LinuxQuestions.org
Download your favorite Linux distribution at LQ ISO.
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Non-*NIX Forums > Programming
User Name
Password
Programming This forum is for all programming questions.
The question does not have to be directly related to Linux and any language is fair game.

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 07-26-2005, 10:19 AM   #1
coolblue
Member
 
Registered: Feb 2005
Posts: 126

Rep: Reputation: 15
Should I become a programmer?


Hi all
I'm really having a hard time deciding which career I should go for. So I thought why not ask for your opinions I have two questions:

Should I become a programmer? If yes, then why? Plz read on

Right now I'm considering these options...

1) Web developer (I seem to like it),
2) Open source developer (do they get paid or its pure volunteer work? I'd love to contribute),
3) Perl programmer (how good is this? I seem to like perl)

As you can see, I'm attracted to all of these in varying ways....and so I'm going nuts!!

Plz guide me!

If there are any career options other than these that you'd like to suggest, PLEEEEZ PLEEEZ PLEEEZ you are MOST WELCOME

I'm in dire need of suggestions! BTW I'm 21.

Personally I'd like to have a job which is not too sedentary. Sitting from 9 to 5 would be so awful! By the way, why not have a thread here where everyone says what he or she is doing?

ALL SUGGESTIONS ARE MOST DEARLY WELCOME

Thanks a lot

Newbie
 
Old 07-26-2005, 11:01 AM   #2
vharishankar
Senior Member
 
Registered: Dec 2003
Distribution: Debian
Posts: 3,178
Blog Entries: 4

Rep: Reputation: 138Reputation: 138
Programming jobs as such (in the conventional market) can be pretty dull and non-innovative because programmers are generally not called upon to make design decisions.

Since you don't appear to want a 9 - 5 regular job then I suggest you pursue higher studies (PG or doctorate) if you haven't already. More career opportunities open out for you.

You get a better start to your career at a higher level and you can be more creative.

Don't judge a programming job by the way you enjoy coding on your own. Jobs can be extremely demanding in the programming line and you might not get too much creative license if you work under somebody who tells you what to do.

That's just my opinion.
 
Old 07-27-2005, 09:26 AM   #3
johnMG
Member
 
Registered: Jul 2003
Location: CT, USA
Distribution: Debian Sarge (server), Etch (work/home)
Posts: 601

Rep: Reputation: 32
Are you currently in college or high school?

> Personally I'd like to have a job which is not too sedentary.
> Sitting from 9 to 5 would be so awful!

Then working with computers may not be for you.
 
Old 07-27-2005, 09:57 AM   #4
ewaltd
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jul 2005
Distribution: SuSE 9.3 Pro and FC3
Posts: 17

Rep: Reputation: 0
Hmmm... where to start :-)

I have been a software engineer for about 15 years now. Having been a consultant/contractor for 10 of those I have had the pleasure of meeting many people like yourself in the process of deciding which direction to go or to do it at all.

I can say fist off that it is a VERY sedentary job. You sit all day. Unless you are like one of the guys I work with now who props his machine up on a stand and stands there working :-)

You will have to do other things in your life to be active if you choose software dev as a career. Also don't be mislead that it will be a 9-5 jobs all the time. Software engineering is still a "young" industry in relation to many others. So there are a lot of poor decisions that are made which usually ends up on the developers shoulders to get things done on time. That translates into some late days/nights writing code. It should not be a constant thing, and if it is find another place to work, but it is surely not a STEADY 9-5 type career. NOTE: I don't know ANY career that is, only some JOBS. :-)

As someone said when you first start you will most likely not be asked to design the apps, although I always involve the junior guys in design so they will build the skill. As you gain experience you will be more involved in the decisions revolving around design. Also as you gain that experience you will get more and more involved in the other decisions that come with development, environment, technologies used, etc.

If you like creating things and solving problems it is very rewarding.

As for which direction... I'd have to ask what is your goal?

