Re: Career advice needed
Maxim My comment was in an ironic-vein - I am hardly a fan of J2EE - it was designed for a number of use cases that don't exist in real life which is way PHP and ROR are so good. Danny On 9/10/07, Maxim Veksler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 9/10/07, Danny Lieberman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Herouth I see Matrix are looking for a J2EE programmer on the list.that might be an indicator.Danny I would think twice before turning to work for Matrix, but perhaps that's just me. On 9/3/07, Herouth Maoz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 02/09/2007, at 20:13, Stanislav Malyshev wrote: I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting to me, given the time and money constraints. If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX, etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market. Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux, though :) Thanks. I sort of regard Ajax as part of the territory these days. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Danny Lieberman Reduce risk with practical threat analysis- visit us at www.ptatechnologies.com All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one. Occam's razor www.software.co.il/blog - Israeli software, music and mountain biking www.software.co.il/pta - Download a free copy of the PTA-Practical threat analysis tool Tel Aviv + 972 3 610-9750 US + 1-301-841-7122 Cell + 972 54 447-1114 -- Cheers, Maxim Veksler Free as in Freedom - Do u GNU ? -- Danny Lieberman Reduce risk with practical threat analysis- visit us at www.ptatechnologies.com All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one. Occam's razor www.software.co.il/blog - Israeli software, music and mountain biking www.software.co.il/pta - Download a free copy of the PTA-Practical threat analysis tool Tel Aviv + 972 3 610-9750 US + 1-301-841-7122 Cell + 972 54 447-1114
Re: Career advice needed
Herouth I see Matrix are looking for a J2EE programmer on the list.that might be an indicator.Danny On 9/3/07, Herouth Maoz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 02/09/2007, at 20:13, Stanislav Malyshev wrote: I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting to me, given the time and money constraints. If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX, etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market. Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux, though :) Thanks. I sort of regard Ajax as part of the territory these days. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Danny Lieberman Reduce risk with practical threat analysis- visit us at www.ptatechnologies.com All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one. Occam's razor www.software.co.il/blog - Israeli software, music and mountain biking www.software.co.il/pta - Download a free copy of the PTA-Practical threat analysis tool Tel Aviv + 972 3 610-9750 US + 1-301-841-7122 Cell + 972 54 447-1114
Re: Career advice needed
On 9/10/07, Danny Lieberman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Herouth I see Matrix are looking for a J2EE programmer on the list.that might be an indicator.Danny I would think twice before turning to work for Matrix, but perhaps that's just me. On 9/3/07, Herouth Maoz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 02/09/2007, at 20:13, Stanislav Malyshev wrote: I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting to me, given the time and money constraints. If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX, etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market. Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux, though :) Thanks. I sort of regard Ajax as part of the territory these days. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Danny Lieberman Reduce risk with practical threat analysis- visit us at www.ptatechnologies.com All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one. Occam's razor www.software.co.il/blog - Israeli software, music and mountain biking www.software.co.il/pta - Download a free copy of the PTA-Practical threat analysis tool Tel Aviv + 972 3 610-9750 US + 1-301-841-7122 Cell + 972 54 447-1114 -- Cheers, Maxim Veksler Free as in Freedom - Do u GNU ? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Map applications are an excellent example for this topic. First, they may not have existed in the '80, but they certainly did exist in the early '90s. Only then you couldn't do them without a serious client, way over the capabilities of the PCs of the day. You needed a unix workstation in order to present a photographic backdrop, and have good capabilities for zoom and pan. Even screen resolution is PCs and macintoshes of the day weren't good enough. I think you are far off on that one. While most of it was developed in the late 1970's, NASA was mapping things in the mid 1960's. Computerized weather maps were around since the 1950's. The trick, IMHO is not to do something new, but to come up with a new way of doing old things. Even UNIX/Linux is not a new idea, Single user operating systems, were around since the 1940's (the UNI part of the name), and multiuser operating systems since the 1960's. Harking back to the what will read my document in 30 years discussion, history is littered with dead systems, long forgotten, for example, MULTICS, QuickTran, the SDS (later XDS) 900 series (including the 940 timesharing system), HP minicomputers (2110 series with BASIC, assembly language and Fortran) HP 3000 (operating system written in Algol or PL/I I've forgotten), Boroughs Algol multiuser systems, RCA (IBM 360 clones) etc. That does not make working on the Linux Kernel old hat and boring. There are still lots of things that can be done to improve old ideas. Look at the movie 2001, there is nothing like HAL on the market, but it was supposed to be available by 6 years ago. Technology does move on. When I started to work on handheld gaming, I had the technology but not the hardware. The only Linux based handheld I could cannibalize was a PDA being sold on closeout from a defunct company. Now there are many devices which I could use or adapt to my technology include a device from Korea, where they literally stole our business and marketing plan, but still could not get it to do what we did. Many embedded devices that were impossible to make 5 years ago, can be built from off the shelf components with all of the custom work being in software. I think the big experimental hardware of the future will be recycled iPods. :-) (and other MP3 players) More germane to the topic is that IMHO, you won't find a steady, good paying job on the leading edge of things. Too many startups fail (75% up) in the first year and many of them find they don't have the talent to make what they are supposed to do work (or simply can't with good people) and keep going looking like they are doing something to attract investment. I once discussed this with a professor at the top business school in the U.K. who had specialized on investment in Israel. Many companies where (and still are) propped up by investors who don't want to see their investment fail. Most of it here is because of Zionism, or Jewish guilt (I'll send my money to Israel, so I can feel good about not visiting or moving there), or small investors who overextended themselves and can't afford to loose their money. To me those companies are like prison, if you can see what's happening, you either keep your mouth shut, or try to change things and get fired. You have to make choices in life. Do you want interesting work in a dynamic company, or do you want the computer equivalent of Metropolis or Modern Times? In large companies you can't generalize, for example, Intel has one of the largest mind numbing cubicle farms in the country, but I'm sure there are plenty of people happily doing interesting things there too. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED] N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
