I'm telling you man, you need to move to DC. The salaries are much better than that, the killer is the housing costs though.
-- Tim Heald [EMAIL PROTECTED] 703-300-3911 -----Original Message----- From: S. Isaac Dealey [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 12:11 PM To: CF-Community Subject: frustrated... Getting the same old tired degree argument... In spite of being a published author, a conference speaker, and having a track record of being a proven innovator (and yes, I know what Machiavelli says about innovation): Examples: StripTags(): The StripTags() function I submitted to cflib.org has become the de facto standard for performing the task for which it was written in spite of there having been several other functions for that task prior - Ben Doom mentioned it in an article he contributed to the ColdFusion Developer's journal, and people always get pointed to it when the subject of stripping tags is mentioned on the cf-talk list. DBVarname: The engineers at Macromedia removed the dbvarname attribute from the cfprocparam tag documentation for ColdFusion MX because they didn't think it was possible to implement with JDBC. Not only did I find a way to implement it, I improved on the cfstoredproc model in such a way that cfstoredproc can be as easy to implement as cfinsert or cfupdate -- it was a custom tag before, now it's datasource.getStor edProcedure().init("procname",parameterCollection).execute(); SQL Abstraction: Sure there are ways I can improve the presentation I gave on this subject at cf.Objective, but as far as I know, I'm the only person who's implemented genuine language abstraction in ColdFusion, or from what I've read PHP (I haven't implemented it in PHP, but I've read that their "SQL Abstraction" layers only handle connecting to the database, not language abstraction). These tools also have powerful implications beyond platform agnostic coding like being able to provide consistent results from queries that need to get data from places other than the datasource (I have one that gets sortable localized language names from Java, or if I needed I could use the same technique to combine data from a separate datasource via Query of Query). Rule Managers: Another presentation I gave at cf.Objective -- and an article in CFDJ which one reader told me was the most helpful / informative CFDJ article he'd read in several years he'd been subscribed. How many thousands of degreed professionals work with ColdFusion? And of those thousands, how many of them published these concepts? Not one that I know of. I did. Little old degree-less me. -------- This isn't even getting into a lot of the onTap framework tools for things like branding, form management, etc. because I know there aren't a lot of people using it, and in some cases the business case for the tool is debatable, complicated or obscure. So I don't even mention those, because I'm not a prima dona, I don't believe my tools are always the best (or the best they could be), I don't believe they're always well suited fore very task (I design them to solve specific problems), and I do believe that other people can provide me valuable insight in as well. So if people can look at my work and it's patently obvious that, beyond having 8 years experience I'm also just plain talented and knowledgeable and can answer questions about theory (what you learn in comp-sci classes), why can't they accept that the reason I don't have a degree is because I made stupid decisions when I was a kid 10 years ago? How many years of experience, and how much publicly proven problem solving ability is necessary before I can be accepted for my abilities instead of being rejected because I don't have a piece of paper? If I have to wait another 10 years it won't even matter! Because by then people will consider me to be on the trailing end of my career. ::sigh:: And the only reason any of this even matters to me is because I've spent the last 5 years unable to make a dent in my child-support, chasing one job after another and barely if even making ends meet. I haven't seen my children in 2 years because the job I took 2 years ago promised me $70k and then I spent a year and a half only getting $50k until I wised up enough to leave, only to accept a job in VA that made my financial situation WORSE! And now I'm having conversations on the phone with recruiters, bringing me jobs for $40-45k and asking me what makes me think I deserve $70k!!! I'm not a selfish guy! I'm not trying to get myself into a Mazerati and a beach house! I'm trying to spend time with my children by getting paid what I'm worth! Less than what I know many of my friends with comparable experience are earning! Sorry for the rant, I just needed to vent... s. isaac dealey 434.293.6201 new epoch : isn't it time for a change? add features without fixtures with the onTap open source framework http://www.fusiontap.com http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/author/4806Dealey.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:201121 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
