Post: #276

(08-24-2015 11:16 PM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  ^^I don't know man, front-end stuff can be pretty frustrating, too. I've had little issue with putting together a fully functional CRUD back end using php (user authentication, creating a profile, searching for similar profiles, and establishing a private messaging system) but I've been forever plagued with making shit show up the way I want to in the UI. For example, I've spent the better part of 2 days now trying to figure out how to make a "sticky footer" that is always at the bottom of the viewport regardless of the size of the content, zoom, or window resizing, to no avail. On the other hand, figuring out how to implement a PM system including the table structure took just 5 or so hours of an afternoon.

I hear ya on the front end stuff, it can be a pain in the ass...a lot haha.

I look at it as kind of a compounding thing. For every practice web app I build, I stylize/beautify it at the end as practice and over time all that practice adds up and I get experience learning how to stylize various projects differently etc...

I know a lot of people who after they get the hang of front end stuff they don't touch it again (just using bare HTML) until they get super comfortable with back end, and I usually see them work way slower and some times struggle a bit when doing front end when they do have to revisit it.

Kind of with what I was saying above I think people focus too much on the detail of specific aspects of a language or technology, once you learn just barely how to use something (but can make it function) keep implementing it with as many projects as possible all while adding one or two or whatever new feature(s) each time. It'll all add up and it'll surprise you how fast you can move along, at least it worked for me and my learning style, different folks different strokes.

Post: #277

(08-24-2015 02:35 PM)Phoenix Wrote:  Frenchcorporation, this thread is a great story. Well done.
From the insight you've gained, what sort of things would you say are going to be the next 'hottest' areas of computing or programming?

Im not sure to be honest

docker & other devops container software has gotten bigger but thats been around for a while

I'll post about this again as & when stuff pops up that i notice

Post: #278

For those of you who got into the industry from just practicing and developing at home and didn't have any academic or professional experience prior - what did you guys put on your resume? I'm asking since I don't have any prior job experience so instead I just list a couple of projects I've done along with links to the source code on Github. Would that be enough?

Post: #279

6 Reasons Why Young Men Should Not Become Programmers:

http://mavericktraveler.com/6-reasons-wh...ogrammers/



Reasons Why Young Men Should Not Become Programmers

By James Maverick in Escaping The Matrix  11


My background—and one of my passions—is computer programming. I’ve been programming computers since my early teens. I can code in all the major languages for all kinds of platforms such as web, desktop, and mobile. I’ve worked for some of the largest companies in Silicon Valley, including Yahoo! and Facebook. I’ve also worked in a good number of small startups. Software development is one of my solid skills even though it’s been some time since I did it for a living.

Having said all that, quitting my lucrative job and leaving the world of programming behind was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

If I could do it all over, here’s why I would never become a programmer:

You don’t develop crucial social skills

Instead of interacting with real living and breathing human beings, programmers interact with machines made of glass, plastic, and metal. It’s a surreal way of looking at it, but that’s exactly the way it is. The more you program, the better you get with communicating with machines. You learn to type code, test it out, expect a certain response, fix what doesn’t work and try again. Do it long enough and you’ll be more comfortable dealing with machines that with real humans.

You can only do one thing at a time, so if you’re sitting and building an app, you’re not at a bar, a party, a gathering where you’re mingling with new people. If you’re already introverted, then you become even more introverted. If you have decent social skills, those skills quickly atrophy. That’s even more so if you code at work and then play video games at home.

I cannot underscore the importance of social interaction. It’s pretty much the core of any male self-improvement. Do you want to have better friends? Learn how to meet people. Do you want meet new women? Learn how to meet people. Do you want to get a job or upgrade from the shitty one you have now? Learn how to meet people.

It’s ironic that something as natural as meeting other people is now in the realm of an actual skill that can be taught and improved. That wouldn’t have been the case if you were dealing with people all day, every day. For instance, I don’t think a salesperson who makes cold calls all day and deals with endless rejections has any approach anxiety at a bar—he approaches for a living. Same goes for an aggressive real estate agent, lawyer, or advertising executive.

