Post: #26

(04-07-2012 12:09 AM)xmlenigma Wrote:  Where in Europe are you working? Where all is there LACK of good IT people?

Not working yet as I am still on the road but did some recon with friends in the industry. Looks good.

Switzerland. Germany is the same from what I've heard (met a chick whose father has a company and hasn't been able to fill a position in 3 years, nobody is applying).

Post: #27

Anyone know of any good forums for people who want to get into freelance programming? I have a buddy who wants to get into it and told him I'd line him up a list of quality resources. I've got a list of programming stuff for him but would like him to learn some marketing and the business side of it as well if is serious about it.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #28

(11-14-2012 12:41 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  Anyone know of any good forums for people who want to get into freelance programming? I have a buddy who wants to get into it and told him I'd line him up a list of quality resources. I've got a list of programming stuff for him but would like him to learn some marketing and the business side of it as well if is serious about it.

Yeah it's interesting, I looked into it extensively before getting into writing, and found surprisingly little good info on freelancing.

I think programmers are naturally so introverted and non-business minded, most people on programmer forums didn't really have much to say beyond "build a portfolio, drum up some business". I got the impression they all had jobs and maybe the odd one was telecommuting, etc.

I know if you're freelance programming you're competing globally with cheap labor, but I also know many companies cant work with those guys any more because the communication, reliability and taking shortcuts is so bad - "pay peanuts get monkeys". So there must be opportunity for a competent freelancer to make a living. Especially given the number of companies that are building web apps, phone apps, etc.

I found a couple of guys who seem to have it together:

http://ollycope.com/

http://www.justin-klein.com/

http://www.matthewbass.com/

So people are doing it. Just doesn't seem like there's much of a wealth of detailed resources for setting up as a freelance programmer yet. Perhaps there's an info product opp there...

Post: #29

(04-07-2012 12:56 AM)bface Wrote:  

(04-07-2012 12:09 AM)xmlenigma Wrote:  Where in Europe are you working? Where all is there LACK of good IT people?

Not working yet as I am still on the road but did some recon with friends in the industry. Looks good.

Switzerland. Germany is the same from what I've heard (met a chick whose father has a company and hasn't been able to fill a position in 3 years, nobody is applying).

I have had a tough time finding ONLINE POSTINGS for European opportunities. I'd like to connect with this company and find others who are looking and short staffed.

Post: #30

I'd focus on making an application that you can show people. Be it a mobile android/ios app or a web app with python or similar. It gives you a goal and a skill set for a software developer type people look for.

Post: #31

I think open source languages like Python and Ruby are fun, but they generally won't have the same corporate ecosystem that Oracle or Microsoft provides in terms of licensing, support, training, certifications, etc. PHP has stood the test of time, and it has always been very easy to get set up on the traditional LAMP stack, but PHP programmers are a dime a dozen. If you really want a solid career as a Web developer I'd recommend ASP.NET MVC (.NET) stack or the Rails stack. Django is decent if you need to interface with certain Python 2.6/2.7 libraries but you might have a harder time finding work. Check out indeed.com and other sites and plug in terms like "ruby developer" to get an idea of the salary ranges and Google around see what the company expectations are. Stack Overflow is a great resource for programming Q/A and Careers 2.0 has job listings as well.

I'd argue against working for a Java shop, but if you really can't find anything else then it might be your best bet if you are comfortable with the C family of languages. If you are crazy about high performance, embedded, or graphics programming then C++ is a must. Breaking into iOS and Objective-C programming is on the more difficult side since employers generally want to see that you've already shipped at least one solid corporate app but indie developers will still have a chance here.

Disclaimer: I'm a software engineer who's worked with all of the above, transitioning from C#/WebDev into iOS/Obj-C

Post: #32

(12-31-2011 03:58 PM)basilransom Wrote:  If anyone wants to commit to learning stuff publicly (it helps you from flaking out on it), add a post here.

Just finished the Javascript primer at Codecademy.com. I'm aiming for proficiency at Jscript/CSS/HTML5 as Caligula has suggested.

I want to make a business/merchant game app for android, so I'll be learning Java as well. Are there any particular websites/books recommended for this? Thanks.

Post: #33

If you've never programmed before, a good way to start is by learning Python. It's powerful and you can do basically any programming paradigm in it. MIT offers its intro to Python course online via edx: https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.00x/2012_Fall/about

Post: #34

Treehouse is solid.