What skill should I focus on learning?
-
Current situation: 10+ years of experience with C# and .NET in general. Last 5 years spent mostly doing SEO and small programming projects. Future situation: Might want to start working as a freelance programmer doing bigger programming projects/working with bigger organizations. The big question: What skill should I focus on learning to become a coveted freelance programmer? Should it be sharepoint programming, biztalk programming or something else (all based on my existing C#/.NET skills)? Currently, I'm better with Windows projects than I am with for example ASP.NET. But I can learn things quite fast :) Any good ideas/recommendations? Thanks.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” - Lazarus Long Whatever you can't do in the above list, focus on learning that.
Don't blame me. I voted for Chuck Norris.
-
This goes to the very heart of the human being, and the thing that we are so good at, at least from our perspective, is to make decitions based on many variables. Cumputer, mathematics and logic is the exact opposite, it is very good at finding the "right" answer. Some of the tings in the world is straigt forward, mening that a computer could handle it better or just as well as a human, other things arenearly impossible (or at least we humans hope that) like finding out who to marry, be friends with, were to work, how to treat people smart etc. You could read Charles Petzold's book "The annotated Turing" to find out the problems, and see Kurt Godel destroy our hope that "Wir willen wissen, und wir wollen wissen" (Actually disproven the day before he said it). We cant, and sometimes that is good to know :)
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
a computer could handle it better or just as well as a human
Met up with a professor in agriculture from Minnesota this weekend, and I think it's safe to say that he didn't leave much hope for manual labor.
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
how to treat people smart
This is from 1972: Computer simulation of psychologists' decision-making[^], people have been playing around with this for quite some time.
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
Charles Petzold's book "The annotated Turing"
Perhaps I will, I haven't read Turings' work - which is, perhaps, a shame :-D Edsger W. Dijkstra wrote a few essays like:
- How do we tell truths that might hurt?[^]
- On a cultural gap[^]
- Speech at the Occasion of an Anniversary[^]
As relevant today as they where then - and I find his questions "Are we decent by remaining silent? If not, how do we speak up?" to be most disturbing - as I mentioned above, not everything can be turned into a joke.
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS It’s time for companies to realize that consumers have become very savvy and very demanding. Today’s consumer (B2B or B2C) does their homework, is well informed, and buys…they are not sold. -- Mike Myatt
-
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
a computer could handle it better or just as well as a human
Met up with a professor in agriculture from Minnesota this weekend, and I think it's safe to say that he didn't leave much hope for manual labor.
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
how to treat people smart
This is from 1972: Computer simulation of psychologists' decision-making[^], people have been playing around with this for quite some time.
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
Charles Petzold's book "The annotated Turing"
Perhaps I will, I haven't read Turings' work - which is, perhaps, a shame :-D Edsger W. Dijkstra wrote a few essays like:
- How do we tell truths that might hurt?[^]
- On a cultural gap[^]
- Speech at the Occasion of an Anniversary[^]
As relevant today as they where then - and I find his questions "Are we decent by remaining silent? If not, how do we speak up?" to be most disturbing - as I mentioned above, not everything can be turned into a joke.
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS It’s time for companies to realize that consumers have become very savvy and very demanding. Today’s consumer (B2B or B2C) does their homework, is well informed, and buys…they are not sold. -- Mike Myatt
Liked this especially:
Quote:
About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.
My argument was simply, that it is nearly impossible to know "the right answer". And if I take Godel to the extreme, experience is not valid either. :) Mabye the problem lies elsewhere out of your sight, but then again our advice to you is dependent that you tell the truth too, and how do I know that, I found no way of doing that too ;) Or like Edvard Bernaeys said, (paraphrasing)it dosent matter if PR get a bad reputation we can just adjust the definition on PR and continue as before. (Bernays is one of the people behind modern PR, and was one of the people behind the campaign to change the word from what was called Propaganda (literally means right preaching the right faith in italian) to PR). Most of our positions is a matter of belief anyway... So I hope I havent made you too sleepy with this :)
-
Liked this especially:
Quote:
About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.
