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Geek Culture / Do you program for a living?

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BatVink
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 19:50
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Just interested to know who programs for a living around here. By that, I mean a "proper job", rather than part time coding.

And that leads me to a second question. Why, like me, are you developing during the day, and then going home to do it all over again?

The answer for me is simple. By day, I program business systems, which is relatively rewarding. Knowing that I contribute to a MMERP (Massively multiplayer ERP system ) that's oiling the wheels of commerce is quite a buzz. But it's not overly creative...I get that from DB.

What about you mad, mad people?

BatVink
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Toby Quan
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 20:00
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I am a Senior Computer Programmer for the County Attorney's office in my area. I write VB6 and VB.NET applications for my company, write reports in Crystal Reports and Access for our case management system, and I maintain our webiste using ASP and ASP.NET.

I have a two other side-jobs for customers I have picked up along the way. For them, I make systems using SQL Server and VB6.

And then, I have a wife, three kids, and after all of that is taken care of, I squeeze in some DarkBasic coding!
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Scouseknight
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 20:01
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Similar to yourself - by day I write corporate applications on midrange and PC platforms - my recent projects have all been centered around Active Server Pages but my background dates back to Clipper Summer 87, with some AS/400 and Lotus Notes thrown in.

The ASP can have some creative elements in screen and form designs but it's up to DB to satisfy this craving



http://www.scouseknight.com
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Jeku
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 20:18
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Call me a dork, but I eat, sleep, and breathe computer programming.

Half the year I work at finishing my CS degree, the other half I work at a large video game company testing and doing additional programming (C++, some JavaScript, ActiveX ( )).

At night it's DBP, C++, and web programming for an assortment of late-night coffee-fueled get-righ-quick schemes on the net.

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zircher
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 20:20
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Insurance apps in VB 6.0 by day and DBP 5.1 at night.

I'm taking something of a game programming sabatical while I'm taking a Gameversity Game Design course. With a little luck, patch 6.0 will be out when the class is done.
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DARKGuy
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 20:42
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Don't believe me, but I'm 15...

I make 3D animated videos for a medical laboratory here, a program for cataloging uniforms for a company.....and programs that people wants....I've made 2 videos and 1 program...and won a lot of money...

:: Pentium 300 Mhz, old 8Mb video card, 64Mb RAM, 5 gb & 1.6 gb HD's, W98 SE, Sound Blaster AWE 32 ::
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spooky
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 20:46
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I mainly program accounting software, ecommerce software, full inventory systems, using Macromedia Coldfusion and Seagate Crystal Reports.

I also do all the donkey work on maintaining about 50 different websites. This means that clients are constantly sending me new products, news, e.t.c. to put on their site. Some sites have there own backend content management so clients can upkeep site themselves. But most clients are too lazy and just send word docs and expect nice pretty webpages.

I also have to design all the SQL and access databases that are used and also all the credit-card taking stuff.

Have now moved all our webs to Windows 2003 servers and IIS 6.0 and it makes things a lot easier.

Boo!
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IanM
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 21:10
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If I told you the crap that I have to code all day, you wouldn't believe me ... at least I'm paid reasonably well for it.

That's why I code what I want to in the evenings, in the languages that I've chosen myself

*** Coming soon - Network Plug-in - Check my site for info ***
For free Plug-ins, source and the Interface library for Visual C++ 6, .NET and now for Dev-C++ http://www.matrix1.demon.co.uk
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 21:27
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I wrote vb6/vb.net/vba applications for a large financial firm here in NY specializing in global financial markets data processing - some of the companies that my apps "talk to" consist of Reuters, Bloomberg, Bridge/Telerate/Savvis, CBOT, CME, LIFFE and IPE just to name a few.

Then we all got fired! Company went tits-up after 15 years of being an industry leader making more money than god and his son could ever imagine

So now I have my own software development company which has some prior ongoing clients - but doesn't pay my bills proper so I need to start sending out the resume again. Maybe get a cushy consulting gig, part time, that pay 100-150/hour.

oh well tis fun. code for food, code for fun!