course), get travel directions and so on - have been solved problems by 1992 or so. It was just a matter of being able to work the They were solved in theory. In practice, AFAIK there were next to no applications - at least ones accessible to average user, don't know what happened in the military or other government business - that did it. Neither the server nor the flash client are done by web programmers. I don't know how you define web programmer but client side was what I talked about. Including Flash/Flex, AJAX, soon-to-be Silverlight and others. server. All of the interesting stuff is done in the server. Some semi- interesting things are done in the flash client (things HTML is incapable of - zoom, pan, vector graphics, texts drawn in angles or following a path...) HTML is capable of many of that, BTW - with some help from Javascript/CSS of course. And will be capable of more as future web standards get developed and supported (canvas, SVG, whole HTML 5 business). = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Hi, I have worked back in 1998 at a computer game company. One of the leading programmers was someone from big company in the Silicon Valley, with about 10 years experience in graphic programming. Back then the salary was bombastic, but as for production, he was ACE. Unfortunately the company closed its doors. He was then about 40 years old. I have met him in the university after some years doing his Ph.d in computer graphic field. I remember talking with him and asking how could he pass such a big salary, and he told me that everyone in his place should go to the academy, because its very interesting, and let you concentrate in the field you love. Not a lot of people in the computer industry have a real Research and Development jobs as you described. I think they are very few and most of them are MA or Ph.d. Consider going back to school and find the field you want to research. This will give you the intellectual stimuli you need. I have seen some Ph.d becoming entrepreneur, or leading the RD in a new company. If you are Zionist as you said, wouldn't it be great to create more power to Israel, by boosting its economy. You also don't have to build yourself the company or be a manager, its just to find the right people to build it with them. As for quitting your job, I think the market now is not good as everybody thinks. Go to some interview and see what I mean. You will have to wait to the right job. I recommend searching for a job when you work, because it can take a lot of time.
Re: Career advice needed
On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 09:59:02AM +0300, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote: but in fact do not. You don't have that marketing problem with Linux kernel programming. I wouldn't be so sure, although there's probably a difference of scale. You'd be surprised how many people call themselves kernel programmers when in fact their output is accurately described by slide 29 of this presentation: http://userweb.kernel.org/~arnd/papers/lce2007/slides.pdf Cheers, Muli = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 10:20:37AM +0300, Kfir Lavi wrote: If you are Zionist as you said, wouldn't it be great to create more power to Israel, by boosting its economy. You also don't have to build yourself the company or be a manager, its just to find the right people to build it with them. The question is, what do you bring to the table? Once you are sure you can HONESTLY answer that, then the task becomes finding the rest of the team. Finding a good CEO is the most difficult part, most of them are just bull*** artists. I also often see ads from prople who have no CEO experience and want you to pay them CEO salaries and equity to learn on the job. Geoff. As for quitting your job, I think the market now is not good as everybody thinks. Go to some interview and see what I mean. You will have to wait to the right job. I recommend searching for a job when you work, because it can take a lot of time. It's was really good for people that want 5k NIS a month . I've seen adds for LAMP programmers that wanted to pay 4k NIS for one year and 5k NIS for the second (with a mandatory 2 year contract). They expected real experience. It's also great for top of the line Kernel programmers. In between it's soft. It's going to get worse before it gets better, the U.S. economy is sliding down. Most people say it's a small correction, a friend if mine (and some people on Fox), say it's going to correct itself by 30%. (ouch). Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED] N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On Tue, Sep 04, 2007 at 11:24:36AM +0300, Muli Ben-Yehuda wrote: I wouldn't be so sure, although there's probably a difference of scale. You'd be surprised how many people call themselves kernel programmers when in fact their output is accurately described by slide 29 of this presentation: http://userweb.kernel.org/~arnd/papers/lce2007/slides.pdf Considering the fact my youngest son spends a lot of his online time at a sight called Moo Moo, I think that programmer has a good future in LAMP and FLASH games. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED] N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On Tue, Sep 04, 2007, Herouth Maoz wrote about Re: Career advice needed: by 1992 or so. It was just a matter of being able to work the interface in a user's environment (when the user didn't have $10,000 to spend on a workstation), and improve storage capabilities of clients, and speed of communications with the client (which is necessary for GPS devices, because the data in them is dynamic). That's almost like saying that designing better cars is not interesting, because in the 60s, we already flew to the moon, and already had nuclear propulsion of submarines, so what if these technologies are too expensive and haven't been used in cars - it's the same thing :-) Or, it's like saying that the invention of the phonograph record didn't change anything. After all, someone who wanted to hear music could also go to a concert! So what if before an average person could afford to only go to one concert a year, and now he can hear 3 records a day, it's the same thing :-) I remember in the late 80s, when I got access to a computerized list of all US towns (of the kind you can easily get for free today on GNIS et al.) and was absolutely amazed by the easiness in which I could find how many towns in the US were called Bethleham, for example ;-) Nobody even imagined that cheaper storage, cheaper memory, stronger CPUs and of the proliferation of free software and free content would mean that in the 2000s, I would have easy and free access not just to the names of towns, but detailed maps, photos of individual houses, a long description of every town, and so on and so on. The theoretical technology was already there - in the late 80s I had already seen a color computer display, had already seen a whopping storage (which at the time seemed almost infinite to me) of 3 GB, and I'm sure that NORAD or whoever already had very good electronic maps. But these technologies were not practical for common use, and therefore not commonly used. Neither the server nor the flash client are done by web programmers. Then why must you be a web programmer? What prevents you from getting a job at one of these flash programming or server programming outfits? Did someone lead you to believe that you don't have what it takes to do server programming? How the f*** is server programming that much different from Web programming? server. All of the interesting stuff is done in the server. Some semi- If this is what you think, then start looking for a job on the server side. -- Nadav Har'El| Tuesday, Sep 4 2007, 21 Elul 5767 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |What's the greatest world-wide use of http://nadav.harel.org.il |cowhide? To hold cows together. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Wow, what a thread have you started. My only 2 cents - and maybe I'm wrong - If you like the area of web-dev - stick with it. If you worked for the salary, I would feel sorry for you. But if you enjoy what you do, then stick to what you enjoy, the extra money is not important. As to technologies, after many years of experience, I find the various scripting languages much the same. Some I prefer better, some less, some I detest, but only for the way the code looks [perl], not for capabilities. As an experienced programmer the language makes little difference, or rather, should make. Frameworks are a bit harder to get a grasp on, but if the underlying languages is not a problem, I'd dare say that any framework that takes more than a week to grasp, is probably not worth knowing in the first place. So Ruby on Rails, Django [and I have never heard of it, so I'll better do that now], if I were you, I'd invest enough time to know each, at least to get a grasp, and then neither should be a problem to use. Dan
