[Irenicus]

Thanks for your responses folks.

Everything you have written will be taken into consideration!

[YMD]

Does anyone know a good resource about how to be a self-employed programmer?
(or, freelancer, whichever term you like to use)

Since I read a book titled "So good they can't ignore you", I've been highly interested in being self employed,

In my view, common steps to be a freelancer are...

0. Pick a field
(most people would pick either web or mobile development, because few people live without a computer and smart phone these days)

1. Build up your skills in the field you've chosen

2. Create a portfolio, in a way that you can show who you are publicly and what you can do for someone with your expertise.
(I think that creating your website is the most reasonable way to do so.
Some people say that participating in a open source project is fine too. However, I'm not really encouraged to do so, because coding solely for my personal interest seems more meaningful.
Does anyone here advocate for open source project?)

3. Find your client on a web site such as up work.
(I may have to work for free at the beginning in order to build solid reputations as a freelancer, )

4. Learn from the previous step, as well as self study

5. Find another client, while learning new technologies

6. Repeat the previous step


Any input will be appreciated.

[[email protected]]

I was jerking off to the idea of becoming a badass programmer and/or hacker until I watched this video:

[RichieP]

(06-11-2018 06:36 AM)YMD Wrote:  

Does anyone know a good resource about how to be a self-employed programmer?
(or, freelancer, whichever term you like to use)

Since I read a book titled "So good they can't ignore you", I've been highly interested in being self employed,

In my view, common steps to be a freelancer are...

Basically correct, but as with everything... devil is in the details.

You could break any business down to: find customers, offer the service they need, market and sell to them, do the work yourself or pay someone to do it.

BUT that high level overview tells you nothing about how successful you can be, or what tactical moves to make when you're in the thick of it. Each of those areas (customer, offer, marketing/sales, fulfilment) is a massive area with a ton of skilled action and smart choices required.

Some general tips that can improve your odds of success:

-Found/product fit - offer a service you're good at and enjoy doing for hours on end
-Founder/market fit - seek out the kinds of industry/clients you'd love to be helping and solving problems for
-Go "premium" - position yourself as high-end, charge high, and don't compete on price aka "race to the bottom"
-Offer a "profit-center" service - help them make more money, rather than cut their costs
-Really learn marketing/sales fundamentals: Copywriting, outreach (email, social media,l linked in), and client calls (spin-selling approach), and negotiation
-Experiment, and fail cheaply - your initial vision of your biz is never how things actually turn out

[duedue]

(01-30-2016 11:52 AM)Ensam Wrote:  

I've been programming as a hobby/ancillary part of my job for about 20 years. I finally stepped into the world of professional software development and it's very different.

I'd highly recommend anyone looking to move that direction to learn some of the current software development paradigms. Particularly test driven development, refactoring best practices and source code management workflows (e.g. Git). There are lots of free resources. For a (currently) free Python/Django based approach check out: http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/12...index.html

That link is broken. Can you find it somewhere else?

[duedue]

(01-28-2016 06:16 AM)AntiTrace Wrote:  

(01-26-2016 06:17 PM)Wutang Wrote:  

(01-23-2016 08:34 AM)AntiTrace Wrote:  

Also: for those thinking programming , just get out there and do it. Think of your own projects and go from there.

Most college graduates can't program there way out of a paper bag. They know how to apply the basics of many programming languages to simple sricpts or quick jobs, but if they were told go solo on a new project they would fail miserably. The simple fact that the fizz buzz tests exists shows you this. And yes, I know many college seniors that would struggle with fizzbuzz, when it should take a marginally competent programmer less than 5 minutes to complete.

Focus on a language or stack, put some effort into your own project, and you will be on par or better than your average college graduate in about a year.

I had an interview once where I had to make a function that would solve the first problem on projecteuler.net which is simply to find the sum of all numbers below 1000 that are a multiple of either 3 or 5. It's pretty simple so I finished it quick. The guy interviewing me said that the previous 10 people he had interviewed couldn't do this. One guy even snuck out of the office before he came back to check on him presumably out of embarrassment.

Yeah that problem is very similar to fizz buzz in terms of logic as well. When learning. New language, the first thing I do is fizz buzz, then I do some project Euler problems. Once I'm comfortable with that I'll do a simple file scanner and then simple sorting algorithms (binary sort, insertion sort). Or I'll combine then, read a file with a list of names, sort it alphabetically, and write the results to a new file.

I wish I was better with GUIs though. I've made some cool little projects with arduinos lately but want a GUI a user can use to control the machines instead of it running off certain commands from switches and button presses.

That or 2d gaming, I started 2d game development a few weeks back but got swamped with other stuff. For the little time I spent on it, it seems like it might the best bang for the buck for intermediate programmers in terms of practicing the language. It combines multiple libraries, OOP, and more than enough logical work to impress an interviewer for an entry level position

For GUI, Qt is a versatile tool. It works on Linux, OSX and Windows but not on Android (that I know of). So you can produce portable applications with it.

[duedue]

I didn't real all the pages but am curious about one thing. What marketable stuff you can do with web programming tools like PHP or JavaScript? I mean what you can do that you cannot with Wordpress. Also does anyone use Drupal?

[worldwidetraveler]

(06-24-2018 05:09 AM)duedue Wrote:  

I didn't real all the pages but am curious about one thing. What marketable stuff you can do with web programming tools like PHP or JavaScript? I mean what you can do that you cannot with Wordpress. Also does anyone use Drupal?

There is a ton of addons for Wordpress that people are selling every day.