My argument was simply, that it is nearly impossible to know "the right answer". And if I take Godel to the extreme, experience is not valid either. :) Mabye the problem lies elsewhere out of your sight, but then again our advice to you is dependent that you tell the truth too, and how do I know that, I found no way of doing that too ;) Or like Edvard Bernaeys said, (paraphrasing)it dosent matter if PR get a bad reputation we can just adjust the definition on PR and continue as before. (Bernays is one of the people behind modern PR, and was one of the people behind the campaign to change the word from what was called Propaganda (literally means right preaching the right faith in italian) to PR). Most of our positions is a matter of belief anyway... So I hope I havent made you too sleepy with this :)
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
the right answer
Especially when there is no single "right answer"
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
that you tell the truth too
Statistically somebody will always hold something back ...
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
Most of our positions is a matter of belief anyway
That's true :-D
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
So I hope I havent made you too sleepy with this
No, but I didn't see your reply before I turned off the computer - it was kind of late ...
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS It’s time for companies to realize that consumers have become very savvy and very demanding. Today’s consumer (B2B or B2C) does their homework, is well informed, and buys…they are not sold. -- Mike Myatt
-
:thumbsup: well said - dealing with people who think they know something about software development, and thinks that developers are something you just hire regardless of particular skills, is often painful. The biggest hurdle will often be to teach them to provide the correct information, without any assumtions. Academics are usually great to work with, as they are used to this.
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS It’s time for companies to realize that consumers have become very savvy and very demanding. Today’s consumer (B2B or B2C) does their homework, is well informed, and buys…they are not sold. -- Mike Myatt
Espen Harlinn wrote:
dealing with people who think they know something about software development, and thinks that developers are something you just hire regardless of particular skills, is often painful.
Hear! Hear! I work at a place where the sales office thinks all the programmers are interchangeable and worst yet, think all of us are intimately familiar with each other's progress, projects, and quirks in the code. And get mad (flaming e-mails bouncing off walls...) when we don't.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
-
Current situation: 10+ years of experience with C# and .NET in general. Last 5 years spent mostly doing SEO and small programming projects. Future situation: Might want to start working as a freelance programmer doing bigger programming projects/working with bigger organizations. The big question: What skill should I focus on learning to become a coveted freelance programmer? Should it be sharepoint programming, biztalk programming or something else (all based on my existing C#/.NET skills)? Currently, I'm better with Windows projects than I am with for example ASP.NET. But I can learn things quite fast :) Any good ideas/recommendations? Thanks.
Develop a deep seated need to BS as though you know what you are talking about, even (especially!) when you don't. I've had to sit through too many meetings where consultants have been free associating to the point of lunacy and yet when I turned to look at management, they were eating it with a spoon. I wish I was being sarcastic. :(
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
-
Marketing.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
-
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
But can be an absolute nightmare in the consulting industy
Ahh, so true ;) Seriously though: Know any business that employs more commedians? Showmanship is pretty important - for most people rooting out the facts; sifting through them; and arranging them into a cohesive model is boring. So you've got to not only sell the idea that facts are important to non-programmers; you usually have to sell it to programmers as well. Enticing people to work, and to feel that their work is importatnt, is always the greatest challenge, and a bit of entertainment can help a lot when it comes to motivating people. Humour is often called the sovereign remedy - but that doesn't mean that you can turn everything into a joke.
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS It’s time for companies to realize that consumers have become very savvy and very demanding. Today’s consumer (B2B or B2C) does their homework, is well informed, and buys…they are not sold. -- Mike Myatt
"Showmanship is pretty important - for most people rooting out the facts; sifting through them; and arranging them into a cohesive model is boring. So you've got to not only sell the idea that facts are important to non-programmers; you usually have to sell it to programmers as well. Enticing people to work, and to feel that their work is importatnt, is always the greatest challenge, and a bit of entertainment can help a lot when it comes to motivating people." Which is why the US economy is in the mess it is in. People want to believe that truth is relative when truth is merely stating the facts as they in fact are without twisting them to make one's view look right. If you look and sound good enough to the interviewer, you get the job. If your appearence offends the interviewer, no amount of skill will get you the job. Showmanship is not only a problem we see in the workplace, it is also a problem in politics and religion. Programmers ought to know better. After all, one cannot code a program to meet the user's needs if one does not know all the boring facts regarding the programs purpose.