Re: Career advice needed
On 04/09/2007, at 09:29, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote: Map applications are an excellent example for this topic. First, they may not have existed in the '80, but they certainly did exist in the early '90s. Only then you couldn't do them without a serious client, way over the capabilities of the PCs of the day. You needed a unix workstation in order to present a photographic backdrop, and have good capabilities for zoom and pan. Even screen resolution is PCs and macintoshes of the day weren't good enough. I think you are far off on that one. While most of it was developed in the late 1970's, NASA was mapping things in the mid 1960's. Computerized weather maps were around since the 1950's. What I meant was that in the early '90s you could get all these algorithms in shrink-wrapped on-the-shelf software packages. Of course, like Oracle, not every Joe could afford the software, nor the hardware it required. The trick, IMHO is not to do something new, but to come up with a new way of doing old things. My point wasn't that if something existed in the old days, it's not worth doing any more. My point was that the technology is nothing new, and has really nothing to do with web development. Web development is used merely to present the technology. Even so, the web is not a good enough platform for this kind of application, and it's no wonder google creates an old-fashioned front end for it. What I was trying to get across is that although I find writing yet- another-SQL-query mind-numbingly boring, it doesn't mean that RDBMS technology is boring. If I worked in the development of the database itself, implementing a novel algorithm for indexing or fail-proofing or whatever, it would be much more interesting. In the same vein - writing in Javascript is boring, but implementing Javascript in a browser is interesting. Of course that's my personal taste. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 04/09/2007, at 10:20, Kfir Lavi wrote: Consider going back to school and find the field you want to research. This will give you the intellectual stimuli you need. I thought about it. But then, I never could get a handle on the way academic research works. It was always beyond me. Collecting papers for background is as far as I got in my M.Sc. thesis. I'm afraid I'm a development, not research person. At least not formal research. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 02/09/2007, at 20:13, Stanislav Malyshev wrote: I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting to me, given the time and money constraints. If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX, etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market. Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux, though :) Thanks. I sort of regard Ajax as part of the territory these days. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Hi Herouth, What I don't understand is the whole LAMP grudge your carrying around... From my experience (as someone that lives off LAMP related training,projects, products) there is a big difference in the development experience between wielding zope, doing home grown cgi- perl development, custom php development, python coding etc... I have focused on drupal a magnificant LAMP based cms and development framework and although I hate php - I totally adore the framework I develop in (drupal) and I can realize my cutstomers vision which is quite satisfying. So what is it you hate so much about LAMP? I think the way you wield the might acronym is a bit too wide and as Gilad stated a framework like django, zope or drupal might be fun. To second Stanislav if I had one language to bet my horses on I'd vote for javascript (hence ajax and stuff) and it's associated frameworks. (jquery, scriptaculas, moo etc..) Good luck, Lior On 02/09/2007, at 20:13, Stanislav Malyshev wrote: I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting to me, given the time and money constraints. If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX, etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market. Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux, though :) = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 03/09/2007, at 22:57, Lior Kesos wrote: Hi Herouth, What I don't understand is the whole LAMP grudge your carrying around... From my experience (as someone that lives off LAMP related training,projects, products) there is a big difference in the development experience between wielding zope, doing home grown cgi- perl development, custom php development, python coding etc... I have focused on drupal a magnificant LAMP based cms and development framework and although I hate php - I totally adore the framework I develop in (drupal) and I can realize my cutstomers vision which is quite satisfying. It's all a matter of taste, of course. I'm sick-sick-sick and tired of writing yet-another-page that displays data from a database. It really doesn't matter if the language is PHP, Perl or Python (they are just alternatives for the P in LAMP). I have no particular preference for a language. It's the sort of applications that you can build using the HTTP protocol that I'm sick of - web services, forms, buttons, integrity checks. Oh, and Javascript is, in fact, my least favourite platform. I find it unreliable, with compatibility problems between platforms, and it's generally being used in order to force HTML to do things it is not supposed to do. Eventually you may have nice interfaces, but they are interfaces into nothing. If there is anything interesting to be done on the backend, it's usually done by a different class of programmers, and they provide the web programmers with an easy API into their system, and so, all you have to do on the server side is access the API, and do something with the resulting data. The truth is that all web applications are just sugar coated information systems, and nowadays, with Ajax, they are really no different than the client-server applications people used to write back in the late '80s and early '90s. All this is boring me to tears. I'm not at all sure airline pilots have it harder. :-S Basically, I think anything one has done for 11 years straight tends to become boring, but really, there is no challenge in LAMP other than trying to overcome the limitations of the browsers and the HTTP protocol. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 9/3/07, Herouth Maoz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm sick-sick-sick and tired of writing yet-another-page that displays data from a database. .. The truth is that all web applications are just sugar coated information systems, and nowadays, with Ajax, they are really no different than the client-server applications people used to write back in the late '80s and early '90s. ... but really, there is no challenge in LAMP other than trying to overcome the limitations of the browsers and the HTTP protocol. Herouth, I feel your pain. It seems that even Web 2.0 and Flash didn't change the essentials of web apps being information systems -- transient throw-away ones. On the other hand, I also remember sitting with Lior few years ago, him showing me what he does for his clients with Drupal, all excited about it. But Lior likes the business side too: that's why he does his Drupal jobs on a freelance basis and that's why he's excited about things like realizing a customer's vision. I guess you're pretty sick of clients who always seem ungrateful, don't have a clear idea of what they want (so it becomes part of your job to define it, sometimes having to guess) - and eventually can't tell a quality app from a sloppy one. I think Lior sees those clients as a challenge. Lior thinks it his job to help a clueless client make up his mind about what he wants; not less of a job than the technical one. He has what it takes to enjoy LAMP: great people skills and not being a perfectionist. This way you can churn out dozens of e-commerce sites, while enjoying the business problems and interaction with the clients.