For me personally, I have a script that takes payments, allows people to download the programs they purchased and credits my affiliates for any sales they sent my way.

I've also used php scripts to track paid traffic.

Then there are programs like Mautic for those that want to run their marketing on their own server.

I think Magento (ecommerce store) just got bought out by Adobe for over 1 Billion.

[Architekt]

Anyone interested in what goes on behind the scenes in your programming language should check this book out:

Crafting interpreters

Whole thing is online for free, or you can buy a hard copy for ~$37

The guy really breaks everything down and makes what is generally considered one of the complex topics in computer science a simple and fun project you can complete in a couple of days

And you get your own fully functional custom programming language out of it at the end

You are expected to know at least a little bit about programming before attempting this course, but the steps are small and bite sized, so, even if you're not entirely familiar with the implementation languages, you'll still be able to understand what's going on

[the Thing]

2 all-nighters back to back and my magnum opus is nearly complete.. a semi-decentralized but fully trustless crypto network that will run on anything.

What are you guys coding nowadays?

[Alpha Hunter Zero]

Can anyone explain how to convert a python file to a zip file in order to be e-mailed and opened and reviewed by someone else. Stackoverflow has me confused with their explanations.

[the Thing]

(07-19-2018 06:34 AM)Alpha Hunter Zero Wrote:  

Can anyone explain how to convert a python file to a zip file in order to be e-mailed and opened and reviewed by someone else. Stackoverflow has me confused with their explanations.

Right click in your operating system and "compress" or "send to > zip file" or whatever it's called?

Gmail, hotmail etc. may in some cases not let you send zip files with code in it (for security reasons) in that case upload to a file hosting service. Or if it's just one file, you could also paste it to https://pastebin.com/ and send the link in the email.

[Atomic]

(07-19-2018 06:34 AM)Alpha Hunter Zero Wrote:  

Can anyone explain how to convert a python file to a zip file in order to be e-mailed and opened and reviewed by someone else. Stackoverflow has me confused with their explanations.

1. Put it on github.
2. Right click -> zip.
3. If 2 doesnt work, save it as a .txt and send it. The recipient can change the extensions back to .py after.
4. Pastebin.

But just use git. Its how the professionals collaborate.

[godzilla]

Im coding calculators (not exactly just summing it up.)

Trying to get into more data visualization. Anyone know some great courses for that ?

[the Thing]

(07-20-2018 07:31 PM)godzilla Wrote:  

Im coding calculators (not exactly just summing it up.)

Trying to get into more data visualization. Anyone know some great courses for that ?

What kind of calculator? Is like Windows/OSX calculator where you type/mouseclick buttons and calculate shit? or are you looking to build more of a Matlab type deal where you have a shell you can type your math and get it drawn, as a desktop application? Or a web application? Mobile maybe?

For a web app, if you already know basic JavaScript (and preferably some React so you can whip up some $$$ looking UIs) you can get right into the D3.js framework. With its literal fuckton of visualization components and high customizability, you can draw any sexy graph that you desire. Both React and D3 has tons of tutorials available online. The barrier to entry for D3 can be a bit steep but after you get the basics it gets way easier.

I started a project using this exact stack to whip up some data viz to be displayed on big TV screens in sales and accounting departments at a client. I didn't finish it, I laid the ground work and slapped the rest on some junior devs because shit barrier to entry like I said, plus I had other projects at the same client. Nevertheless it went fine and the client was super happy with both the quality of work as well as completion time and cost etc.

Bottomline: look at D3

Edit forgot to add: run all this stuff on the MERN stack. https://alligator.io/react/mern-stack-intro/

[godzilla]

Cant really get into it too much. Web though. Finance related. All front-end stuff.

Yea since my post i've been doing the d3 udacity tutorial. The tutorial is kinda meh though. D3 is pretty awesome though,super powerful.

[Charmain7007]

(06-11-2018 06:36 AM)YMD Wrote:  

Does anyone know a good resource about how to be a self-employed programmer?
(or, freelancer, whichever term you like to use)

Since I read a book titled "So good they can't ignore you", I've been highly interested in being self employed,

In my view, common steps to be a freelancer are...

0. Pick a field
(most people would pick either web or mobile development, because few people live without a computer and smart phone these days)

1. Build up your skills in the field you've chosen

2. Create a portfolio, in a way that you can show who you are publicly and what you can do for someone with your expertise.
(I think that creating your website is the most reasonable way to do so.
Some people say that participating in a open source project is fine too. However, I'm not really encouraged to do so, because coding solely for my personal interest seems more meaningful.
Does anyone here advocate for open source project?)

3. Find your client on a web site such as up work.
(I may have to work for free at the beginning in order to build solid reputations as a freelancer, )

4. Learn from the previous step, as well as self study

5. Find another client, while learning new technologies

6. Repeat the previous step


Any input will be appreciated.

I think community and networking are also important. After choosing a path, it may make things easier to find other people willing to learn on complementary paths. Like a mobile developer learning alongside a UI/UX guy?

[Kelent]

I know this might have been asked before (any number of times), but as someone who likes the results-driven nature of programming and has experience in building websites and webapps, but has no degree, I'd like to know the general concenses on job prospects these days. A lot of people I know tell me it heavily depends on the company, and that it might be better to freelance. I'm not looking to do the digital nomad thing just yet, but I'd like to try and learn all I can while still in an academic environment. Generally, is it still easy to find work without a 4 year IT degree but maybe a solid portfolio and demonstrated (please spare me the leetcode tests) knowledge?