Moreover, the people with whom you spend most of your time are programmers just like you. They’re similarly introverted and socially awkward. They’re not going to teach you how to behave around women. They’re not going to teach you how to conquer new lands and be real men. I can probably count on one hand how many programmers I’ve known that also happened to be very social and not awkward around others. Most were introverts who were scared of women. The most inspiring people in my life were go-getters who build businesses and not sat around and wrote Javascript closures.





You don’t develop emotional intelligence

Programming is a very logical process. Computers don’t have emotions. At the core, all computer code is made up of zeros or ones. All control statements are evaluated to true or false. A computer can’t cry, get angry or feel empathy for someone else. A computer only understands zeros or ones.

That’s what happens to your brain, too. A human mind is very elastic and can adapt to pretty much any kind of work. When you spend most of your time dealing with rational problems, your mind becomes more rigid and logical instead of more flexible and emotional.

You start seeing the world as a collection of zeros and ones; colors compress to black and white instead of beautiful shades of gray. You lose that emotional/irrational “scent” that enables you to feel a person instead of asking them a logical question and expecting a logical answer. That’s called emotional intelligence. And you lose the ability to reason emotionally when you write intricate “if” and “else” statements all day.

It’s only after I stopped communicating with a monitor and a keyboard and started dealing more with people, that I finally started building this crucial emotional intelligence. Life is much richer and more rewarding when you’re not always being introspective and breaking everything down to its logical components.

You’re giving away your best value

You know the saying that, “you’ll never get rich working for someone else?” I’m pretty sure a programmer invented it.

We’re living in a capitalistic society where people with money (capital) hire workers to do stuff for them (labor). Programming is a form of labor. When you program for a salary, you’re giving away your time and expertise in exchange for money. You’re helping to create value for the company, and all you’re getting in return is money that’s eroded by inflation and the rest eaten by taxes.

That’s not an ideal situation to be in. Capitalists get richer by hiring labor because they know that after paying their wages, they’ll still come out much more ahead.

Tech companies perfectly understand this, so they provide all kinds of perks and financial incentives (stock grants, options). Nonetheless, don’t be fooled: unless you’re one of the founders (or one of the first ten employees), the amount of value you’ll give away will be always greater than the value you’ll receive. That’s just how capitalism works.

Generally speaking, it’s a good rule to avoid situations where you’re trading your time for money. I know many guys who used to make a killing in freelancing, but have moved on and started their own companies that make money even while they’re sleeping. That’s the beauty of letting capital work for you.

Programming is not an “empire” skill

People understand the above point (that you cannot get rich while working for someone else), but they still believe that being able to code is somehow different. They think they can build an app in their basement, launch it to the world and have a $25 billion valuation tomorrow.

Well, I’m going to tell you a little secret that took me some time to figure out. You will never become rich or successful because you happen to know how to code. Unless you’re one of the best programmers in the world and Microsoft or Google are luring you with a $2M signing bonus, you’ll never really strike it big. That may sound obvious, but that’s not what I thought for a long time. I thought that because I knew how to code and build the next Facebook or Google or WhatsApp and immediately strike it big.

It doesn’t work that way. Yes, I can easily build a Facebook app. Yes, many of the founders of tech companies are engineers with tech backgrounds: Bill Gates is an engineer; Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google) studied engineering in school. The founders of WhatsApp have an engineering background. Even Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) is a computer nerd.

But that’s not why those companies became so successful. They became successful because the founders created a great product that was in high demand. Any programmer can build a Facebook clone (it’s actually really easy), but it takes special talent and skills—and, of course, timing—for it to be a blockbuster success. It’s no surprise that many of the founders went on to more executive and strategy roles at their own companies; they have skills that are way beyond sitting at the keyboard and writing classes and functions.

A good example of an “empire” profession is marketing and sales. Another great skill is knowing how to hustle. Figuring out what customers want and being able to deliver that to them is golden. Besides, you can always hire (cheap) programmers to build your app if you have a great idea that you think will be successful.

It’s a low barrier-to-entry job that’s rapidly becoming commoditized

Someone once said that programmers are nothing but modern day mechanics. When I heard it for the first time, it didn’t click: I’m getting paid lots of money for doing something that I enjoy, so how could I be like one of those mechanics that just changed oil in my car? I have absolutely nothing in common with a mechanic at a body shop down the street. Or do I?

