What to learn?

[rost_b]

Hi.
I am in great need to find a job. I have a strong access background, and am pretty familiar with VB.
Is it even possible to find a job on today's market? Having no real programming expirience? And if it is, what should i learn? VB? Oracle? SQL Server? I was told that it's good to have a knoladge of a database and programming language. If so, what combination would you recommend?
Thank you.

[MAK]

SQL Server and .NET

SQL

www.sqlcourse.com
www.sqlcourse2.com
www.microsoft.com/sql

.NET

www.asp101.com
www.asp.net

[Frank]

when you take off to learn a programming trade to get a job - make sure after your gone through the effort, this 'job' is not easily outsourced to offshore like India or China unless you do not mind working with their wages.

This forum is for a tool called ASP-db. We cannot sell a single copy of this tool to China for instance. Other than that, we sell world wide. The reason is that this tool breaks the cheap labor model. There is no profit if the job is finished with 10x efficiency. Hope you get the idea.


Frank

[rost_b]

thank's all of you for your answers

[MAK]

Frank. Thats a good one.

[Frank]

Yes, it took me a couple of trips into China to discover that. Even Microsoft is having a heck of time there. They could not sell anything because software is sold by the 'pound'. That is Ounces and Pounds and not British Pounds! They are also sued for sole market price manipulation. I think offshore development eventually will not be a great success. I have seen several commercial sites (for one - Scottrade's new EliteTrade which has a Russian signature!) that is going very bad as the programmer obviousely do not understand the business rules well. I also tried offshore programmers and I do not care about that either. You essentially have to baby sit them at the minimum. So, a good advise for beginners and the old timers (from this old timer) - concentrate on programming the 'business rules' and not the syntax as it is easy to do syntax programming in a cheap labor environment. This is the principle of our product development.

Frank

[MAK]

I Completely understand what you are saying pal. It wont be a success for many reasons. Here is my story.

Language:
I literally needed a chinese-English to american-english or english-english translator. (No offense to chinese people.)

Bridge:
They send us some in-sensitive Liaison manager who doesnt have a clue about what we are talking about. My Application manager has to create a huge spec step by step, icon by icon, line by line, page by page. They exchanged 2000 emails between them to be on the same page. Literally he spoon fed him.

Communication gap:
we did a back and forth emails and phone calls atleast a 1000 times. Perception (God help me) and approach (Who can help?) to solution keeps on changing. ( My Application manager said " If I am going to give them a standard, business spec, functional spec, design spec and spend millions of hours in spending time in this explaining them, our business will not move on." and " For every bug I have to go through all the above? I will quit")

Cost:
It is true, you can get a programmer for $150 a month. But we have to spend more hrs in explaining what we want.

Time Zone:
We had meetings when it is the time for them to brush their teeth or when they are about to sleep or when we were about to sleep. It is totally un-productive approach.

[Frank]

My story -

I retired from a company whose IT department has a big name - called EDS!!! In those days, where there were no outsourcing - 100% made in USA. A small web project normally takes 1 - 2 inches of specs that both sides have to sign off. The results are seldom satisfying to both sides becasue often the business is growing/changing faster than the development time and not the fault of either side. Now, business managers here think programming is the same as Wal-Mart toys and can be "Made in China". But the interesting thing is trying to figuer out the winners and losers.

* Low pay offshore programmers got pay very little.

* OutSource companies on both coasts got pay fairly well.

* Client copmpanies are paying about 30%-50% of local development cost.

* Client companies are being screwed big time (they might not even know).

* US programmers are losing their jobs and have to stand in unemployment lines.

* College students are warned about getting into the not so bright computer programming profession.

* US government is paying unemployment benefits from our tax $$.


Did I miss anything ?

Frank