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J
jeremys
Guest
what is your salary and what state are you in?
C
Code
Guest
I'm not a programmer.
J
jeremys
Guest
? sorry, its late...am i being tricked or are you not a programmer? if you're not a progger, what are you?
HappyScrappy
New member
$80K in Cambridge MA
J
jeremys
Guest
shit! do you have to get a 4 year degree to be a programmer? 2 yr? just pass some test? 
C
Code
Guest
I can program, but I choose not to.
I do other stuff.
I make 110k, living in California until Oct 1st.
I do other stuff.
I make 110k, living in California until Oct 1st.
J
jeremys
Guest
so what are the standard requirements?(degree,experience, etc)
any idea on the outlook of job availability within the next few years?
this is something that interests me, also gets a person a lot of money...
any idea on the outlook of job availability within the next few years?
this is something that interests me, also gets a person a lot of money...
C
Code
Guest
jeremys said:
I have a masters in computer science/information theory. Was working on a PhD but dropped out a while ago.
11 years experience.
I work in a very narrow, highly specialized field.
Don't expect to get a CCNA or some other BS cert and expect to pull down more than 35k your first year.
J
jeremys
Guest
so what kind of certifications would i need to be a regular programmer, not the weird shit you do. lol...
C
Code
Guest
jeremys said:
None.
Buy a a couple books. Join a couple of open source discussion groups. Put in a lot of hard work teaching yourself.
J
jeremys
Guest
hmm...this is really interesting..say i finish highschool, get some job somewhere, and get a small apt. i study and learn, how long should it take to figure it out and get an actual job programming?
C
Code
Guest
jeremys said:
We have a farm program at our office.
We hire people who only know basic scripting or computer hardware and have a training session once per week.
If they pick it up in 6-8 months, we put them in engineering. If they can't grasp it or aren't putting in enough effort to learn it on their own, we boot them.
J
jeremys
Guest
hmm..thanks for the info and taking the time to explain all this to me
HappyScrappy
New member
I was an art major in college and am just an autodidactic in regards to... well, a lot of things
I graduated in '99 - started at $53K
the market isn't even close to as easy as it was then.
if you want to get into it, find yourself a problem that you want to solve, then write a program to solve it. and then keep doing that.
if you aren't the type of person to want to do such a thing, then don't bother with the profession.
I graduated in '99 - started at $53K
the market isn't even close to as easy as it was then.
if you want to get into it, find yourself a problem that you want to solve, then write a program to solve it. and then keep doing that.
if you aren't the type of person to want to do such a thing, then don't bother with the profession.
J
jeremys
Guest
problems such as what? any examples you could give me?
C
Code
Guest
jeremys said:
Searching a body of text for words with 13 letters and parsing them in alphabetical order.
J
jeremys
Guest
how is that a problem? i mean, what scenario would you need to do something like that for? sorry for all the questions, im very uneducated about it all.
so you keep making little projects for yourself?
so you keep making little projects for yourself?
HappyScrappy
New member
jeremys said:
the reason I said it is that with the money, it drives people into the field that shouldn't be there.
if you go to your doctor, would you rather that he is there because he heard there was good money in it and he likes Porsches - or would you rather that he truly loves the job and wants to help people and be one of the best.
when the market was booming, it drove morons to the industry and they just wanted the money. if you are working with them, they burn out quickly and just don't give a shit if they do the best (or even a good) job at the problem they are given. so it leads to crappy products and poor working conditions.
even if they made jack, I was retired, or was working some other field - I would still be programming. I work with other programmers, even ones that were comp sci majors - and once they are out of work, they don't even want to be on a computer.
while they can be competant, they aren't going to last in the industry, and aren't going to command the highest salary.
work sucks enough as it is - might as well go into something that you have an interest in.
as for problems - like what code said, really anything works.
not saying what I do is the way to do it, but things that I will sit around and think of, and then program to solve are:
1) charting programs to chart data coming from a scrabble game
2) (related) a program that will play scrabble against itself
3) a bot that will post to this board, and ideally be offensive
etc
etc
etc
even if you see something that is cool and you want to see if you can do it too, or you can do something in one language, then see if you can do it in another - and see which is faster, which was easier to program in, etc etc.
these are all things that might not be directly applicable to later things on a job - but the concepts are very useful. knowing file access, regex, etc.
knowing which programs and techniques are the fastest to program, or will be fastest when done also is good to know.
anyway - the point is - you can get a cert and jump right in. but if you aren't really into it, it will suck and you will be doing somethign else very soon, and until then, you won't make as much as others.
C
Code
Guest
jeremys said:
Well, we could make it look like a Request for Services.....
Task: To graph the usage of 13 letter words in print media.
Abstract: Pull data from Atlanta Journal Constitution, Weekly World News and San Jose Mecury News. Output all 13 letter words used in non op-ed articles.
Text must be indexed in a SQL database and searchable via boolean functions.
Projected project Length: 8-16 total man hours.
J
jeremys
Guest
haha, alright..that made a lot of sense. now i know that this is interesting but i guess it'll take me a while to see if this is something i'll want to do. thanks for the info
J
jeremys
Guest
well what scrappy said made sense, and i understood most of those words, code. lol...i dont know what op-ed, or boolean or SQL database is. i suppose it would help if i knew what 'output' meant too. but i'll think about it all later. i have to go to bed now..thanks again