Now it makes sense. Perhaps I was in denial all long. The thing about programming is that absolutely anyone can be a programmer. And I mean just about anyone. Programming is now less of a science that requires a creative and imaginative mind, but something that one can learn via a book and apply the next day. One of the reasons is because lots of new tools have been created that simplified building an app by the order of magnitude.

Nowadays, pretty much anyone can find a tutorial (there’re millions of them), learn one of the web languages like PHP, Python or Ruby and build an app. It’s one thing to learn a very simple language like PHP, but it’s another thing to master an entire framework and build a Facebook clone in an hour. That process was a lot more involved just five years ago. Not anymore.

Instead of being a niche profession for a select people who are gifted with an engineering mind, coding is now a mass-market phenomenon. There are lots of boot camps and classes for pretty much anyone and their mom that guarantee that you’ll build a “complex” app in an hour or so. And it’s not even a hyperbole. I wouldn’t even be surprised if you can build a Facebook clone in an hour or two (or much less).

That leads to commoditization of the profession. There are so many people in the world who know how to build a Facebook clone, that anyone can jump on one of the freelancer sites and hire a cheap programmer from India, Russia or China, and pay him a fraction of the money that a Western engineer would get.

It’s a poor long-term career choice

If you browse any of the development or startups forums, you’ll notice that many programmers begin to question the meaning of life (and their career choice) once they get closer to 30, 35, or older. That’s because programming is mostly a young man’s game. Kind of like being an athlete but without all the money, fame and women.

It’s not surprising that software companies love to hire people straight out of college. They send their best recruiters to the top-tier universities to pimp their companies to prospective employees. Then once they hire them, they pamper these new recruits with generous perks and amenities: campuses with full-size gyms, free food, on-site massages, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. They do that so that you don’t have any reason (and why would you?) to make the trek home.

When I was in my teens and my twenties, I loved programming. I was surrounded by other ambitious guys who thought they would build some amazing operating system. Guys that lived on pizza and noodles while coding for—what seemed like—entire weeks straight without sleeping.

But once you hit the age of 30, or even the age of 35 or get a serious girlfriend or even a wife, your output will decrease compared to some new kid out of college. You’ll no longer be able to put in all-nighters at the office before a new release because you’ll have someone waiting for you at home. There will be pressure for you to move to a higher “management” position or change career paths.

This means that a programmer’s career is comparably short. I’m not saying that you would be treated any differently if you’re, say, 40+, and are looking for a job (although it’s a dirty secret in Silicon Valley that most companies only hire young whippersnappers). But even if you did get hired, you’ll probably feel strange taking orders from some pimpled-kid who’s half your age while being surrounded by a bunch of other kids who look like they’re going through puberty.

Think bigger and wider

Most guys who get into programming but later find it unsatisfying don’t realize that programming is only a tiny fraction of endeavors they can embark on. There’s a whole plethora of other problems and challenges that’s perfectly suitable for their creative and analytical minds. The key is to think bigger and wider. Start thinking in terms of people problems instead of software problems. What kind of problems are some the people might be facing that you can help solve for them?

Starting a software company that builds and distributes software services is one. Building a freelancing business that solves specific challenges for your clients is another. What else? You decide.

Think of programming as a specific tool in your toolbox that’s designed for very specific problems. For instance, I’m very fortunate that I can easily pull up a WordPress theme and implement a new feature, or quickly customize a signup form without asking anyone for help.

But these are all small problems that are done in the context of bigger and more complex challenges. Challenges that involve building real permanent capital. Challenges that are much more ambitious and rewarding than debugging an annoying Javascript function all day.

Post: #280

(08-26-2015 02:39 AM)x-it Wrote:  6 Reasons Why Young Men Should Not Become Programmers:

http://mavericktraveler.com/6-reasons-wh...ogrammers/



Reasons Why Young Men Should Not Become Programmers

By James Maverick in Escaping The Matrix  11

OP, there was no need for you to post the entire article... A simple like and maybe a short synopsis of it would have been more than enough.. And rather give your opinion of the article too.

