I was working as a musician before I decided to settle down and "grow up". I had only a diploma in music as a qualification. I have now worked my way up to Senior Developer with a great little company.
I think that from my experience some companies are impressed by people who are self taught. It shows you have discipline to sit and learn unaided.
My experience of developers who are straight out of University is that they may know lots of theory but ask them to complete a real world job quickly and they struggle.
I have been working from home for about 2 years now. At first it was 1 day a week until we moved office and then I upped that to 3 days a week.
I honestly find I get a whole lot more done when at home. as has been mentioned there is no constant interruption and social chatter.
I'm a very focused worker. I get up and make sure I'm online at 8 and I work to 5 usually with only a moment for lunch. I'm too worried that my (micro?) manager will worry about me "scratching me bits while flicking the TV channels".
I don't think working from home works for everyone but for me it does. As a developer there is no need for me in the office.
So what happens if you program in multiple languages on multiple platforms?? Does that mean you can not read/.??
I mean i write c#/c++, web, xml, sql etc during the day for my paid job and am active in Linux development (C, C++ and Ruby etc) in my own time so can I only comment on the Linux based development I do??
Grow up!! I am as much against Microsoft as the next "proper" developer but some of us got our break in MS development and haven't managed to escape yet!!
Well, I've worked with VB and VB.net for over five years commercially now. I learned VBA and then moved to VB6 as my first programming language. Since then I have learnt and worked with Java C/C++ Python and Ruby. I personally prefer C++ and Ruby but then I like working with KDE.
I still work with VB.net as that's what I'm employed to do. I believe the products I work with would suit C# better to make full use of the.Net framework and the OO abilities that it provides. But hey we've all got to earn a £/$.
The main issue I have with VB is that it's Microsoft (who I'm not bashing!!) and therefore, you are always tied to them. I like Mono (which no one else seems to have mentioned!) I realize that mono is mainly C# but they do have a VB compiler and vibe support is increasing. At least using mono would allow the product being developed to be run on multi OS's. Also Gambas is the open source version of VB6 designed to run on Linux.
VB6 is DEAD though and I think any application that is being re-written or started now needs to be based on.NET. A discussion should probably be held with the clients to see what plans they have for their own software. If they are going for vista or to Linux or OSX then that will impact the language of choice as well.
As much as we would all like to change the tools/software etc we commercially work with as we have our own opinions of what is best it's surely the employers decision at the end of the day.
I took a paycut about five years ago to get into IT. It has panned out for me. I'm now working for a great company hacking.Net applications. Although to be honest my interests and ideal job would be to be hacking Linux software I'm unable to find a job that offers that at present. If you (as I) feel that open source software is the future it might be a worth while step to take the cut to move areas.
To me it sounds like you like the benefits of your current job so an alternative could be to get involved in some open source projects and get some hacking done in your own time.
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I was working as a musician before I decided to settle down and "grow up". I had only a diploma in music as a qualification. I have now worked my way up to Senior Developer with a great little company. I think that from my experience some companies are impressed by people who are self taught. It shows you have discipline to sit and learn unaided. My experience of developers who are straight out of University is that they may know lots of theory but ask them to complete a real world job quickly and they struggle.
I have always been told that SWAP should be twice your RAM but no more then 512mb.
I have been working from home for about 2 years now. At first it was 1 day a week until we moved office and then I upped that to 3 days a week. I honestly find I get a whole lot more done when at home. as has been mentioned there is no constant interruption and social chatter. I'm a very focused worker. I get up and make sure I'm online at 8 and I work to 5 usually with only a moment for lunch. I'm too worried that my (micro?) manager will worry about me "scratching me bits while flicking the TV channels". I don't think working from home works for everyone but for me it does. As a developer there is no need for me in the office.
So what happens if you program in multiple languages on multiple platforms?? Does that mean you can not read /.??
I mean i write c#/c++, web, xml, sql etc during the day for my paid job and am active in Linux development (C, C++ and Ruby etc) in my own time so can I only comment on the Linux based development I do??
Grow up!! I am as much against Microsoft as the next "proper" developer but some of us got our break in MS development and haven't managed to escape yet!!
ha ha!!! Like your thinking..... I think we might be beaten.... just seen word that their bankrollers are looking to snap them up!! MSCO!!??
Anyone wana buy a company for about $1??? We could re-brand them and make them sell Linux!!!
That doesn't happen to be the report that Microsoft wrote was it?? Get the facts............ the windoz facts!!
Well, I've worked with VB and VB.net for over five years commercially now. I learned VBA and then moved to VB6 as my first programming language. Since then I have learnt and worked with Java C/C++ Python and Ruby. I personally prefer C++ and Ruby but then I like working with KDE. I still work with VB.net as that's what I'm employed to do. I believe the products I work with would suit C# better to make full use of the .Net framework and the OO abilities that it provides. But hey we've all got to earn a £/$.
The main issue I have with VB is that it's Microsoft (who I'm not bashing!!) and therefore, you are always tied to them. I like Mono (which no one else seems to have mentioned!) I realize that mono is mainly C# but they do have a VB compiler and vibe support is increasing. At least using mono would allow the product being developed to be run on multi OS's. Also Gambas is the open source version of VB6 designed to run on Linux.
VB6 is DEAD though and I think any application that is being re-written or started now needs to be based on .NET. A discussion should probably be held with the clients to see what plans they have for their own software. If they are going for vista or to Linux or OSX then that will impact the language of choice as well.
As much as we would all like to change the tools/software etc we commercially work with as we have our own opinions of what is best it's surely the employers decision at the end of the day.
I took a paycut about five years ago to get into IT. It has panned out for me. I'm now working for a great company hacking .Net applications. Although to be honest my interests and ideal job would be to be hacking Linux software I'm unable to find a job that offers that at present. If you (as I) feel that open source software is the future it might be a worth while step to take the cut to move areas.
To me it sounds like you like the benefits of your current job so an alternative could be to get involved in some open source projects and get some hacking done in your own time.