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zircher
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 22:55 Edited at: 23rd Apr 2004 22:56
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CattleRustler, I used to work for Indepth/Bridge as a C/C++/VB/Perl programmer. I got out in the nick of time before everything started to implode. Some of my former co-workers are still reeling from that.
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 23:18
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yeah Telerate/Bridge/Savvis/Whomever-they-are-now really has had a rough time. My former company Market Data Corporation was a spinoff of Cantor Fitzgerald who was located in the World Trade Center in NY - we all know what happened there on 9/11. A few people in my company had friends and relatives killed there that day. Small world.


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TKF15H
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 23:33
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I live, thus I program. I program, thus I live.
I don't program for a living yet, as all I do now is
study, but I plan to later. Getting a job around here
is going to be pretty hard.

Can I see a demo now? [edit]Disregard, I saw the demo.
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zircher
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 01:28
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Some would consider living in Rio de Janeiro its own reward.

Do they allow pasty white programmers on the beach or would I have buy a tanning bed before they would allow me in the country?
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TAZ

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Dazzag
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 02:11
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Travel company systems. Y'know, Thomsons, Lunn Poly etc etc. Various different languages, although mixing Cognos tools (anyone who mentioned Crystal above will know what I mean) with VB6 has been my favourite developments. Most fun. Shame the recent down turn in travel and IT has hampered things somewhat (took over by rival etc). Think 2001 and it's not hard to see why. Sigh. Still, paid pretty well, so can't complain.

Oh, and I find business systems are more satisfying than games as I can finish whole areas of our system (7000 programs, so is pretty big) in days/ weeks instead of drawn out periods of time with games. And it's fairly easy to test in comparison to a game. And I can do my job really really well, compared to amateur hour effort with games (even when comparing to half decent hobby programmers).

Heh, but it's hard to be so excited about a fares availability page than an idea for an Elite clone And that's where hobby languages such as DB come in.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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BatVink
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 02:31
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Scouseknight: at last, someone else who knows what an AS/400 is! I've lived and breathed RPG for over 10 years, but I'm rapidly drowning in the eCommerce and GUI front-end stuff. The ERP system is now Java-fied, but still running rather nicely on the iSeries machines.

Dazzag: I know where you are coming from. I think one of the attractions of DB is that it challenges me more than the day-job, where I know most of what I need to know.
Cognos is something I've chosen to avoid, we integrate it with our product but it's a full-time job in itself. All of the Business Performance Warehouse reports utilise Cognos and OLAP cubes...scary stuff!

CattleRustler: I dn't know what consulting is like in the US right now, but it's still quiet in the UK. I contracted for 3 years before our government decided that all contractors were evil, and should be taxed until death. The market never recovered, we just ship all of our work abroad instead, it must be better for our economy because the government forced the whole situation .

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CattleRustler
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 02:46
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Bat, sorry to hear that but if it's good for the economy I guess it will end up being a good thing. It's funny you mention Cognos - my business partner in mod2software (and my best bud) is a cognos Master over at BMW North America

smaller world


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Dazzag
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 02:56
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Yeah, Cognos is pretty big. Ironically a friend of mine went for an MIS administrator job using Cognos at BMW near me (Londonish). Then again wouldn't be too suprised if the whole business uses Cognos tools as it's very powerful. Think it was mainly for PowerPlay, but got scuppered on questioning about Impromptu (I forgot to coach him about that one).

I interestingly found that you could get a job contracting to Cognos itself actually doing training courses for them (on their property). Tops. Could be interesting in the future with a bit of a brush up on some skills. Found that out at a few depressing courses over a few weeks just after 911, and just before we got took over (about 2 monts later).

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 05:50
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Thankfully I've only worked as full time programmer once (68K). I absolutely hated it, it was partitioned hell. Although that could have been the preceding series of events. But anyway, Subsequently, I found that I prefer coding as a hobby.

Ironically as hobby I code more now than ever.