I personally found only the social & emotional intelligence of the authors reason's not to become a programmer to be true. However his other points were quite irrelevant. The points of it being a poor long-term career choice and a low-barrier to entry job were quite stupid. I highly doubt the author actually has an idea of frustrating and difficult it can actually be learning a programming language. Just cause if done a couple of tutorials on code-academy doesn't mean your really have an idea of programming.

I for one have done all of the courses from HTML to PHP & Python, and can say that they only helped me feel more comfortable programming. I still needed to spend around 500 more hours coding alone on my laptop before I could say I actually understood them.

Plus in today's job market, what other job should a young 22 year-old try and jump into, that is as promising as the programming field?

(08-25-2015 04:40 PM)Wutang Wrote:  For those of you who got into the industry from just practicing and developing at home and didn't have any academic or professional experience prior - what did you guys put on your resume? I'm asking since I don't have any prior job experience so instead I just list a couple of projects I've done along with links to the source code on Github. Would that be enough?

Its been noted already that networking will be your best option if you don't either have professional or academic experience. Go to a local coding meetup and try seeing where that gets you

Post: #281

(08-26-2015 03:30 AM)Kaebs Wrote:  I personally found only the social & emotional intelligence of the authors reason's not to become a programmer to be true. However his other points were quite irrelevant. The points of it being a poor long-term career choice and a low-barrier to entry job were quite stupid. I highly doubt the author actually has an idea of frustrating and difficult it can actually be learning a programming language. Just cause if done a couple of tutorials on code-academy doesn't mean your really have an idea of programming.

Agreed. It was a poorly thought out article and would be bad advice to follow.

Who knows if the guy even believes what he's writing. I recognize that sometimes people write stuff to be controversial and raise their profile.

To break it down to nuts and bolts, analytically like a programmer would: your best approach will vary, depending on what you're optimizing for.

I personally don't aspire to be rich - if you define rich as, say, $5 million net worth or better. I would rather aspire to be comfortable financially - like maybe hit $1 million net worth at some point in life, as measured in today's dollars.

So would you rather a shot that gives you a 10% chance of becoming rich? But if you fail, you've spent your best years and have nothing tangible to show for it. You have to start over from scratch.

Or would you rather a shot that gives you an 85% chance of being a white collar professional with a good income?

I will take the second option all day long. The fact that I'll never be "rich" is not a good enough reason to reject programming as a career, since that was never my goal.

I'll still be ranked very high in wealth across a sample of the whole world's people. I'm still doing well financially, compared to most people out there.

The point he makes about employee perks is not well conceived. The reason for those perks is that it's a knowledge business. A company needs to make an investment into each employee, that gets the employee to a level where company's systems and organization are perfectly understood.

The potential cost of turning over an employee is high. That is why salaries tend to be competitive, and perks are so good.

It's also why a programmer has great prospects to travel for six months or a year, then get immediately re-hired at the place he left when he's ready to work again.

Post: #282

(08-26-2015 01:00 PM)Tigre Wrote:  Who knows if the guy even believes what he's writing. I recognize that sometimes people write stuff to be controversial and raise their profile.

Sometimes I get suspicious too that these sorts of articles are efforts to "throw others off the trail". If frenchcorp is getting more than GBP400 a day to code, that's a clear-cut refutation of the 'Indian programmer' argument.

Post: #283

The article is another one of those BS articles from someone who has made their money in a specific field, and will then process to discourage others (who tend to be better) from doing it as well. It's like someone who is decent at gaming women (with several lays under his belt) decides to call it quits, settles down, and then starts to preach on here to others to not be game aware.

Also the source of such articles are produced from "Internet content mills". More can be read here

http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-tec...nch-money/

Post: #284

(08-26-2015 02:39 AM)x-it Wrote:  6 Reasons Why Young Men Should Not Become Programmers:

http://mavericktraveler.com/6-reasons-wh...ogrammers/

This article is 100% correct for many reasons stated. Generally speaking, you'd want a career with high barrier of entry to avoid commoditization. Programming languages like PHP, .NET, Java, etc have low barrier of entry. However, programming languages like Scheme and LISP have far higher barrier of entry. The article seems written for the former class of programmers. Paul Graham touched on this (http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html). Another issue is that programming is low prestige. You're associated with Indians and Chinese as well as more and more people from 3rd world countries that just learn how to code. Compare that with lawyers, doctors, and bankers. The biggest problem with programming career in my opinion is the constant need to learn at the speed that is much faster than that of law, banking, or medicine. I have been working for ten years in IT. Throughout these years, Java has moved from v1.3 till now Java 8. People are moving away from Java/J2EE enterprise and flock into Ruby on Rails or Python/Django. Also look at the amount of PHP frameworks. Don't even mention the amount of Javascript frameworks out there...anyone still remember Dojo? I think if you want to stay in IT, then you should either be in presales or sales to avoid the commoditization. If you still want to be in the technical realm, then you should go for algorithmic kind of careers (search engine algorithm, parallel computing, big data interpretation, etc). All the best, guys.

Post: #285

Disagree. Especially in tech but like anything else in life, adapt or die. Yes the actual developer lifespan is short, but you only need a few years coding then you move up or out laterally. I can't speak for enterprise but many startups, VC funded or otherwise are onshoring rather then offshoring their work. I'm in finance switching to tech and developers get more respect in a lot of places than a analyst/associate at a bulge bracket.

Post: #286

(09-01-2015 12:52 PM)jj90 Wrote:  Disagree. Especially in tech but like anything else in life, adapt or die. Yes the actual developer lifespan is short, but you only need a few years coding then you move up or out laterally. I can't speak for enterprise but many startups, VC funded or otherwise are onshoring rather then offshoring their work. I'm in finance switching to tech and developers get more respect in a lot of places than a analyst/associate at a bulge bracket.

We can agree to disagree. You're in finance and I am in tech. I guess by that reasoning, I probably know more than you.

Post: #287

Anyone can bash the programming profession all they want, but it's meaningless without suggesting a better alternative.

As a developer myself, there are many things I don't like about my job. I hate that there is little social interaction (particularly with women), that my salary is fixed and will cap out at $150-200k/yr, etc. But I can't think of any other job that would pay comparably well while offering the same work/life balance and potential to work remotely.

Post: #288

I have been in IT for a very long time. Long enough to see where this entire industry is going. Generally speaking being in development job is not a career. Of course there are a few exceptions but majority wise this is the case. Development is a young man's game. Long hours, low prestige, low barrier of entry, etc. You guys can always cite exceptions to this but in general that is the state of IT. The money is good but not comparable to being a doctor, banker, or lawyer. If you want to be working as developer and actually have a career then you need to work in software product firms and have niche chops to kill that not many people have. If you go into web development like Python/Django and the like, you will deal with plethora of constantly moving at the speed of light web and JS frameworks. You also need to make sure that your code works for almost all browsers. That is not intelligent work, that is stupidity because all you need is hours and hours of trial and error.

Post: #289

(09-06-2015 06:04 AM)roid Wrote:  I have been in IT for a very long time. Long enough to see where this entire industry is going. Generally speaking being in development job is not a career. Of course there are a few exceptions but majority wise this is the case. Development is a young man's game. Long hours, low prestige, low barrier of entry, etc. You guys can always cite exceptions to this but in general that is the state of IT. The money is good but not comparable to being a doctor, banker, or lawyer. If you want to be working as developer and actually have a career then you need to work in software product firms and have niche chops to kill that not many people have. If you go into web development like Python/Django and the like, you will deal with plethora of constantly moving at the speed of light web and JS frameworks. You also need to make sure that your code works for almost all browsers. That is not intelligent work, that is stupidity because all you need is hours and hours of trial and error.

Question, do you actually have programming experience or just IT experience? If you are a programmer then should be aware that transitioning from one programming language is not that difficult if you understand the fundamentals of OOP. Additionally what career, especially involving technology, are you aware of that doesn't involve constantly learning throughout your career?

Also, by the time you start earning big money as a doctor or lawyer you will have incurred a significant amount of debt at a young age. It then takes several years of experience before you start earning big money. So the comparison isn't complete until you look at the full opportunity costs of each option (such as long hours, stress, exams for certification etc).

