven years, we experienced a wholesale disruption in the status quo. Things are no longer what we thought they were. Skills become unmarketable. Management becomes confused. Projects get scrapped. We have to retool - retool or else go the way of the Do-Do Bird (extinct).
The only problem is - it has been about eight years now since the last paradigm shift (I do not count .NET as a paradigm shift - it is simply a consolidation and improvement on ideas and methods already in place). It has been eight years, and I fear that we are long overdue. More than that though - I feel that perhaps, just perhaps, the paradigm shift has already begun - and that I can't see it due to my own Myopia. And what if the shift has already passed me by, and I have missed it entirely?
In conclusion, I think the shift is just now underway. I have smelled the crispness in the air that precedes a thunderstorm. I think the industry is about to change again, in a very significant way, and I hope to be a small part of it yet again. But in order to accept and participate in a significant change, a person must adapt to the new way of things. To that end I have begun the arduous task of retooling and rebranding myself. This will not be the first time, nor likely the last. As a as/400 specialist, converted to PC technician, converted to Delphi developer, converted to DBA, converted to Web Developer, and finally to .NET windows/web developer, I can say that I have definately been through this process before, and it does not scare me. What scares me is the thought of not adapting.
Some of the people I know and trust feel that they too have "seen the light". Some have their own theories about where to be when the music stops playing. My good friend Scooter seems to think that Sharepoint is the entire future. I don't necessarily agree with that. I have heard similar theories about the grand direction of things from others as well ("Linux is the future!", "Everything will be AJAX!", "OMGZ It's all going to Pocket PC format!") - most of which I cannot find reason with either. Everyone seems to agree that the winds are changing, only nobody appears to agree on the direction. But I have my own ideas and theories and will once again be betting the next half-decade or longer of my career on that insight. It hasn't let me down in the past - I trust it will not let me down this time either.