Kevin Picone
[url]www.underwaredesign.com[/url]
Play Nice! Play Basic
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SubNova
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 06:23
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I will when I'm at least 16 or 18.

Death by skill, not by force.-Iron Condor
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One Common Ruin
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 06:39 Edited at: 24th Apr 2004 06:40
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@Iron Condor: There is nothing wrong wanting to program for a living (I want to) but you can't expect to when you get out of High School. I'm sure most of these guys have took years of programming college before they were offered a job.

Now back on topic, I wish but heck I can't do sprites (I can only do input commands )

Zink


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SubNova
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I mean start some big projects to land me a job.

Death by skill, not by force.-Iron Condor
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One Common Ruin
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You can't expect to start a big project without any credit. Now from a bosses point of veiw, are you going to hire someone who has just graduated from High School, without and training in any reconized programming tool (sorry DB users ). I wouldn't. I don't know if this guy is lying to me or telling me the truth. I'm not trying to squash your dreams I'm just saying that when you graduate from high school you can't expect to land a big job right away.

Zink


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SubNova
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I don't expect that at all!

Death by skill, not by force.-Iron Condor
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Lost in Thought
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 07:12
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I program for a living but only basic pc programming. I program all the machines in our plant to do whatever I want them to do. But it is much easier to do than pc programming. I am just trying to learn DBP to make my job a little easier (I have to use QBASIC for my pc programming now ). Mostly I program PLC's and Quick STEP machines though. Along with some CNC's.

"People don't fail ..... they stop trying." Specs. P4 2.8GHz 800 FSB | 512MB DDR333
GeForce FX 5200 AGP 256MB | Windows XP Pro Full
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BatVink
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 11:51
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Zinc/Iron Condor: There are many different ways to get into the IT industry. I don't think personal projects is one of them, though, unless it becomes a product that sells and has a track record.

I never went to University. I knew where I wanted to end up, so I made it happen. I started an apprenticeship and learnt the ins and outs of the manufacturing industry from first hand experience. By the time I wandered into the IT department, I had some good coding experience (done in my own time), but I had some fanatastic knowledge of the company I worked for. When a project arose, I already knew how that department ticked. From that point, the company was very anxious to provide me with solid training in programming, on their midrange platform.

I'm not knocking the educational route, it's a very good path to take, and gives you more options. Just don't think you can't do it if you can't take the University option.

BatVink
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Scouseknight
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 14:31
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BatVink :

The company I work for is moving to ERP also - they're going with SAP but the AS/400 is going to be around still for a few years due to the fact the core business applications and data are still very much running live on it - I've been RPG'ing for about the same length of time actually but my background beforehand was all PC development - and still is also (tend to get pulled in all directions actually!).

I like the iSeries stability - it's second to none in my view - a little more effort with languages like Visual RPG (which I thought was great) but at the time, I was the only one with cross-platform experience and we had taken on a few new companies so it was all hands to the pump and no time was made for others to learn Visual RPG - sad really as one of the biggest reasons for moving off the AS/400 was the dated "green screen" look of the applications.

We tried shortcuts like Newlook and Jakada (screen scraping products) to give the green screen a GUI makeover but then our support staff were complaining that people are used to the green screen and would lose their way - can't win!!!

I was never a fan of RPG if I was honest - ILE went someway to make it more elegant like the PC languages I was used to - but can't knock the operating system, power and stability of the AS/400.



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Fallout
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At the moment I'm at uni learning VB.6, VB.net, PHP, mySQL, Flash, Javascript etc. but as of July I start my placement which is working for EDS programming defence systems for the Royal Navy.

Should be fun.

I program games in my spare time because it's the ultimate in creativity. It kicks the ass out of everything from painting, drawing, song writing, movie making etc. It's an amalgamation of all of those things, and it's interactive, which none of those things are. It's basically the pinnicle of creativity, if you ask me, and all those other things that people call art are just one tiny piece of a computer game.

Basically, it's the only thing that can truly satisfy my creativity.