Only some financial careers (like analysts, investment bankers, quants etc) come out of college/university earning large sums of money. But then again competition is fierce and hours are long and boring from doing tedious jobs. It's funny programming is being dismissed as some of the top financial earners also do programming or have programming experience and tend to be highly valued especially in London. Then you have careers such as consultancy where programming experience can put you ahead of the competition.

Post: #290

(09-06-2015 09:12 AM)cycl0ne Wrote:  Question, do you actually have programming experience or just IT experience? If you are a programmer then should be aware that transitioning from one programming language is not that difficult if you understand the fundamentals of OOP. Additionally what career, especially involving technology, are you aware of that doesn't involve constantly learning throughout your career?

I used to be a programmer. A very good one infact. Now, I am in IT presales, trying to switch into full-time IT sales. You can see my name at ACM Valladolid online judge rank, when I was active, I used to be in the top 10. I am done qualifying myself now.

The fundamentals of programming are more or less the same. However, I will always choose a programmer who has 5 years of experience of .NET programming language for .NET projects rather than the guy that has 10 years of Java/J2EE experience assuming both are of the same quality. You can learn a new language in a day, that's not an issue. Reaching a level of mastery in a language, that will take years. Don't let your ego gets in the way. It seems to me you're pretty new to this field. Don't kid yourself, this shit involves constant learning. The information of human biology doesn't change a lot over the course of a decade. The same thing can be said about law and banking.

Post: #291

(09-06-2015 10:38 AM)roid Wrote:  Don't kid yourself, this shit involves constant learning. The information of human biology doesn't change a lot over the course of a decade. The same thing can be said about law and banking.

Might want to drop law and banking from that. I'd put law in the same category as programming were it not the licensing aspects (there is a threshold before you can legally call yourself a lawyer). The legislature is changing things all the time. Banking, assuming it's investment banking, is as fast a learning environment as it gets. You're basically trying to constantly model and remodel the financial world, and so is everyone else, which alters the model, ad infinitum.

Post: #292

I have close friends who do investment banking and corporate law. And I am not too sure you know what you are talking about. Probably that remodelling applies to quant and trader much more than i banker or corporate lawyers in capital market. While there are changes, the rate arent as fast as IT. Plus, those jobs pay better. Taking student debt for that justifies the end result.

Post: #293

Another dev here... I've been studying and working with Javascript front-end, using the Backbone-React stack. Dabbled in Node/Express but haven't buckled down on it yet.

Putting in that work to learn the server-side with Ruby/RoR right now. I have a sweet, unique situation where I'm getting paid to learn it in a low-stress environment part-time.

That linked blog post that claims this field has low barrier to entry is full of shit....if you want to operate at a high level, this industry really requires a lot of study to train your mind to diagram/solve problems programatically. Even learning the FUNDAMENTALS ( data structures, regex, control structures, iterating, map/filter/reduce, class inheritance, function composition, unit testing, scope, error handling, threading, i/o, design patterns, working with APIs ) takes a huge amount of dedicated study in order to crystalize the concepts in your mind.

Yeah good luck figuring it all out on your own without some other dev/mentor to show you what you're doing wrong.

Post: #294

(09-06-2015 11:48 AM)arafat scarf Wrote:  Another dev here... I've been studying and working with Javascript front-end, using the Backbone-React stack. Dabbled in Node/Express but haven't buckled down on it yet.

Putting in that work to learn the server-side with Ruby/RoR right now. I have a sweet, unique situation where I'm getting paid to learn it in a low-stress environment part-time.

That linked blog post that claims this field has low barrier to entry is full of shit....if you want to operate at a high level, this industry really requires a lot of study to train your mind to diagram/solve problems programatically. Even learning the FUNDAMENTALS ( data structures, regex, control structures, iterating, map/filter/reduce, class inheritance, function composition, unit testing, scope, error handling, threading, i/o, design patterns, working with APIs ) takes a huge amount of dedicated study in order to crystalize the concepts in your mind.

Yeah good luck figuring it all out on your own without some other dev/mentor to show you what you're doing wrong.

IT industry in general do not require people to operate at high levels. Besides most developers work with APIs (abstractions). If you need other mentors to show what you're doing wrong, you are simply not good enough. The best developers I know are self taught. No mentors at all.

Post: #295

Meh, I look forward to more stories in this thread from Frenchcorporation, rather than more fist banging retorts from Roid the one man anti-dev army.