Re: Career advice needed
you can build using the HTTP protocol that I'm sick of - web services, forms, buttons, integrity checks. Oh, and Javascript is, in fact, my least favourite platform. I find it unreliable, with compatibility problems between platforms, and it's generally being used in order to force HTML to do things it is not supposed to do. Eventually you may have nice interfaces, but they are interfaces into nothing. If there is anything interesting to be done on the backend, it's I would disagree here. I think what is happening in this area is the return of HTML to what it meant to be, only better. The applications are moving towards the old MVC paradigm, where HTML moves back towards the Model (though you can use other model data source, like JSON or XML sources), CSS takes over much of the View and Javascript makes Controller. There's still some uncleanness (especially that data and GUI are still mixed) and some growing pains but I think it's where the things are heading to, and it's a healthy direction. As a result, nowdays HTMLs become more clean - as CSS/JS begin to allow to do what they were meant to do from the start - provide presentation layer over the independent content layer. The truth is that all web applications are just sugar coated information systems, and nowadays, with Ajax, they are really no different than the client-server applications people used to write back in the late '80s and early '90s. Yes and no. Yes because it's not that there's new computer science being born or something :), no - because things are being done that weren't done before, because now it's easier for people to do them. As an example, let's look at one of the tons of google maps mashups - which *are* very useful if google maps covers the area you are interested in - too bad Israel isn't covered :( - and see how something like that was done in 80s. The answer is - it wasn't done. Such applications just didn't exist. Of course, there's a ton of boring stuff and needless bells and whistles there too - can't be helped, that's Sturgeon's Second Law at work. But there's some cool stuff too. But then again, if you don't feel interested in it - definitely don't do it. There's always a ton of other things to do :) = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
--Apple-Mail-1-123579580 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed On 04/09/2007, at 05:18, Stanislav Malyshev wrote: Yes and no. Yes because it's not that there's new computer science being born or something :), no - because things are being done that weren't done before, because now it's easier for people to do them. As an example, let's look at one of the tons of google maps mashups - which *are* very useful if google maps covers the area you are interested in - too bad Israel isn't covered :( - and see how something like that was done in 80s. The answer is - it wasn't done. Such applications just didn't exist. Map applications are an excellent example for this topic. First, they may not have existed in the '80, but they certainly did exist in the early '90s. Only then you couldn't do them without a serious client, way over the capabilities of the PCs of the day. You needed a unix workstation in order to present a photographic backdrop, and have good capabilities for zoom and pan. Even screen resolution is PCs and macintoshes of the day weren't good enough. I know that, you see, because I did GIS (Geographical Information Systems) in the military. All the tricks you can do with maps - mash them with photos, overlay them with gas stations and hotels, find all the gas stations that are within 1 km of a particular road, find geographic location by address, do the travelling salesman problem (not optimally, of course), get travel directions and so on - have been solved problems by 1992 or so. It was just a matter of being able to work the interface in a user's environment (when the user didn't have $10,000 to spend on a workstation), and improve storage capabilities of clients, and speed of communications with the client (which is necessary for GPS devices, because the data in them is dynamic). To the point of our discussion, though, there are basically three elements in an application such as ynet maps (the best browser map system currently in Israel, I believe, given that it actually works on Firefox). You have a server side which contains all the air photos, the roads, the addresses, and all the fine algorithms for finding things. You have a client side which allows for zoom, pan, view switches, etc. - a flash or java application - and you have the web envelope around all of them - fields on the side where you enter the address, and a button which then transfers it to the server. And maybe on the web server side - a web application that interacts with the GIS engine and returns results using HTTP. Neither the server nor the flash client are done by web programmers. They are left only with the integration - maybe have some HTML buttons that interact with the flash. Maybe an Ajax that talks to the server. All of the interesting stuff is done in the server. Some semi- interesting things are done in the flash client (things HTML is incapable of - zoom, pan, vector graphics, texts drawn in angles or following a path...) Herouth --Apple-Mail-1-123579580 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII HTMLBODY style=3Dword-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; = -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; BRDIVDIVOn 04/09/2007, at = 05:18, Stanislav Malyshev wrote:/DIVBR = class=3DApple-interchange-newlineBLOCKQUOTE type=3DciteP = style=3Dmargin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0pxFONT face=3DArial size=3D3 = style=3Dfont: 12.0px ArialYes and no. Yes because it's not that = there's new computer science being born or something :), no - because = things are being done that weren't done before, because now it's easier = for people to do them. As an example, let's look at one of the tons of = google maps mashups - which *are* very useful if google maps covers the = area you are interested in - too bad Israel isn't covered :( - and see = how something like that was done in 80s. The answer is - it wasn't done. = Such applications just didn't exist./FONT/P = /BLOCKQUOTE/DIVBRDIVMap applications are an excellent example = for this topic. First, they may not have existed in the '80, but they = certainly did exist in the early '90s. Only then you couldn't do them = without a serious client, way over the capabilities of the PCs of the = day. You needed a unix workstation in order to present a photographic = backdrop, and have good capabilities for zoom and pan. Even screen = resolution is PCs and macintoshes of the day weren't good = enough./DIVDIVBR class=3Dkhtml-block-placeholder/DIVDIVI = know that, you see, because I did GIS (Geographical Information Systems) = in the military./DIVDIVBR = class=3Dkhtml-block-placeholder/DIVDIVAll the tricks you can do = with maps - mash them with photos, overlay them with gas stations and = hotels, find all the gas stations that are within 1 km of a particular = road, find
