programming.

I enjoy programming. I actually want to make a career out of it. I'm 25 years old and out of college[cs degree], I have had a couple of temp projects and done some websites / etc - but didn't have a steady job in programming. Now I'm a purchasing a purchasing agent and I feel like my lifelong love of computers is slipping away from me. I go home everyday and I'm drained of energy dealing with stupid bullshit from my suppliers who usually lie/lose my faxes etc (frustrating). Anyways, where I'm going with this is, are there any entry level jobs out there these days. Or even free and interesting work (ie projects - telecommuting) I can do for charities. Thanks in advance for your advice.

- A fellow 4chan lurker

Well I fail at the grammar, make this edit s/purchasing a purchasing/purchasing

If you want free and interesting then try open source.

Take up freelance jobs, or or yeah, you could also do open source.

Look around for nonprofits in your area whose ideals you support and offer your services to help them fix computer problems, build/integrate new software, etc. Nonprofits have little money for infrastructure, use crufty old systems that are always on the edge of breaking, and have good connections. If you start with them you can build a successful consulting business, and helping nonprofits gives you a special sense of supporting your community.

I just can't do C++ - I find it so so hard.

By all means avoid as much as possible being put into a maintenance job. You *don't* want to have to fix someone else's old broken code, particularly when the job has a six month turnover and the app has been around for ten or fifteen years. Avoid avoid avoid!!! Get work in a position where you can write original software, or at the least integrate stuff together. Doing maintenance will suck the soul out of your body and run it through a cosmic meat grinder, and the hole in your psyche will be filled with rat turds and dead insects.

Take up freelance or part time jobs and go back to school to pick up a second degree or certificate type thing -- If you can apply your programming skills to a different field that you also enjoy, I bet you could find some rewarding work.

>>6

You don't have to master C++ and you certainly don't have to _like_ it, but you ought to at least figure it out. You'll be a better programmer after you've been exposed to the concepts of a few different languages.

By the way, shouldn't this be on the... programming board?

i didn't see it - my apologies. fyi, my skillset is mainly perl and java. but i can write C++ code if needed. just not expert in that.

>>10

it wasn't there when this was posted.

>>9


Just takes such a long time to get even the most basic oncept written onto a screen; I can do html pretty well,mamybe dabble a bit of php, but for them it's a lot easier to 'visualise' when you're coding. Like I said, I just suck at C++

The >> anchors are broken because thread moving doesn't work well yet, sorry :(

>>14

Don't sweat it -- no one's expecting you to have version 1.0 bug free.

>>14
That's what I get for moving the thread manually. Manually fixing that problem.
s/tech/prog/g

http://www.world4ch.org/read/prog/1103896076/
iam com putar programmur

Oblivious + Exposure = Obvious

lol, Leon Schram

For those of you trying to learn C++, don't please. It's evil. You'd be much better off learning to use C for real. Once you've mastered C, and the entertaining intricacies of function pointers and pointer arithmetic, among other pursuits, then you can study OO. You'll find that for learning OO, good language models include Java and one of the atypical languages like OCaml or Common Lisp (ie CLOS). Then maybe think about studying C++. You shouldn't learn C++ first because it's basically a pile of ugly kluges and warts built out of a preprocessor on top of C which masquerades as a real language. Since C++ is so idiosyncratic and contains such nasty mistakes as templates to get around deficiencies in the lack of design and forethought, anyone trying to learn C++ without the benefit of having used both low level and OO languages is bound to lose, and lose big.

Quite frankly, the world would be a much better place if the 'fixed' parts of C++ were grafted back into C and then C++ consigned to the skip. This is actually what is gradually being done in the improvements to ANSI C, such as with the last standard version of C99.

BTW Haskell is another good language to study different varieties of OO with. Don't be suckered into the mistaken belief that Java encompasses all you need to know about OO. In particular, Java worshippers never learn that many of their vaunted 'patterns' are actually redundant at best in other, better designed OO languages. In fact, the whole concept of 'pattern' is a signal that something is missing in your language, since you have to keep track of it in conceptual rather than programmatical terms. A good OO language can represent patterns directly in the language without needing to abstract away from it. Example is the Lisp macro language combined with class generators for CLOS classes and MOP metaclasses.

I think you're being excessively harsh to C++. I can always truck out the tried-and-true argument: "If it's really that bad, why are so many coders using it?"

(Which is an interesting question. There are so many nice languages out there that never reached limelight...)

C++ has its warts, but it's fast. It's not that complicated either, if you don't delve too deeply. And claiming that C++ had a lack of design and forethought is simply ignorant. You need only read some archives to realize that a lot of thought went into each design decision.

That said, I don't like C++ either. If you start digging in the guts of the language it becomes a nightmare. I doubt there's anyone who has ever fully mastered C++.

i dislike c++, its crap. i began learning it a while back and stopped and decided to continue my focus on just plain C (which can do OO)