41 posts tagged “careers”
2013
How much do personal chefs make?
There was a great AMA by a private chef on reddit last year which touches on this, plus a bunch of other interesting points: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/com...
[... 38 words]How do you become a good programmer?
In my experience new programmers progress a LOT faster if they’re learning with a higher level dynamic language such as Python or Ruby than if they only use C++ or Java. That’s not to say it isn’t a good idea to learn Java/C++ (though I’d encourage you to learn C as a lower-level language) but you may find you pick up programming concepts a whole bunch faster with a language that has a good interactive prompt.
[... 126 words]What are some ways to get a job from attending a conference?
Talk to people. Ask if they are hiring—if they aren’t, ask if they know anyone at the conference who is hiring. Make sure you have lots of business cards. Get other people’s business cards. Follow up afterwards. Connect with people on LinkedIn.
[... 111 words]Which web/software development conferences a student should attend and why?
Offer to volunteer at conferences. If accepted, you’ll get in for free and you’ll get to meet loads of people (including spending time with the speakers)—in exchange for a full days work manning desks, finding speakers in time for their talks, giving people directions and generally helping organise and clean things up.
[... 104 words]Does it still make sense to become a Java developer, or should I migrate to PHP or .NET?
It sounds like you need to expand your horizons a little further. The best programmers I know these days aren’t working solely in Java, PHP or .NET—they may use one those languages, but they’ll also be getting stuck in to dynamic languages such as Python, Ruby, JavaScript or Scala.
[... 222 words]2012
Is it viable to say to an investor that you will quit your job and work full-time on a startup, if you get the funding?
This will reflect badly on you. Why should an investor risk their money on your company if you aren’t even willing to take the risk of quitting your job for it?
[... 62 words]What is the scope, as a career, for a Python developer?
Don’t be an “X developer”. You’re selling yourself short if you define yourself by the technology you most frequently use.
[... 169 words]How long until Ruby developers are as cheap as PHP developers? is it already happening? should I still learn it or it only has a couple years left and I’m better off with SSJS?
If you want to be a highly paid engineer, you should worry less about your expertise in a specific language and more about developing broad and deep skills across a wider range of development topics.
[... 197 words]2011
Would having a maths degree put you at that much of a disadvantage against a CS student when it comes to jobs?
No. Plenty of the great programmers I know have maths, physics or even literature degrees. Read a couple of classic computer science text books and get some programming projects under your belt and you’ll be fine.
[... 64 words]2010
Why is Java perceived as not cool for startups? We seem to be getting a lot of feedback lately that a startup should be using Ruby on Rails, PHP, Python, etc., if they want to be agile and iterate quickly.
You should re-evaluate your beliefs. Dynamic language programmers spend a great deal of time thinking about code quality and maintainability. TDD (and BDD), which I believe was first popularised within the Ruby community) are extremely widespread, and profiling and debugging tools are widely used and constantly improved. A strong test suite provides far more effective protection against bugs than static typing and an IDE.
[... 152 words]