Re: Career advice needed
On Sat, Sep 01, 2007, Herouth Maoz wrote about Re: Career advice needed: If I decided that I'm interested in CGI, or artificial intelligence, or quantum computing, or Macintosh application programming, do you really think that a job would pop up? Obviously, you can't decide that you're interested in something... You need to convince employers that you have one or more of (with bonus points if you have more than one of them): 1. Burning desire (a passion) for the topic 2. Better than average knowledge in the topic 3. Better than average experience in the topic For example (to start with your example), I took a Quantum Computing course in the Technion. Does that make me employable in this subject? Of course not. I have no passion for this subject, I don't have much knowledge on this subject that hundreds of other Technions students don't have, and I have absolutely no experience. On the other hand, if you look at my involvement in the Hebrew linguistic world - I think I demonstrated a passion for it (not everybody writes a spell-checker for fun...) and experience (again, not everybody designed and wrote a working spell-checker and morphological analyzer). This kind of passion, knowledge and experience *is* something that you can do in 6 months, and in fact the first working version of Hspell (if you allow me to continue with this example) was ready in less than 6 months. But the first thing - passion - is kind of hard to develop (if you find a particular topic boring, it won't be easy to develop a passion for it - not in 6 months and not in a lifetime). -- Nadav Har'El|Sunday, Sep 2 2007, 19 Elul 5767 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a http://nadav.harel.org.il |cat. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On Sun, Sep 02, 2007 at 11:43:35AM +0300, Nadav Har'El wrote: Obviously, you can't decide that you're interested in something... You need to convince employers that you have one or more of (with bonus points if you have more than one of them): 1. Burning desire (a passion) for the topic 2. Better than average knowledge in the topic 3. Better than average experience in the topic I don't know if that's true or not. IMHO you decide what you want to do in life and do it. Your decision may be affected by other concerns such as making a living, schools for your family, etc., so it's not just a technical decision. Sometimes as you've said, there are no jobs IN ISRAEL for certain skills. Or it may be a case of not knowing where to find them. For example, there have been Macintosh jobs here and there still are. If they are open, is another question, but the Hebrew version of the Macintosh operating system was developed here until around 2000, when it was dropped. There are two Hebrew supporting Macintosh word processing programs, one was Nisus, which was availble when I started to care about such things, in 1991, and a descendent of it is still around. They are based in California. There is also Melel, which is based in Tel Aviv. If you did not know about them, you would have never approached them. There is also a lot of offshoring done here, but most companies keep it quiet. I don't know you, except for your approximate age and that you want to be an employee (both of which were recently posted), but if you really want to get a job doing something you like, you may have to spend a few years in Silicon Valley. You then make the contacts to go work for a start up and offshore yourself. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED] N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 01/09/07, Shachar Shemesh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Light aircraft license is about 10-15K NIS. Can be accomplished in a few months. Assuming you were not a pilot for the air force, your only real option is flying for Arkia. You will need to do IFR training, and conversion to bigger aircrafts, but I think the airliner sponsors that part anyways. Shachar, you should know better than that. You don't have to be an air force pilot to work for El-Al. Besides, my friend could afford the career switch (and better flying options) because he's an American citizen... But we are digressing... --Amos
Re: Career advice needed
Amos Shapira wrote: On 01/09/07, *Shachar Shemesh* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Light aircraft license is about 10-15K NIS. Can be accomplished in a few months. Assuming you were not a pilot for the air force, your only real option is flying for Arkia. You will need to do IFR training, and conversion to bigger aircrafts, but I think the airliner sponsors that part anyways. Shachar, you should know better than that. You don't have to be an air force pilot to work for El-Al. That at least used to be a requirement. I have not heard of it being lifted. Besides, my friend could afford the career switch (and better flying options) because he's an American citizen... I doubt that makes it any less boring. Helicopter pilots get better (but not great) job satisfaction (unless you work for the Israeli electricity company, flying right next to high voltage poles). The pilots that spray fields with insecticides get really interesting work, but they used to have to go through blood tests every six months to make sure they are not poisoned. The requirement was lifted only due to the fact that recent studies show that it takes about 20 years for the poisons to show up in a blood test. I'll stick to computers. Don't want to get cancer. Again But we are digressing... --Amos Shachar = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On Sun, Sep 02, 2007, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote about Re: Career advice needed: Sometimes as you've said, there are no jobs IN ISRAEL for certain skills. Which is why I think it's pointless to acquire only certain skills. I've worked in several jobs in my life, and each one of them was very different from the previous one. I never said to myself (or employers), hey, I worked on TCP/IP in my last job, so now I must find another TCP/IP job. The best way to make sure you have a job is to have a relatively wide array of skills, not just one skill. Like someone already said, being the world's finest Fortran 77 coder might not help you much to get a job (although, believe it or not, there are still companies who value this skill). I don't know you, except for your approximate age and that you want to be an employee (both of which were recently posted), but if you really want to get a job doing something you like, you may have to spend a few years in Silicon Valley. You then make the contacts to go work for a start up and offshore yourself. This advice was true 20 years ago, but I'd advise against this today (unless, of course, you want to see the world). There are plenty of computer jobs in Israel - in large companies, medium companies, and startups. Unless you insist on specializing in some very specific subject that nobody in Israel is interested in, there is simply no reason to move the the US. Heck, I even had a job offer from one of the most sought-after US employers, and rejected it, because I was so sure that I won't have a problem finding a job in Israel in the forseable future, and because I want to stay in Israel (Call me a Zionist, if you must...) -- Nadav Har'El|Sunday, Sep 2 2007, 19 Elul 5767 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Politics, n: from Greek, poly=many, http://nadav.harel.org.il |ticks=blood sucking parasites. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On Sun, 2007-09-02 at 13:32 +0300, Nadav Har'El wrote: This advice was true 20 years ago, but I'd advise against this today (unless, of course, you want to see the world). There are plenty of computer jobs in Israel - in large companies, medium companies, and startups. True, a resource for computer jobs in Israel: http://www.cji.co.il/archive.htm --- Omer -- One cannot argue with a Bayesian filter. Peter Lorand Peres My own blog is at http://www.zak.co.il/tddpirate/ My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone. They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which I may be affiliated in any way. WARNING TO SPAMMERS: at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Would like to learn MBA or marketing? Languages will change one another, but economic will lasts forever. It's not 6 monthes, however. Also, not having any marketing experience would mean very base-level job for at least a number of years, I think. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting to me, given the time and money constraints. If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX, etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market. Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux, though :) = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Herouth Maoz [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in an open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is - what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate a programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular (other than the web)? Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no golden cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire). Hi Herouth, I don't have a direct answer to these questions, and what I'll write may or may not sound practical. Here is an heretical thought: maybe the best investment of effort over the next few months will not be acquiring specific marketable skills. (Before I continue: it cannot hurt!) It may or may not sound surprising, but what you will do in your next job may not be the most important thing. At least 2 other things look much more important to me: who the people you will be working with are, and whether the work will be interesting to you. With normal qualifications with regards to the general job market situation (which does not seem too bad at the moment) and your personal financial circumstances, going to work for a company that puts much emphasis on specific, ready-to-wear skills may not be the best option. A company that will be ready to let you learn new skills as you go, will look at you as a long term employee with potential in many areas, will view *you*, rather than your present day skills and knowledge, as the most important asset, will be worth joining. A company that is more interested in your PHP (or whatever) skills than your potential will be likely to see you as a disposable resource and, assuming they will pay you well, will be more likely to be a golden cage in the we'll get so many KLOC/month of PHP from any number of others who we can hire instead of you sense. By the way, employers who think like this often do so to their own detriment... Where do you want to work? Where you will have many opportunities to do and to learn new things? Or where you will be reusing what you already know how to do? Where your colleagues and your managers keep looking at new things all the time and when asked what they do do not reply, We write Java/PHP/Python/C code but rather explain what problem they are trying to solve and why it is important? Or where they give candidates interview questions to check whether they know operator precedence tables by heart, and the interview summary reads, The candidate is really smart, nice, has extensive general knowledge, and has done many cool things, but she does not have 3 years of experience in insert a specific programming language, DB type, whatever here and thus is not suitable? How many companies are there who are looking for *people* rather than *resources*? The percentage is definitely non-zero, and in the end you don't need many, you need one at a time. It does not depend on the size (3, 300, or 300,000 employees) or status (startup, public, private) of the company - only on the people who run it and who work there. How to find them? Tricky. But remember that the interview process is not a one-way street. It's not the just the employer grilling the candidate - the prospective employee should interview the employer as well. If you do that and sense, in the process, that the company representatives don't like the idea of being interviewed it is probably not a good place to work at. Anyway, to wrap it up, maybe the most important thing you can do in the next 6 months is invest the time and the effort in trying to identify potential employers who will hire you not for what you already know but for what you can do for them in the future, medium to long term. And in developing ways to sell yourself not as a simple special purpose resource (so many years of PHP experience plus I have implemented all the kernel drivers from LDD3 with some enhancements) but as a highly flexible, adaptible asset whose general experience (I am quoting you) and knowledge will be valuable in many different, and as yet unforeseen, situations. And in figuring out what you *would like* to do (as opposed to what you know how to do). It is not about PHP, Python, or kernel programming. I do believe it begins and ends with people. This may sound less practical than developing specific skills to some, but - IMHO - that's only when you think short term. Best of luck, -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.goldshmidt.org = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