Signature? No! Obsolete! These days it's all about chip and pin!
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 16:24 Edited at: 24th Apr 2004 16:26
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I am like BatVink, I didn't study programming in college - hell I didn't gradute from college (just 2 years of undergrad) anyway, I was hired as a data center opertions person, basically doing pc hw/sw maintenance - and data integrity monitoring and such for the financial systems we had. Then about 1.5 years in (I first started may 99) I had advanced in both position and payscale - becoming Level 1 tech (top tier) and was responsible for training the newbs. When this status was attained we were allowed to work on other areas of technology and were supported by the company, the newbs had to do the grunt work and we were there for anything they couldn't handle. Anyway I started teaching myself vb6, and had many buddies in the development dept. who were always helpful if I got stuck.
To make a long story short, I wrote a program in vb6 that completely mimiced a system we had there (T500 - generated Telerate page 500-512 for those of you you who know us treasuries and telerate) which was an old dos/legacy app written in C (that generated 10 million dollars a month for MDC) which was using a data feed from Cantor Fitzgerald called Speed. We had a better, symbol based feed called MGB (Master Government Broadcast) that they had wanted to change all of the systems over to for a while but were stalled because the couldn't decide on the platform/programming aspects etc etc. Anyway I wrote this system and it produced the same output pages but was faster and more reliable than the old system. One day the vp in charge of operations JD (who was also a part owner and software developer) saw my program running in the test bed in the data center. He immediately flipped out - in a good way. He made me set up a viewer in his office so he could watch the output of my system vs the output of the old system side by side. He soon saw that my system was providing the outbound data (that the traders would see) a few ticks quicker than the old. Then he saw that my system was way more robust and easier to use and maintain for the data center ops. It was about 2 weeks later that I was yanked out of Operations and moved over to software development where I had my own cube and all that other fancy stuff. Myself and a couple of other guys went on to develop some sick stuff for the company until the demise in 2003.

Anyway the moral of the story?
Work hard, strive for what you want, don't give up - good things will happen!

sorry for the "book"
<book? I hate book! book is stupid!>


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BatVink
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 17:28
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Quote: "they're going with SAP"


Don't swear, it's not allowed on the Forums!

I work for Intentia, our product is Movex, it's far better than SAP (IMHO!), the only drawback is that it's roots are in Green Screen which deters some people. It now runs with a second-to-none web based gui, with an RPG or Java backend. It's cross-platform, certified on iSeries, Sun Solaris, Windows and soon it will also be on Linux. It's J2EE compliant.

You sure you're not too far down the line with SAP to reconsider? Just think, you could run Movex on an iSeries with Windows Clients - no deployment, just load it up in Internet Explorer! And your support would be first-rate - that would be me and my colleagues!

BatVink
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Scouseknight
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Sadly the "powers that be" had decided long before they announced the migration - not seen sight or sound of it though thus far.

Citrix farms have been mentioned too - as usual the people that will be required to perform the conversion work and support it are the last to know :/



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TheAbomb12
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Quote: "SAP"


Is "SAP" an actual launguage or is it just a typo for "ASP"?

Amist the Blue Skies...
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CattleRustler
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BatVink
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SAP is SAP, a far cry from ASP

ASP never sunk 1/2 billion dollar companies, at least not as far as I am aware.

BatVink
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adr
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I'm a Senior Systems Developer for a multinational-to-be. Very exciting stuff moving into other countries, although, not so cool when you can be held responsible for a £10m slip up.

I have fun at work - it's a great working environment, but I'm sure you all understand that DBP has a more creative element. After all, I think that's why were all programmers, either professionally or as a hobby; it's a creative process. You start with a blank screen, and you end up with an MMORPG and you are there every step of the way. So I guess the problem is that while you're being creative for your company, in the back of your mind you're creating the next cool game. DBP is there to satiate our creative appetite.

stop();
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newbi 2 basic
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by day i am a failing student in a HNC Computing course.... by night i am a fearless Network Operator for a university (which i am leaving soon in search for a fearless tech support job cause we all have to start somewhere )

http://www.counterfeitcriminal.co.uk <--- Sons Of Angels Supports the fridge project.... Do you?
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BatVink
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Quote: "in search for a fearless tech support job cause we all have to start somewhere "


Telephone support "enginneers" unfortunately devalue the support role. A lot of these people are just reading from scripts, they are not trained in the real art of supporting applications. In my opinion, any company that puts it's trainees on the support desk isn't worth dealing with.

