On Moving to Legacy Java Web App Maintenance

I work in a company with other developers. Whether we are on the same project or not, we are on the same team and we need to support each other. Since I started working at Sundog ~14 months ago, I've working solely with Salesforce, doing custom Force.com development. I've gotten pretty accustomed to the limits and boundaries of the platform, and I feel that I'm pretty good with it.

A coworker has been maintaining a rather large legacy Java web application by himself for the last >2 years. It's been decided that its time to shift another developer into his position, and that person shall be me. He was getting pretty sick of being the lone developer on old code. As he has been setting up my environment and training me in over the last week, I can almost see the weights as they are lowered from his shoulders. He's a great software engineer who has been trapped by misfortune for a long time, so I'm happy to step in so he can move onto something else.

As a company, we have been pretty poor about shifting teams. Some people grew so tired of being the only person who can something, and they have left the company because of it. These employees are called knowledge silos, and this is inherently a bad thing. If only one employee knows how to manage an important system, or only one employee can use a certain software tool, the company will be screwed when that employee leaves. It would take months before they can find another person with a similar skill-set, and even longer for that person to catch up to where his predecessor left off.

So yes, I'll be using Java, and re-learning how to program since I haven't used it in a long time. I've learned how to set up a local web application server, OC4J, and how painful they are to boot, configure, and manage. I've learned how to set up and use a 'real, enterprise' IDE, IntelliJ, to edit, deploy, and debug Java projects. I still need to learn a whole new set of keyboard shortcuts and IDE quirks. I will continue to learn about OS-level frameworks, specifically, Struts and Spring, and their models of handling HTTP requests. I will study up on OOP design patterns, and I will have to review the advanced language features that are available to use in Java (I'm familiar with Salesforce's Apex, which is Java Lite).

I have mixed feelings about this change in positions for me. I am happy to learn about different MVC frameworks and how a real debugger works (I haven't hardcore used one before). However, I am truly worried that I will be doing Java maintenance for the foreseeable future (RE: >1 year). I really don't want to be off by myself again, separated from the forward direction that the company is taking into cloud and mobile platforms. I am really worried that doing pure maintenance like this for a full year will destroy my passion and motivation for software engineering, design, and language theory. Here's to hoping I can keep my chin up. (￣ω￣')