As someone who worked in Zend up to recently and got a good sense of the market searching for opportunities that suits my somewhat similar needs, I can add the following bits of information: - Demand for PHP programmers in Israel has grown nicely recently. From very little some two years ago (and little tendency of the various local producers to use PHP) to very nice demand. I bet you're aware of the growing usage of PHP in Israel anyway. I know about lots in inquiries Zend people get, in a steadily growing pace, about either outsourcing PHP programming jobs or request for references for PHP speaking people. - Perl jobs are achievable as well. While searching for PHP jobs I was always been told by recruitment agencies if you want to utilize your Perl experience just let us know - we have offers for you. Yet, Perl programming is, at least from what I've been offered, mostly QA programming or other automated stuff (not what I preferred). Good luck with it! (I do believe you can find something good for you with less difficulty than estimated). Boaz. Amos Shapira wrote: On 31/08/2007, *Herouth Maoz* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've Short of doing a whole switch to kernel programming (or switch to becoming an airline pilot, which is what a friend of mine did and I wish I could :), you might want to consider expanding your existing skills towards related ones - SQL database design and programming should be useful in many places. Also I'm not sure about the market in Israel but I see demand for Perl programmers abroad (for all sorts of stuff, including web, system and application programming and system administration). Also taking this opportunity to learn administrative skills should pay off in any career you choose, IMHO. Good luck, --Amos = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 31/08/2007, at 04:02, Ravid Baruch Naali wrote: Herouth Maoz wrote: Sorry Maoz, but I don't have a good advice, but I can give you some pointers where to start your own research. http://www.job4me.net/ - a google lookalike web site which searches every Hi-tech company for their job offers. http://free-electrons.com/ - excellent web site which offers free training material mainly for embedded system. http://free-electrons.com/community/kernel/ - a good resource to learn about linux kernel/drivers development. http://janitor.kernelnewbies.org/ - A good place for kernel newbies. Also some PHP open source projects: http://gallery.menalto.com/ http://www.freepbx.org/ and of course a lot more I hope it will give you a better view of your options. Thank you, I'll keep these on hand. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 31/08/2007, at 23:28, Shachar Shemesh wrote: Herouth Maoz wrote: Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the career supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says Django? It greatly depends on an aspect you did not specify - employee or free lance? Employee, definitely. I don't have the iron nerves it takes to be independent. I can tell you about PHP that I'm sure it's extremely difficult to find work as a PHP programmer employee, but not at all difficult to do so as a free lance. I have a feeling that this is a self-feeding problem. I mean, our company has advertised in the past for PHP programmers, and we had very little luck finding any, even as far as sending us a CV. Because there are no workers, there are no places that work in PHP, and because there are no places, there are no workers. Anyway, I don't want to work in PHP anymore, that's why I'm looking for this change. The best you can get, in that respect, is work for a (small?) consulting company. The nerves are someone else's, and you have (at least the illusion) of stability (none of Lingnu's employees are reading this thread, right?), while maintaining the flexibility of consulting work. :-) I'll keep that in mind, though I have a feeling one can only get into one of those through connections, not through advertising. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 31/08/2007, at 23:37, Maxim Veksler wrote: It seems that there were not even one decent company in Israel that would fall under these conditions. This was ~2 years ago. So they turned to .Net. We had a similar problem in our company. When we had a project that was too large for our number of developers and needed to outsource it, we simply couldn't find any LAMP-based company that could do it. I don't mean to be all too rude but: What about starting your own company? You definitely have the necessary experience, skill, motivation and with proper guidance/managements you could fill in a blank that is clearly missing here in the local market. I could even suggest this organization would be a hybrid of Django (which is getting hotter by the minute!) and php ajax software house. Do it in the open source way (i.e. keep using fresh FOSS technology, contribute back) and there's surly a bright future ahead. I'm afraid that would only be an option if I could get a partner that would take care of all the non-technical matters. I am qualified for neither management of people (I always turn down team leader positions) nor marketing and sales. But thanks for the additional angle. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
--Apple-Mail-6--116742648 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed On 01/09/2007, at 09:42, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: It is not about PHP, Python, or kernel programming. I do believe it begins and ends with people. This may sound less practical than developing specific skills to some, but - IMHO - that's only when you think short term. I think it's a bit more complex than you represent. The two reasons I haven't left my company long ago, despite the relatively low salary, are the work hours (I leave at 6 - except when there's a production problem or a very rare thing like database upgrade or other night job), and my skills (problem solving, integration) are appreciated enough to have relegated the mundane build-yet-another-page tasks to other programmers. Nevertheless, when we hire new people, we look for some basic skills. We usually concern ourselves less with operator precedence (who cares?) and more with awareness of security issues (Do they check user input for single quotes? HTML?), error checking, concurrency issues (reading, then modifying data), and instruction reading (people sometimes fail to read the exact directions in the test). But we do prefer people who already know PHP to people who don't know and will have to spend several weeks learning the language (or go to a course). Experience is important, it cannot be ignored. Of course, when we had candidates that sounded smart and resourceful in the interview, we were more lenient. A business needs to continue its day-to-day work, and there is enough to learn about the particular expertise of the company, without adding additional weeks which may require disrupting someone else's busy schedule to explain things to him, check his progress, and so on. It's especially true when you don't know whether he'll turn out to be a good programmer in the end, or a bad one who somehow writes programs that work, but there is no code re-use, error checking, comments, and consideration for end cases. When he turns out to be bad, you have lost your investment. A business needs to think both short and long term. In addition to all that, there is the issue of getting your foot in the door. If you're a smart, methodical programmer who can see the greater picture, and haven't written a line of C code since university, and if you're the same, but wrote a patch to the kernel that got accepted, which one will be called for an interview, based on their CV? HR people and even