On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 09:45:04PM -0500, Terri Yu wrote: > I wasn't a panelist, but there were quite a few biology and > humanities PhDs asking about how to get started learning software > skills. I waved the Software Carpentry flag around and advertised > our organization. I also made suggestions about open source > software. I got the impression that most of the panelists didn't > know much about open source software or Software Carpentry, probably > because their focus was on finding jobs that pay the bills.
For folks transitioning into software development without a software-development degree, I'd expect open-source contributions would be an excellent way to convince potential employers that you know what you're talking about. I'm pretty sure I landed my current job (mostly writing closed-source softare) because I could point at some solid contributions to open-source projects. And contributing to open-source projects is a great way to learn, because you have a bunch of experienced maintainers donating feedback in return for your donated contribution. Out of curiosity, what are the alternative approaches? I'm having trouble imaginging a convincing résumé based on closed-source toys, and folks who can develop marketable closed-source software on their own probably just start their own business. Cheers, Trevor -- This email may be signed or encrypted with GnuPG (http://www.gnupg.org). For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy
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