[ajug-members] ajug, (good)interesting experience...

[Chris Abney]

What is java/flat-file/home-grown ?  

The grammar in your email is not good.  This has nothing to do with
Programming but it has a lot to do with the kind of work you would be
expected to do as a programmer.
Most... Strike that.  All positions in IT will involve some degree of
technical writing.  

Without being able to impress others with significant university level
academic experience in computer science you will need to have
significant project work to show.
Come up with a personal project - Some sort of program to design and
build.  Some people do free work for open source projects.
Build it; Then document it on the web.
Using book author quality technical writing, you should show that you
understand the design issues, design patterns, programming idioms and
how to write code.

This should sound like a lot of work.  If you really want to get into IT
(programming anyway) just patently and consistently put in the hours.
Today, it is the rare exception that people begin a successful lasting,
careers as a programmer with just a desire and few continuing education
classes.
Remember, most of the people you are competing with spent a LOT of money
to be able to work 2 or 3 thousand hours a year (in college) to be able
to be programmers.
If you haven't done the equivalent, then you are asking for something
extra.

The good news is - If you enjoy programming, a project like this should
be fun.


Chris Abney
chris at abney.info 
Former Java study group leader
Answerer of this question many times over

 

-----Original Message-----
From: mcdaniel [mailto:521 at ofig.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 6:50 PM
To: ajug-members at ajug.org
Subject: [ajug-members] ajug, (good)interesting experience...

good stuff there at ajug... -i smiled inside...
i'm a one-year java/oop programmer as i understand procedural
programming for a while- i was at the ajug last evening/night and was at
the eat-ery before-hand, i spoke with nice/helpful people there
(thanks).  i need help (i think)- i just passed java2 for programmers at
a local tech school- via, they used this product: learnkey.com [
http://www.learnkey.com/Java2_for_Programmers ]- with an above 80% grade
(which 'only' means i can 'tell' (some)one  /*casting*/ or 'do' 
fair/basic java stuff)... at any rate- i like who/what i learned-about
last evening, and wanted to say the following-

i can get interviews but can not get hired because the chicken came
before the egg, i mean the egg came before the chicken

hire? no-experience; experience? no-hire...
-at rate(any)...
i liked the man that spoke, and i think the word 'vehicle' should be the
class for 'water', 'land', or 'air' as the type-of-shipping (as
boat/submarine, plane/helicopter , or truck/van/train)- shoot, there's
more categories (already...); however, i played it safe (as the
person-type that the speaker spoke-about) and said nothing- until the
end... (project-clean'up/project-pre'execution/what-ever-the-term(s));
thanks, i learned/was-able-to-understand-larger-issues from my time
spent; also, i was the one asking the question about interfaces which
lead to the bomb discussion [from the response(s)] from a few weeks ago-

humor, maybe? (below):

the interface is java's dynamic programming...-cast everything in a
switch/case

i'm a php/mysql (ish) becomming java/flat-file/home-grown

i'm asking-for, i guess... if one can give (if you have the time)
advise/comments for-getting-hired-via career change... 

http://ofig.org/it

sincerely, -barclay


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