I am a support consultant, and I wouldn't knock it for one moment. When I start work each day, I have no idea where I'll end up. I could be ripping code apart line by line for 7 1/2 hours, or I could be frantically (sorry, methodically!) trying to recover a system that's losing the client a million pounds an hour.
What's more, I'm responsible for my client while I'm dealing with his issues. Put yourself in a position where you are the one who has to resurrect a failed system, and you don't even know how it went wrong. The client has the board of directors breathing down his neck, and the fear of finding a new job tomorrow. You don't get that kind of buzz from coding a new system, no matter how tight the deadlines.

BatVink
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adr
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Posted: 25th Apr 2004 17:31
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Working to tight deadlines rocks. We sometimes have little slip ups at our place. The marketing department specialise in sending stuff to print first and then telling us what they want/changing their minds. I remember once asking about this run of half a million little promotional packs....

"So, when do the customers get these?"
"This morning"
"But it's not fini..." [exit stage left]

Can't beat a bit of adrenaline

stop();
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BatVink
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Ah yes, marketing and sales people.

Customer: "Can it..."
Salesman: "Yes, whatever it is, it can do it. Toast? Yes, we have a toast module. FTP to the KGB? Sure, we can do one of those at a knock down price."

I like the adrenalin of a go-live, just give me a yellow helmet and show me the fire

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zircher
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When I worked at Indepth we had a president that would sell vaporware and a VP in programming that would tell him that it would be ready in two weeks. Those were some frantic days. There were more than a few nights when I've be leaving about the time that the morning crew started to come in.

As bad as it was sometimes, Indepth didn't bleed money the way Bridge did. I heard that they even built an ice rink on their corporate campus. What a waste.
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MikeS
Retired Moderator
21
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Joined: 2nd Dec 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 25th Apr 2004 23:01
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I plan on getting into the software industry. I like programming games, but I really enjoy making tools(like a level editor), or applications(like a chat client). In 10 years I see myself out of college and looking for a job. Just going to have to work hard and continue to do well in school if I want that dream to come true.

It's very interesting to see what you all are doing during the day I must admit.



@CR



A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
(Formerly known as Yellow)
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CattleRustler
Retired Moderator
21
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Joined: 8th Aug 2003
Location: case modding at overclock.net
Posted: 25th Apr 2004 23:25
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Home of the VB.NET Class Builder Utility - Demo and FULL versions now available!!
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Rassler
20
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Joined: 22nd Apr 2004
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Posted: 26th Apr 2004 00:11
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I started as electronics design eng, designing embedded systems, by default you had to become a programmer too, asm mainly then (kicking and screaming) to C.

Then at some stage I decided to go full time programming because I liked the challenges of programming more than those of electronic design. During that period I went (kicking and screaming again) to C++ and some VB. ok ok I admit, I don't like changing languages too much. Well you gradually build up libs and samples that mean a 6 month contract will take you a month. Changing language, even if that language is in some way more advanced, always feels like a backward step before you can go forward.

For a few years I loved it, but then felt like I was getting too deskbound. Plus there was less individual work and very much more 'production programming' (effectively factory/piece work). So now I do a mix of UNIX management and programming. This gives me the freedom I like while I get the challenges of programming too.

Note. The 'DarkBasic' in my email is only so I can seperate my emails. Don't go thinking I'm a clever mega brain who wrote any of this stuff.
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HZence
21
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Joined: 9th Mar 2003
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Posted: 26th Apr 2004 01:41
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I will be programming for a living in a few years, after I get my Associate's in Computer Programming or Bachelor's Information Sciences (or both).


Team EOD :: Programmer/Storyboard Assistant
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