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 $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
Or pick up where Babbage left off. Weren't you and he school chums...? :-D
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. 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. -
Another one is http://givecamp.org/
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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?
Aside from the name, some hacker groups may not fall under
Lord Bitnerd of Pentium wrote:
controversial, political or "fringe".
You can look into Random Hacks of Kindness rhok.org or Geeks Without Bounds gwob.org. They seem to be looking to help people. I interned at a small school to help with their computer systems. You could always volunteer at an underprivileged school. Lately I've been trying to spend my time away from code and get involved in musical hardware / robotics on a very simple level, starting with kits from MakerShed.com. This can be rewarding, because the results are in a physical form.
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How about you look for new hobby.. for example playing the Piano or Guitar or painting? I think that would be more rewarding than coding.
SilimSayo wrote:
I think that would be more rewarding than coding.
Heretic! :-D
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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.
Interesting. I work for a biotech company that makes chemistry applications for mass spectrometers. We also show the chemical breakdown products as a result of the mass flow reactions. Something like that may help compliment our product line, if you're interested. If yes, then my email is jimlonero@aol.com. (Company is anonymous in this forum.)
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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 $$$. I have some expertise in C++/Wintel, and am interested in work on that planet, or perhaps exploration elsewhere as a n00b. I don't want to overstate my abilities, but I still enjoy coding, and learning how to do new things... I suppose that I am a solution in search of a problem to solve. I'm not looking for financial rewards, but other types of currency of some value to myself. I don't want to do anything controversial, political or "fringe". Any suggestions, ideas, direction?
I would recommend to look at any open software you are using. I don't know, something like VLC, there is many other softwares out there with a big community behind. They always have a huge bug base and new features they want to implement and miss the time to do so. It's something I would love to do and never have the time myself.
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I recently retired from being paid to develop code. After coding since the late 1960's, I am interested in working on something worthwhile in my retirement years that might have other benefits besides the $$$. 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?