If it is to have a career and make money I would say pick up .NET ( C# ) or Java. Those are the two big hitters out there right now. Also if you always want to be "employable" pick up C++. There is always work out there for C++ developers, on different platforms.

In general learn as much as you can. Knowing assembly for example has helped me on many occasions as well as C, C++ and the other higher level languages that I know. You will most likely "settle into" one language/arena in the end but having a good understaning of multiple languages will help you.

If, as you say, you are interested in the "web" side of things you can have a great time of it also. That depends on how much of the creative ( GUI ) type development you like. There is a lot of GUI development when it comes to web development. HTML, XML, XHTML, and all the other "ML" languages out there are the basis there. Couple that with .NET or Java again and you will have a good career.

If you decide that you don't want to "sit around" all day :-) and just want to get into software dev for your own pleasure then the door is wide open. You can pick up C and/or C++ and do a lot of open source stuff, right down to contributing to the linux kernel. You can pick up some MS technology or java and have fun with that also.

It is a good career for the right person and no one can tell you if you are that person or not for sure. You will have to be the one to make that decision.

In general it is a good profession/career for the right person and can be very lucrative as well as fun.
 
Old 07-28-2005, 01:11 PM   #5
craigs1987
Member
 
Registered: May 2004
Location: England
Distribution: SuSE linux 10.0 OSS
Posts: 78

Rep: Reputation: 15
I'm just leaving high school to go to college to gain qualifications in order to get onto a University course in software engineering... I've recently began teaching myself C and C++ programming in my own time and just love writing code. Though the programmes that I write are not exactly useful in any way at the moment, I love to throw the text book aside and challenge myself to write a program including the things that I have just studied. I think that you should think about the enjoyment that you get out of writing the code etc, when thinking about a career in it. Can anyone tell me how they began programming, were you originally self taught or did you learn through a degree course?

Craig.
 
Old 07-28-2005, 08:55 PM   #6
carl.waldbieser
Member
 
Registered: Jun 2005
Location: Pennsylvania
Distribution: Kubuntu
Posts: 197

Rep: Reputation: 32
Short answer: If you like to program, and you like to solve problems, go for it.

That said, I have to agree with several previous responses that programming is a fairly sedentary job. You do not necessarily always wind up at your desk or in a cubical, but it is not really a physical discipline.

As far as 9-to-5 goes-- there are programming jobs like that. There are also jobs where your physical presence is not required. You can log on from the beach, do your work remotely, and as long as your projects finish on time, your superiors may not care either way. Situations will vary.

I started out doing consulting work for ERP systems right out of college. I ended up flying out to a customer site and programming during the week, then fly back home on the weekends. After a while, I got tired of that, and joined a local software firm doing development work on administrative software for schools and local governments. That was OK, but I found I really didn't care for it as much as I thought I would, and I transferred to a customization department within the same company. Now I tailor software to individual school's needs, and we spend a lot of time doing data conversions from other systems to our systems. A lot of people think the data conversions are really boring, but I actually like doing them. They are not always easy, but if you treat them like puzzels, I find that most of them can be solved a lot easier than you would think (mostly with a mix of standard shell tools and some database specific tools).

I also found out that I like calling up customers and helping them with their problems directly rather than "programming in a vaccuum".

Last edited by carl.waldbieser; 09-18-2005 at 09:42 PM.
 
Old 07-28-2005, 09:51 PM   #7
jtshaw
Senior Member
 
Registered: Nov 2000
Location: Seattle, WA USA
Distribution: Ubuntu @ Home, RHEL @ Work
Posts: 3,892
Blog Entries: 1

Rep: Reputation: 67
Quote:
Personally I'd like to have a job which is not too sedentary. Sitting from 9 to 5 would be so awful! By the way, why not have a thread here where everyone says what he or she is doing?
If you can find a programming/development job that only keeps you from 9-5 consider yourself lucky

In all seriousness though... there are developer jobs out there that include travel, direct access to clients/customers, and the likes. In my experience they are much easier to handle.