Scott A. Tovey I'm annoying: I do that which is said to be impossible for me, yet unable to do that which is demanded of me.
-
Kenneth Haugland wrote:
But can be an absolute nightmare in the consulting industy
Ahh, so true ;) Seriously though: Know any business that employs more commedians? Showmanship is pretty important - for most people rooting out the facts; sifting through them; and arranging them into a cohesive model is boring. So you've got to not only sell the idea that facts are important to non-programmers; you usually have to sell it to programmers as well. Enticing people to work, and to feel that their work is importatnt, is always the greatest challenge, and a bit of entertainment can help a lot when it comes to motivating people. Humour is often called the sovereign remedy - but that doesn't mean that you can turn everything into a joke.
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS It’s time for companies to realize that consumers have become very savvy and very demanding. Today’s consumer (B2B or B2C) does their homework, is well informed, and buys…they are not sold. -- Mike Myatt
"Humour is often called the sovereign remedy - but that doesn't mean that you can turn everything into a joke." Would you kindly inform the politicians in Washington of this? But then again, they think that what they are doing is not a joke. Unfortunately for us, it is an extremely bad and unfunny joke.
-
"Showmanship is pretty important - for most people rooting out the facts; sifting through them; and arranging them into a cohesive model is boring. So you've got to not only sell the idea that facts are important to non-programmers; you usually have to sell it to programmers as well. Enticing people to work, and to feel that their work is importatnt, is always the greatest challenge, and a bit of entertainment can help a lot when it comes to motivating people." Which is why the US economy is in the mess it is in. People want to believe that truth is relative when truth is merely stating the facts as they in fact are without twisting them to make one's view look right. If you look and sound good enough to the interviewer, you get the job. If your appearence offends the interviewer, no amount of skill will get you the job. Showmanship is not only a problem we see in the workplace, it is also a problem in politics and religion. Programmers ought to know better. After all, one cannot code a program to meet the user's needs if one does not know all the boring facts regarding the programs purpose.
Scott A. Tovey I'm annoying: I do that which is said to be impossible for me, yet unable to do that which is demanded of me.
:thumbsup: Seems we are pretty much in agreement :-D Once you've got the facts pat down, you're able to start on the really interesting part: What do they actually tell us?
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS It’s time for companies to realize that consumers have become very savvy and very demanding. Today’s consumer (B2B or B2C) does their homework, is well informed, and buys…they are not sold. -- Mike Myatt
-
Current situation: 10+ years of experience with C# and .NET in general. Last 5 years spent mostly doing SEO and small programming projects. Future situation: Might want to start working as a freelance programmer doing bigger programming projects/working with bigger organizations. The big question: What skill should I focus on learning to become a coveted freelance programmer? Should it be sharepoint programming, biztalk programming or something else (all based on my existing C#/.NET skills)? Currently, I'm better with Windows projects than I am with for example ASP.NET. But I can learn things quite fast :) Any good ideas/recommendations? Thanks.
For technical stuff: databases, both nosql and probably sql server for the relational side. It wouldn't hurt to learn a little networking. For Biz stuff: how to sell. Others here have mentioned how to market, and I agree with that but selling in a face-to-face situation is part of my own successes. How to invoice, how to pay taxes as a consultant, stuff like that. One thing I advise people to do to prep; get any large purchases such as cars or houses out of the way before you take the plunge into freelancing. If you are just freelancing on the side this doesn't matter but if it is your main source of income it does. The problem is that you will be behind the eight-ball on credit until you've had two years running your own biz. You might have "great credit" and still not be able to get any loans. You also want to get a set of credit cards. The credit card companies won't be interested in extending you a card for a little while (expect two years for that, too) but they won't take an established card away. Maybe the rules have changed but that's what I saw happen.
_____________________________ A logician deducts the truth. A detective inducts the truth. A journalist abducts the truth. Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...