Your Degrees
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Old Ed wrote:
Just choose wisely...
I'm aware of that part and the choices that I make now, will last me a long time. That's why I want to make a balanced decision.
Old Ed wrote:
NAV (whatever that is)
Microsofts ERP packet: Dynamics NAV
Just one thing though... "Experience working on ERP systems" can have a high return on investment in your CV! For the records, here's my story! :) It begins with me running out of cash when I got out of college. Then I found a job ad for a project that was 3 months late to ship and they figured it could only help to throw me (fresh out of college) into the mix. Over the following 4 months, my two colleagues got fired and about 2 years later, I had built them two magnificent pieces of software I'm still maintaining on contract. Then I figured I had reached the top at that company and I couldn't learn anything else there so I left and went back to school to get my degree. I could have gotten another job, but I think it may remove the "glass ceiling" in my next jobs. I'm still there now working on lots of different projects (I joined a club working on an autonomous robot!) and having a lot of fun! In the end, having fun is all that really matters anyway.
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DavidCrow wrote:
I really enjoy the new challenges
Good for you, you like coding in C++ and Java. I'm stuck in C/AL code. It has an IF, REPEAT and SWITCH statement, nothing else. I think it's boring and it's not teaching me anything new. You could say it's a lesson in humility, but basicly I'm just writing code that gets records, adds or multiplies something and then writes the result into another table.
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Hello, fellow Projecteers. I've been lurking on here some time now and I think this is the best place to ask my question. I graduated last June and started working a couple of months later. I'm working 4-5 months now as a Dynamics NAV (a.k.a. Navision) developer. Got hired to work out a .NET project, but two weeks into the job my boss says to drop it because it's too expensive for me to work out. He gives me several NAV assignments and wants me to specialize in NAV. Personally, I hate NAV. It's old, it's clunky, it won't work without a dozen hacks, the development language (C/AL) is limited and frustrating (I'm used to C# from school and personal projects). Now I'm looking for another job, but every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree or experience as a programmer. My question to you: What is your degree? What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career? Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
My background is engineering. (PhD - Mechanical). Started coding in the 1970's. Mostly writing analysis and modelling code, but some machine interface and control stuff as well. I can't say I have a lot of sympathy for you. There are lots of development systems out there. C# is just the latest of a long list of system you will encounter in your career. Some are application specific, some are legacy. C#, or any .NET system, is a minority in the programming world. If you're aspiring to be a professional programmer, then part of what you will be paid for is deal with odd-ball, undocumented and buggy systems - there are lots of them - that were probably written with the best development environments of the time. Let's hope that you're C# programs stand the test of time as well. Lots of code dies an instant death as soon as a user sees it. About having to do hacks - at some point the limit of any system will be pushed. If you look at some of the C# articles on this site you'll see lots of hacks that the authors though were good solutions but ended up having some unintended consequences (a euphemism for bugs), as pointed out in the replies. Being a programmer is not about the languages you know. It's about organizing the project correctly and expressing it in the clearest (meaning most reliable) code you can wrangle up. As a NAV programmer, trying to accurately interpret the needs of accountants and managers ("the clients") without going over-budget is good experience. Good luck on your career, whichever way you go.
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Jim Crafton wrote:
Of course it sucks. You just graduated. Everyone starts on the bottom. Welcome to Reality 101. Not to sound overly harsh or nasty, but that's the norm.
I don't want to come over as a know it all, but I knew that. :) That's also the reason I don't just quit and go back to living it up at home and look for another job full time.
Jim Crafton wrote:
It takes time to get good. Time, effort and patience.
This raises another question: How do you know you're good? You've been coding stuff that works for 10 years now, ok. But who tells you your code is good? I was thinking that more education would give me better skills (cause my code would literally be reviewed and my flaws would be pointed out to me, thus learning from my mistakes).