Quote:
By the way, why not have a thread here where everyone says what he or she is doing?

Others though that was a good idea too
 
Old 07-29-2005, 03:00 AM   #8
ta0kira
Senior Member
 
Registered: Sep 2004
Distribution: FreeBSD 9.1, Kubuntu 12.10
Posts: 3,078

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
All through high school I intended on going into CS or electrical engineering until one day I took the 8 hour Meyers-Briggs personality test. I took my test results to my career counselor and asked out of curiosity how they lined up with my plans. It turns out that I have the opposite personality of 80% of the CS career field. This got me thinking and made me realize that although I like to program, I don't like following rules and there were a lot of other things I was interested in that I didn't think twice about because "I was going to be a programmer". I think that was one of my best decisions; not becoming a programmer even though for a long time I thought that was what I wanted to do.

I might be biased because regardless of what job I have I don't like being restricted or being told what to do. By having programming as my hobby I can do whatever I want or just do something else altogether. I think in a lot of cases doing something you see as a creative outlet in a structured environment for a living somehow taints your creativity.

I still pursue CS studies once in a while, but I know I'm not one to follow policies and enforced styles, so I just program independently and give my stuff away for free. Again, I don't know if I'm the one to listen to because I don't have a "5 year plan"; I just try to do everything in a way that leaves me the most options at any given time, then select the options that are best when the time comes.

I'd say take several personality tests to see what the natural tendencies are for your personality. Sounds kind of silly (like horoscopes and all that nonsense), but having your friends make fun of you for taking a personality test is a small price to pay for finding the right career.
ta0kira

PS If it isn't obvious, I plan to go into a psychology related field.
 
Old 07-29-2005, 08:42 AM   #9
f76
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jul 2004
Location: Sweden
Distribution: Ubuntu Breezy
Posts: 20

Rep: Reputation: 0
You cant automatically assume that your hobby or intelectual interests will be suitable as a job for you. Interest in the subject or in a subset of your presumptive job description is not neccesarily enough. On the other hand most jobs where you have a chance to be creative and feel listned to with the occasional challenge can be fun if you tackle them the right way. Im sure being a programmer is a very different job depending on your employer or exact job description. If i were you i would try and call up some companies and go for a visit if it is possble.

As a note i just dabble with the occasional programming language for fun. My job is in no way technical.
 
Old 09-18-2005, 04:12 PM   #10
kuser:)
Member
 
Registered: Sep 2005
Location: Olsztyn, Poland
Distribution: Slackware 14.1
Posts: 168

Rep: Reputation: 99
My algorithm:
1. Find what you like and do best. (the hardest part)
2. Compare the salaries and time to get certain amount of money for the jobs you are good at and like them.
3. Imagine you're doing this for a loooong time (how will you feel after working for let's say 10 years).
4. Check what is connected with your choice: maybe you'll have to move to other town etc.
5. Decide and GO FOR IT !

Last edited by kuser:); 09-18-2005 at 04:15 PM.
 
Old 09-18-2005, 09:36 PM   #11
primo
Member
 
Registered: Jun 2005
Posts: 542

Rep: Reputation: 34
To be or not to be?

I was to study chemistry, but I found a book about pascal and I instantly liked it. Programming should be fun.

In the beginning was programming, and next came the Word.
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Migrating the programmer Marc L. Linux - General 6 05-04-2010 03:19 AM
Programmer to Programmer ( Long Story Of A GUI ) mdoubledragon Programming 1 10-13-2005 05:41 PM
looking for programmer and advice kosit Programming 1 05-06-2005 06:04 PM
GTK+ programmer: C or C++? vharishankar Programming 33 04-30-2005 09:15 PM
Vb 6 Analyst Programmer oakley Linux - Software 12 10-27-2003 03:45 AM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Non-*NIX Forums > Programming

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 11:39 AM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration