My company is going under, some time in the next 1-2 months. In the current job market I am under skilled from a resume standpoint. No degree, many small areas of expertise, but no clear mastery, no "knockout" certifications. Currently I posses the following experience: 1-2 years MSSql 1 year loose .net2.0+ programing in C# 2 years misc...
I am a (self-proclaimed) PHP guru, but Stackoverflow pointed out some serious flaws in PHP. I also know the syntax of C++, C#, Obj-C, java, bash and ruby. But going from building a "Hello world" to building a real-world application isn't trivial. Any suggestions to spend more time on languageX (professionally/paid) while phasing out t...
I'm currently working on a team that has half the developers thinking in terms of "objects" and the other half ignore the concepts all together. It's starting to make working together more difficult because the OOP guys (myself included) want to build reusable components that can be leveraged across the system, but the SQL guys just cre...
I know there are a lot of variables in learning speed and experience just give me what you'd consider the norm What do you believe is the average time needed (years or months wise) for a beginning programmer with no other languages yet to be able to get an entry level position as a developer? I desperately want out of my current caree...
I've got two high school juniors coming in today and I have no idea what to show them. I'm a software engineer and I'll have them for an hour. I could run through the basics of VCS, SQL or some web apps we've made, but I'd like to hear some suggestions. It'd be neat if we could build an C# or ASP.NET app from start to finish but an h...
I am a CS student that knows his way around ASP.NET, MVC, Ruby On Rails, MS SQL, C#, Java and so on. I have also immersed myself in the ALT.NET community. Avid reader of Jeff and Joel, CodeBetter.com, Martin Fowler and so on. A while ago I asked "Implications of Sharepoint, BizTalk, Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft CRM for a .NET develo...
I'm in a similar position to the OP of this post and would like to program for a living. With a year and a half before I graduate I'm trying to decide whether I should spend my energy mastering material I am already fairly comfortable with, (C and Python) or learning new stuff that I am very weak in like Emacs Lisp. With the former I su...
Most contract roles I have gone for, target developers with excellent business knowledge, especially in investment banking. Their reasoning is that they are a better, well rounded developer, that can come up with better design solutions, with added value - which I tend to agree with. Also I have been turned down for roles because I d...
Many folks here are experts in their fields. For the sake of sharing knowledge, could you tell what has most influenced your career? Was it your talent, the education you got, a person you were lucky to meet (who guided you), a book that you read, or maybe something else? ...
Most specific disciplines have an award/honor/prize for excellence in their field. So what is the most prestigious award for programming on the lines of the Nobel prize and the Fields Medal? ...
I have general academic knowledge of the various design patterns that are discussed in GoF and Head First Design Patterns, but I have a difficult time applying them to the code that I am writing. A goal for me this year is to be able to recognize design patterns that are emerging from the code that I write. Obviously this comes with exp...
When you apply for companies, what is on your checklist before you actually send them an application/resume/cover letter? I know that we can all go see if the company is on Fortune 500 or any other ranks, but those ranking system cannot tell me too much. I sometimes get good vibes when I visit companies, but that also does not tell me...
This is slightly different question to What do Team Leaders do? I have worked on many different projects, working with a varying different team leaders/managers. Some were good and some were not so good. When not so good, I would always think, what would I do different? In my opinion a good team leader has the following traits :- ...
I am a Junior System Administrator for a government agency. I am still learning on a very regular basis and am looking to expand my knowledge but am at a loss on what path to take. I work in a "Windows Shop" supporting Windows users, Cisco hardware and Debian servers. I have some basic knowledge of Cisco routing. I often have to troubles...
Duplicate of: Is it better to go broad or go deep Question Brief: In order to be rich and prosperous, is it a better idea to be niche or sparse? Should I continue to vary my skills, or predict the market and become a master of X next popular technology? (I do recognize that a technology doesn't need to be "popular" to be profitable). ...
I enjoy building websites, But with my work load I try but still feel tough to get motivated to learn new technologies because the requirements don't call for it; and they drive my skillset Please share your tips to get motivated or the best techniques to learn these new technologies. ...
Just a year or two ago I thought that learning WPF is the best use of my free time. Now though, I'm not so sure: seems like the number of ASP.NET jobs vs. WinForms/WPF is something like 10:1. Am I the only one noticing this, or is this really an overall trend? And should all thick-client developers drop everything and begin learning ASP....
I started my programming career after my grad school. I was still in my early 20s and had a lot of enthusiasm in learning new technologies, concepts and applying to them in different projects. Over the last 7 years, I have been involved in several projects at same/different clients that ran anywhere from 2 months to 5 months. Every pro...
Let's say I'm a college student who previously worked a summer programming internship at a large, well-known company, and this summer I haven't been able to find another one (due to interviews not going well and the economy and so on...). Would it be a bad career decision for me to interview for a "developer technical support" (helping ...
Recently I read a software engineer job description. The requirements included knowing how the web works from HTTP to HTML, improving the performance of the TCP stack in Linux, and knowing how cache-control headers work. What's the best way to learn about these topics? ...