I've yet to hear of a single common profession that people didn't shit on. So if all careers are bad, best to ignore the naysayers.

Post: #296

Roid, you proved my point exactly. You are currently in sales and looking to stay there permanently. You were and still may be a good coder but your own actions prove my point that no one really stays in doing the actual dev work as a career. You move up or out laterally.

And FYI as Phoenix has alluded to, you seem very biased against this industry. It helps not to be prejudiced when adding to the conversation.

Post: #297

(09-06-2015 06:04 AM)roid Wrote:  I have been in IT for a very long time. Long enough to see where this entire industry is going. Generally speaking being in development job is not a career. Of course there are a few exceptions but majority wise this is the case. Development is a young man's game. Long hours, low prestige, low barrier of entry, etc. You guys can always cite exceptions to this but in general that is the state of IT. The money is good but not comparable to being a doctor, banker, or lawyer. If you want to be working as developer and actually have a career then you need to work in software product firms and have niche chops to kill that not many people have. If you go into web development like Python/Django and the like, you will deal with plethora of constantly moving at the speed of light web and JS frameworks. You also need to make sure that your code works for almost all browsers. That is not intelligent work, that is stupidity because all you need is hours and hours of trial and error.

Quote:If you need other mentors to show what you're doing wrong, you are simply not good enough. The best developers I know are self taught. No mentors at all.

A lot of your comments on this thread are moronic and it's pretty clear you've never done any serious development/engineering work. That and/or you're severely afraid of your own job security, and thus desperate enough to spread misinformation on forums in order to steer others away from your career path.

First of all, being a good developer/engineer/architect is not easy and not something that anybody can just do. If it were so simple, then they wouldn't be commanding such high salaries. Sure if you're just modifying Wordpress themes, being a jQuery code monkey, and/or doing basic CRUD work all day, that's not that difficult, and you're probably not going to command much of a market value since you'll basically just be competing with Indians/Eastern Europeans charging $10/hr on elance.com. But the more advanced stuff definitely isn't trivial, and there's a reason companies are offering fresh CS grads six figure salaries. Of course a lot of it is just knowing stuff (eg. cross-browser CSS quirks like you mentioned), but that's how 99% of jobs in any industry are, unless you're working at the fucking Jet Propulsion Lab or something.

You can't even compare medicine, law, and investing banking to programming. Of course doctors get paid more and have higher prestige. But they also have to spend 4 years in med school (just getting into med school is an achievement in itself, and you'll graduate with $300-400k in student loans), 4 years of residency, and be both smart as fuck and incredibly hardworking. Lawyers need to spend 3 years in law school ($150-300k, good luck getting into a good one) and work 80+ hour weeks doing boring work. Investment banking requires an Ivy League Degree or Business school, sucking a lot of dick...I mean "networking", and working 100 hours/week doing mind-numbingly boring bitch work. Oh and areas like trading and investment research require you to constantly follow the markets (you think keeping up with JS frameworks is bad? Try having to be up-to-date with the news every day in real time. Traders can't go to the bathroom during market hours without needing someone to cover for them.).

Meanwhile, programmers can land six figure gigs fresh out of undergrad (some don't even have degrees) and work 40 hours/week in lax environments. They can dress casually and stroll into the office at 11am. Working from home is not a big deal. There's tons of work, so they can easily move between companies freely and freelance/contract. They can turn into entrepreneurs and bootstrap their own startups without needing to hire other developers.

But yea I guess if you have the brains and dedication, you might be better off studying for that MCAT. But most of us don't.

Post: #298

Sounds like things have changed quite a bit since I worked for the man.

(09-07-2015 06:01 AM)Essence Wrote:  Meanwhile, programmers can land six figure gigs fresh out of undergrad (some don't even have degrees) and work 40 hours/week in lax environments.

Got any links to to substantiate this? Seems rather high.

Quote:They can dress casually and stroll into the office at 11am. There's tons of work, so they can move between companies freely and easily freelance/contract. They can easily turn into entrepreneurs and bootstrap their own startup without needing to hire other developers.

