What's a poor developer to do?
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
Lord Bitnerd of Pentium wrote:
Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
Have you considered contributing to an open source project? There are several areas of computer science that remain dominated by corporate solutions. It feels really good to contribute free software to society. Most of the projects will even allow anonymous contributions under a pseudonym if you value your privacy. http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects/[^] http://sourceforge.net/people/[^] Best Wishes, -David Delaune
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Marc Clifton wrote:
I've worked with the world wildife organization, a couple of the local ecologists here, and some work with the Nature Institute here. It's quite fun, very rewarding, and really expanded my horizons regarding what other people do and how technology can help them do it better.
How do you volunteer for stuff like that? Are they actively looking for help?
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
How do you volunteer for stuff like that? Are they actively looking for help?
Yeah. A fellow in the WWF called me because he found an article on CP, and the Farmscape Ecologists are here in the community, so it's sort of the usual ways. :) Marc
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
Start working on the Y10K problem.
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
Take a look at your personal hobbies and interests, and write something that would entertain or be useful to you. That's often the first step to finding a passion. If it interests you personally, it'll keep your fires lit to work on it. If you're doing it for some other purpose, then it can become work. For instance, I wrote an app to control concert lighting systems because I was playing in bands and controllers were too expensive and / or limited. This is the same approach I use in songwriting. I write something that I enjoy. If anyone else likes it that's bonus. However, it's been my experience that when doing creative work that fulfills me personally, it's common to find that others also find value in it.
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help. -
Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
How do you volunteer for stuff like that? Are they actively looking for help?
Yeah. A fellow in the WWF called me because he found an article on CP, and the Farmscape Ecologists are here in the community, so it's sort of the usual ways. :) Marc
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
If I manage to get enough money to retire, my plan is to do work for charities on their websites. not much help when you're a C++ guy, I guess, but perhaps there's something similar you could do. I'd plan to charge a nominal amount, to control the flow of requests.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
I am programming a process simulator (chemical engineering) as a hobby project. An important part of the program is a 2D CAD view which is an extension of Johan Rosengren's CFlowchartEditor found on this site. It is a C++ desktop application using VS6 with MFC. You can have my code if you want to. Currently I don't have much time to work with it.
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
Or pick up where Babbage left off. Weren't you and he school chums...? :-D
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
My missus could do with some help in the garden.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Take a look at your personal hobbies and interests, and write something that would entertain or be useful to you. That's often the first step to finding a passion. If it interests you personally, it'll keep your fires lit to work on it. If you're doing it for some other purpose, then it can become work. For instance, I wrote an app to control concert lighting systems because I was playing in bands and controllers were too expensive and / or limited. This is the same approach I use in songwriting. I write something that I enjoy. If anyone else likes it that's bonus. However, it's been my experience that when doing creative work that fulfills me personally, it's common to find that others also find value in it.
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help.Christopher Duncan wrote:
I wrote an app to control concert lighting systems
I'd love to hear some more about it. Back in my student days, in between Crusades, I did a couple of projects to control lighting. The peak of "being useful" probably came when the Mark 1 system controlled 8kW of stage lights for a disco via a Vic 20. No dimming, just running pre-programmed sequences of offs and ons. If you wanted a constant rate of flash, you didn't have to program each step merely tell it the on time and the off time and an interrupt based routine dealt with the rest. The hi-tec Mark 2 version, now using a C64(!) also featured dimming capabilities but only ever got as far as a two channel system (designed for upto 256) due to budget restraints. For this, I had managed to blag some new chips from a lecturer that allowed you to digitally tell it what level of output you wanted and the thing then generated the control signals to activate a triac for the corrct portion of the mains cycle. Before I got hold of these it was a case of a zero crossing detector then some accurate (!) timing. Both systems used a front end editor in Commodore Basic with a run-time interpreter in assembly. The "language" was stored as a byte code which was read at runtime by the m/c part. There, Java and .net were my idea! Regards, Rich
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
That experience will lead to specialized projects. The more specialized, the better. Otherwise projects tend to take much time. Do active search in small firms. I would still advice to jump on Java. They have libraries for everything. Start with Java 6. Open Source projects come to mind; they provide some continuancy, need active, lasting people. Can offer "commercial" support. Do not immediately start a new project though, only when having something to dedicate oneself to.
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
I'd suggest you explore the mobile world. Lot's of new shiny stuff to learn and have fun with. Also, you may consider contributing to non-profit organizations that do social work, that might be rewarding, helping others to help others
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
Somebody actually retired from this field? I have 35+ years in and I am going out like Admiral Grace Hopper :)
Steve Naidamast Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@ix.netcom.com
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
I wrote an app to control concert lighting systems
I'd love to hear some more about it. Back in my student days, in between Crusades, I did a couple of projects to control lighting. The peak of "being useful" probably came when the Mark 1 system controlled 8kW of stage lights for a disco via a Vic 20. No dimming, just running pre-programmed sequences of offs and ons. If you wanted a constant rate of flash, you didn't have to program each step merely tell it the on time and the off time and an interrupt based routine dealt with the rest. The hi-tec Mark 2 version, now using a C64(!) also featured dimming capabilities but only ever got as far as a two channel system (designed for upto 256) due to budget restraints. For this, I had managed to blag some new chips from a lecturer that allowed you to digitally tell it what level of output you wanted and the thing then generated the control signals to activate a triac for the corrct portion of the mains cycle. Before I got hold of these it was a case of a zero crossing detector then some accurate (!) timing. Both systems used a front end editor in Commodore Basic with a run-time interpreter in assembly. The "language" was stored as a byte code which was read at runtime by the m/c part. There, Java and .net were my idea! Regards, Rich
I waited until the Crusades were over (8086 PC / DOS 3.1) as I didn't want to slip in the blood and sprain something. The lighting project, however, was an MFC app circa Windows 98. It all started so innocently. These days concert lighting runs off the DMX protocol, which is just a 256 byte bucket that the lights poll to see if anything in the range they're set for has changed. Of course, writing a full blown app to control scenes, moving light sequences, syncing to MIDI, playing audio, etc. soon followed. At one point had 10,000 watts of lighting set up in my living room. Yes, I was single at the time. :) Find something you can obsess over and just write it. It worked for me.
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer
Writing apps? Developing sites? Hate marketing? We can help.