A random list of cool things.
- HTML5. Start now. It's supported (more or less) by all browsers if you add appropriate shims. Start with sites like http://www.html5rocks.com/en/ and continue reading. It's largely arrived and there's no compelling reason to delay.
- JavaScript. I'm not a fan of the language. However. It's clearly here to stay. It's part of many important technologies (like CouchDB). HTML5 shims (or shivs) are necessary. Flex (and other browser plug-in languages) are effectively dead. JavaScript is all that's left.
- Redis. Wow! Is that cool? Rather that fart around trying to get outstanding performance out of a clunky old RDBMS, use a simple, high performance data store.
- MongoDB. Now that I've seen it, I have a vague notion of places where Mongo is better and places where Couch might be better. In 80% of the application space, both are fine. But there's a 20% where we might be able to split a hair and leverage the slightly different feature sets.
I don't build mobile apps. But if I did, I think I'd start with Appcelerator Titanium before switching to a "native" development environment. The idea that several standard features are readily accessible with a convenient development environment is pleasant.
I finally laid eyes on an Arduino. Let me simply say that it looks like dangerous, dangerous fun. I think I'll be hanging around at Radio Shack a lot.