Mathematical skills have a longer life than IT skills

Five years ago I invested quite some time in learning programming 3D graphical models using Java3D. I thought it was about time do some 3D programming once more. I planned to pick up Java3D where I left it. That turned out to be very simple indeed. Too simple, in fact. Java3D hadn't changed one release point. Is that bad? In IT it is. Java3D is not dead though. The API is frozen while they are working on a release for Java3D in JavaFX. The thing is that JavaFX isn't as successful as Sun hoped it would be. Adobe with Flash and Microsoft with SilverLight have their little plans too. In the meantime Flash kept its hold on the market-share. Things won't be the same at Sun since it is now an Oracle shop. So maybe all this 'work' on integrating Java3D in JavaFX was a waste of time.
And my personal time investment in learning Java3D? Lost. But not all together. While I am learning jReality at the moment ( another open source 3D geometry viewer written in Java )  I notice that it is not as hard as learning Java3D was. At that time everything, every concept, including the mathematics was new to me. I am leaning heavily on my Java3D knowledge while learning jReality. More on jReality soon, I hope.