this worries me sometimes; i have finally (in my early 40s) moved from "specialising in the craft of programming" to getting a job in a domain that excites me (language tooling), but i am now a relative amateur in a field that is full of phds and the like, and i am not sure how large the field itself is going to be in say another 10 years.
i've been wondering if i should pick up something entirely different on the side (e.g. machine learning for broad applicability, though that does not excite me at all), or to instead diversify from my current niche but learn to write tools across a broader variety of languages and ecosystems. it's scary sometimes how the entire programming ecosystem can change overnight and leave once-valuable skills in the dust.
i've been wondering if i should pick up something entirely different on the side (e.g. machine learning for broad applicability, though that does not excite me at all), or to instead diversify from my current niche but learn to write tools across a broader variety of languages and ecosystems. it's scary sometimes how the entire programming ecosystem can change overnight and leave once-valuable skills in the dust.