Strolling in at 11am and only working 40 hours a week? When I hit the scene I was working 60 to 70 hours a week. Granted, I got in sometimes at 10 or 11 am and worked all night.

Roid makes some good points if you are working as a contractor or a outsourcing shop. I worked in those types of shops. You need to be up to date in those environments. The tech used depends on the client at this point.

If you're working for a company that has put a lot of money into their infrastructure then chances are that tech won't be changing drastically. Back in the day, if you wanted bumps in pay you would jump from one gig to another. If you do plan on doing that, you will also need to be up to date on the new tech as Roid pointed out.

The whole coding boot camps is just a way of diluting the whole developer pool. It took me an undergrad and ten years to understand the concepts of creating good software. There is much more to it than if statements. Everyone who does a 4 week online course is calling themselves a developer these days. Sorry, that isn't what I would hire nor consider a developer.

You guys have to remember there is more to this scene than start ups. I certainly never seen a startup that would only require 40 hours of work. With that said, it sounds like you are talking past each other at this point. A lot of the points roid made was the reason I opened my own shop.

Post: #299

(09-07-2015 06:01 AM)Essence Wrote:  A lot of your comments on this thread are moronic and it's pretty clear you've never done any serious development/engineering work. That and/or you're severely afraid of your own job security, and thus desperate enough to spread misinformation on forums in order to steer others away from your career path.

Why do you have such a poverty mindset? When someone with experience give you advise, you can choose to ignore it or you can take it. There's no need to use personal attacks which lower your credibility IMO.

(09-07-2015 06:01 AM)Essence Wrote:  First of all, being a good developer/engineer/architect is not easy and not something that anybody can just do. If it were so simple, then they wouldn't be commanding such high salaries. Sure if you're just modifying Wordpress themes, being a jQuery code monkey, and/or doing basic CRUD work all day, that's not that difficult, and you're probably not going to command much of a market value since you'll basically just be competing with Indians/Eastern Europeans charging $10/hr on elance.com. But the more advanced stuff definitely isn't trivial, and there's a reason companies are offering fresh CS grads six figure salaries. Of course a lot of it is just knowing stuff (eg. cross-browser CSS quirks like you mentioned), but that's how 99% of jobs in any industry are, unless you're working at the fucking Jet Propulsion Lab or something.

I would like to know where you get the data from. If you're hired straight after graduation by Google, Facebook, Path, and the like, then six figure salaries are automatic. However, those require that you graduate from MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, and the like. If you just like most fresh grads, you will not get that six figure salary out of school.

(09-07-2015 06:01 AM)Essence Wrote:  You can't even compare medicine, law, and investing banking to programming. Of course doctors get paid more and have higher prestige. But they also have to spend 4 years in med school (just getting into med school is an achievement in itself, and you'll graduate with $300-400k in student loans), 4 years of residency, and be both smart as fuck and incredibly hardworking. Lawyers need to spend 3 years in law school ($150-300k, good luck getting into a good one) and work 80+ hour weeks doing boring work. Investment banking requires an Ivy League Degree or Business school, sucking a lot of dick...I mean "networking", and working 100 hours/week doing mind-numbingly boring bitch work. Oh and areas like trading and investment research require you to constantly follow the markets (you think keeping up with JS frameworks is bad? Try having to be up-to-date with the news every day in real time. Traders can't go to the bathroom during market hours without needing someone to cover for them.).

Meanwhile, programmers can land six figure gigs fresh out of undergrad (some don't even have degrees) and work 40 hours/week in lax environments. They can dress casually and stroll into the office at 11am. Working from home is not a big deal. There's tons of work, so they can easily move between companies freely and freelance/contract. They can turn into entrepreneurs and bootstrap their own startups without needing to hire other developers.

But yea I guess if you have the brains and dedication, you might be better off studying for that MCAT. But most of us don't.

I am just giving a perspective. Looking at the investment required, being an investment banker, specialized doctor, or corporate lawyer provides better career path than being a software developer. Those careers have far higher barrier of entry than software development.

If you choose to stay in IT, then you should be in IT sales.

=> http://wallstreetplayboys.com/everything...-a-career/

roid

Post: #300

This thread is being derailed now, can we stick to the topic at hand?

I think you should start a datasheet thread on a career in IT sales.