[soviet_dissident]

Couple other things to note:

- Your work day will primarily be spent with introverted gamma white/Asian dudes unless your company is big enough to support a significant sales department. Or super annoying Indians if you're unlucky.

- Your social status as a programmer in and of itself is not very high unless you work for Snapchat or whatever overvalued bullshit SV app company your audience happens to know/use. "Doctor" and "lawyer" cause girls' eyes to light up (nevermind that your avg. 30 y/o doctor or lawyer is mired to their eyeballs in debt). But if you say you're a programmer, I would say it has neutral-to-negative status, depending on the girl and other factors. But that's probably many jobs, right?

- An anecdote: A friend of mine from the same bootcamp is now working at Facebook in SV, as of three months ago. He was a business major at a mediocre state school, but is extremely passionate about programming and has been creating apps in his spare time ever since we graduated, learning on his own. If you have the drive and the baseline IQ numbers, I'm confident almost anyone can do this as well.

[Blaster]

Sales vs. programming...

Two very broad terms. It's worthwhile to have skills in both. But in my experience, most people are strongly inclined towards one or the other based on their personality, extraversion/introversion in particular. Some people just naturally seem to thrive on persuading other people. It doesn't mean they can't benefit from programming skills but that's just a chore for them. Meanwhile many introverts are happiest sitting alone for hours at the computer manipulating abstractions and producing tangible results. Introversion is no excuse for poor social skills. But having decent sales and social skills doesn't mean they'll enjoy persuasion and relationships as their primary focus.

In terms of making the choice between sales and programming, I would say personality makes a big difference, even if you're only doing it for money.

[Lighter]

As a primary job?
Yes.

As a secondary source of income?
No.

I can pay some guys in India or the Philippines to scrap together something in PHP for a fraction of what you would be able to charge. And if you are learning this to make secondary income, then those are the guys you are competing against.

Learning Facebook ads, SEO, Google Adwords, or copywriting are good places to start. Plenty of free, or inexpensive, resources on all those topics.

[stefpdt]

This tweet from Pieter Levels is a very nice case study re: programming vs. marketing



https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/938707166508154880

Make sure to read the entire thread of comments in that Tweet.

Pieter created a single PHP file (with "sloppy code") that essentially prints money on autopilot. The code/website is RemoteOk.io

Then, a bunch of programmers get upset because they find it difficult to accept that it was really the excellent marketing/community-building that was the secret sauce behind his success. They go straight "crabs in a bucket" on him.

Lesson learned: Programming is a valuable skill for building a nice product. But, great marketing is the only way to print money with your product and set yourself free.

[Ballr]

Is anyone familiar w/ REST? For API integration

[Atomic]

(12-12-2017 07:35 PM)Ballr Wrote:  

Is anyone familiar w/ REST? For API integration

I'm your huckleberry, what's up.

[Blaster]

(12-12-2017 04:37 PM)stefpdt Wrote:  

This tweet from Pieter Levels is a very nice case study re: programming vs. marketing



https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/938707166508154880

Make sure to read the entire thread of comments in that Tweet.

Pieter created a single PHP file (with "sloppy code") that essentially prints money on autopilot. The code/website is RemoteOk.io

Then, a bunch of programmers get upset because they find it difficult to accept that it was really the excellent marketing/community-building that was the secret sauce behind his success. They go straight "crabs in a bucket" on him.

Lesson learned: Programming is a valuable skill for building a nice product. But, great marketing is the only way to print money with your product and set yourself free.

Yeah he is successfully trolling journeyman programmers who care overmuch about code architecture.

Actually looking at the "simple" page and reading some additional comments, I would say that RemoteOK.io appears to be pretty well designed. The author is probably a better programmer than he is letting on.

Quote:

It's 4,500 lines @ 150kb. No external services except Stripe

A single source file that is also the deployable target and minimizes dependencies are good design features. The site itself is fast and easy to navigate. The entire thing can be retrieved as a JSON file, meaning that programmers can write very simple scripts to query the site and watch for openings.

It's marketing in the sense of knowing your audience and tailoring the application to the needs and behaviors of that audience. But it takes programming skill to build that application, whether you do it in a single 4,500 line .php file or a bloated Rails app.