I've worked in the field before and I'm doing said degree right now and believe me, if you're talking "getting things done", you'll learn much faster if you just get a job in the desired field. And read some good books like code complete. I'm getting that degree for many reasons including that I would love a job in programming language research (my final project is going to be awesome!), etc. Anyway, if you don't like it there, it's a good enough reason to leave. All that really matters if that you enjoy yourself. If you start compromising on that, you'll be doing compromises all your life. The simplest rules make the most efficient algorithms ;)
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Hello, fellow Projecteers. I've been lurking on here some time now and I think this is the best place to ask my question. I graduated last June and started working a couple of months later. I'm working 4-5 months now as a Dynamics NAV (a.k.a. Navision) developer. Got hired to work out a .NET project, but two weeks into the job my boss says to drop it because it's too expensive for me to work out. He gives me several NAV assignments and wants me to specialize in NAV. Personally, I hate NAV. It's old, it's clunky, it won't work without a dozen hacks, the development language (C/AL) is limited and frustrating (I'm used to C# from school and personal projects). Now I'm looking for another job, but every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree or experience as a programmer. My question to you: What is your degree? What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career? Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
Your questions were: What is your degree? What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career? Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree? Not one responder answered your questions, so I will. I have a degree in History and a Masters in Finance. Primarily writing sql code for financial institutions, banks and insurance companies. Studying, studying, studying and networking. An advanced degree matters when you want to move up or consult. I chose consulting.
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DavidCrow wrote:
What this would say to me as an employer is that when things get rough or don't go your way, you leave.
He said he was hired as a .NET developer... If he was told from the start that it was a .NET position, and they suddenly throw him a curve ball and stick him with something completely different, I think that's justification for looking elsewhere. At best, the employer just didn't know what they wanted. At worst, it was a bait-and-switch.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)I disagree strongly - if hired as a .NET Developer, should be perfectly justified in looking elsewhere. In the UK, such actions by an employer count as grounds for constructive dismissal (i.e. an employee leaving because of unreasonable action on the part of an employer) and rightly so. I hope that such grounds apply elsewhere. Otherwise, where does this all stop? Being hired as a developer and expected to pure data entry? Is that acceptable?
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Your questions were: What is your degree? What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career? Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree? Not one responder answered your questions, so I will. I have a degree in History and a Masters in Finance. Primarily writing sql code for financial institutions, banks and insurance companies. Studying, studying, studying and networking. An advanced degree matters when you want to move up or consult. I chose consulting.
Actually I did answer all three of his questions, I addressed what my degree was in, what I do and how I got there, and my opinion on when it is a good idea to obtain a masters. Not trying to be combative but you said "not one responder answered your questions", which is not true at all, lots of people did. Perhaps not using a pop-quiz format where every answer is delivered on a single line in the exact order asked, but that requirement was unstated :)
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I disagree strongly - if hired as a .NET Developer, should be perfectly justified in looking elsewhere. In the UK, such actions by an employer count as grounds for constructive dismissal (i.e. an employee leaving because of unreasonable action on the part of an employer) and rightly so. I hope that such grounds apply elsewhere. Otherwise, where does this all stop? Being hired as a developer and expected to pure data entry? Is that acceptable?
Well, in my contract it's phrased as "Software Developer" and my official title is "Software Engineer". No mention of the language, framework or program. Besides, I'm customizing an existing packet to suit the needs of our customers, so I'm still "developing" or "engineering" software. Just not in the strict sense that I thought I was going to be doing. Plus, I don't blame my boss. He had a project and the project got dumped, so he uses the available asset for something else. I just don't like the something else in this case.
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DavidCrow wrote:
I really enjoy the new challenges
Good for you, you like coding in C++ and Java. I'm stuck in C/AL code. It has an IF, REPEAT and SWITCH statement, nothing else. I think it's boring and it's not teaching me anything new. You could say it's a lesson in humility, but basicly I'm just writing code that gets records, adds or multiplies something and then writes the result into another table.
KenBonny wrote:
Good for you, you like coding in C++ and Java. I'm stuck in C/AL code. It has an IF, REPEAT and SWITCH statement, nothing else. I think it's boring and it's not teaching me anything new. You could say it's a lesson in humility, but basicly I'm just writing code that gets records, adds or multiplies something and then writes the result into another table.
Perhaps you could always amuse yourself by creating a cross compiler. When you were done you could write C++ code, run your compiler and the output of that would be C/AL. Or write a straight up code generator which takes some custom source and generates the patterned code.