technical people tend to get a lot of CVs which are irrelevant, and people just send because it wouldn't hurt. The first sifting is done by removing all the ones that are not even close, and I've yet to find a person who'd see my Good problem solving skills in my CV and say hey, that's one worth keeping. These skills help you when you get hired by word of mouth. I have at least one job offer based on someone knowing me personally, who is willing to let me learn at the expense of his company - because I basically taught him how to program and he knows my worth. (Unfortunately, he happens to be my best friend, and mixing business with friendship is a recipe for disaster, especially in our case - we are both short tempered. Otherwise I'd have accepted that job offer long ago). Herouth --Apple-Mail-6--116742648 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII HTMLBODY style=3Dword-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; = -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; BRDIVDIVOn 01/09/2007, at = 09:42, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:/DIVBR = class=3DApple-interchange-newlineBLOCKQUOTE type=3DciteP = style=3Dmargin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0pxFONT face=3DArial size=3D3 = style=3Dfont: 12.0px ArialIt is not about PHP, Python, or kernel = programming. I do believe it/FONT/P P style=3Dmargin: 0.0px 0.0px = 0.0px 0.0pxFONT face=3DArial size=3D3 style=3Dfont: 12.0px = Arialbegins and ends with people. This may sound less practical = than/FONT/P P style=3Dmargin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0pxFONT = face=3DArial size=3D3 style=3Dfont: 12.0px Arialdeveloping = specific skills to some, but - IMHO - that's only when you/FONT/P P = style=3Dmargin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0pxFONT face=3DArial size=3D3 = style=3Dfont: 12.0px Arialthink short term./FONT/P = /BLOCKQUOTE/DIVBRDIVI think it's a bit more complex than you = represent. The two reasons I haven't left my company long ago, despite = the relatively low salary, are the work hours (I leave at 6 - except = when there's a production problem or a very rare thing like database = upgrade or other night job), and my skills (problem solving, = integration) are appreciated enough to have relegated the mundane = build-yet-another-page tasks to other programmers./DIVDIVBR = class=3Dkhtml-block-placeholder/DIVDIVNevertheless, when we hire = new people, we look for some basic skills.
Re: Career advice needed
Herouth Maoz wrote: :-) I'll keep that in mind, though I have a feeling one can only get into one of those through connections, not through advertising. Huh? I have seen several such companies (Lingnu included) advertise right here. Of Lingnu's technical workers, most are people I know merely because they applied for the job after I advertised. I think the source of your mistake is that there are not that many companies, and they don't often recruit. I never said it was easy, just that it's a path. Being as it is that you are not interested in PHP, that part is not really relevant anyways. Herouth Shachar = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
--Apple-Mail-7--112883372 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed On 01/09/2007, at 03:22, Amos Shapira wrote: Short of doing a whole switch to kernel programming (or switch to becoming an airline pilot, which is what a friend of mine did and I wish I could :) I have a hunch that would take a lot more than 6 months and all the money I have on Earth... , you might want to consider expanding your existing skills towards related ones - SQL database design and programming should be useful in many places. Oh, SQL, table structure design, stored procedures, transactions - it all comes with the territory when doing PHP programming, I thought I didn't need to mention that... Nevertheless, I really want to get away from the LAMP business, at least not have it as my main occupation. Herouth --Apple-Mail-7--112883372 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 HTMLBODY style=3Dword-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; = -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; BRDIVDIVOn 01/09/2007, at = 03:22, Amos Shapira wrote:/DIVBR = class=3DApple-interchange-newlineBLOCKQUOTE type=3DciteP = style=3Dmargin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial; = min-height: 14.0pxBR/P P style=3Dmargin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px = 0.0pxFONT face=3DArial size=3D3 style=3Dfont: 12.0px = ArialShort of doing a whole switch to kernel programming (or switch to = becoming an airline pilot, which is what a friend of mine did and I wish = I could :)BR/FONT/P/BLOCKQUOTEDIVBR = class=3Dkhtml-block-placeholder/DIVI have a hunch that would take a = lot more than 6 months and all the money I have on = Earth.../DIVDIVBRBLOCKQUOTE type=3DciteP style=3Dmargin: = 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0pxFONT face=3DArial size=3D3 style=3Dfont: = 12.0px Arial, you might want to consider expanding your existing = skills towards related ones - SQL database design and programming should = be useful in many places.=A0/FONT/P/BLOCKQUOTEBR/DIVDIVOh, = SQL, table structure design, stored procedures, transactions - it all = comes with the territory when doing PHP programming, I thought I didn't = need to mention that...=A0/DIVDIVBR = class=3Dkhtml-block-placeholder/DIVDIVNevertheless, I really want = to get away from the LAMP business, at least not have it as my main = occupation./DIVDIVBR = class=3Dkhtml-block-placeholder/DIVDIVHerouth/DIV/BODY/HTML= --Apple-Mail-7--112883372-- = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Herouth Maoz wrote: --Apple-Mail-7--112883372 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed On 01/09/2007, at 03:22, Amos Shapira wrote: Short of doing a whole switch to kernel programming (or switch to becoming an airline pilot, which is what a friend of mine did and I wish I could :) I have a hunch that would take a lot more than 6 months and all the money I have on Earth... Light aircraft license is about 10-15K NIS. Can be accomplished in a few months. Assuming you were not a pilot for the air force, your only real option is flying for Arkia. You will need to do IFR training, and conversion to bigger aircrafts, but I think the airliner sponsors that part anyways. Then again, commercial piloting is about as boring as it can possibly get. It is so mind boggingly boring it's hard to imagine. Doing databases is probably a much much much more interesting work to do. Oh, SQL, table structure design, stored procedures, transactions - it all comes with the territory when doing PHP programming, I thought I didn't need to mention that... Nevertheless, I really want to get away from the LAMP business, at least not have it as my main occupation. Shachar = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Herouth Maoz wrote: On 01/09/2007, at 03:22, Amos Shapira wrote: , you might want to consider expanding your existing skills towards related ones - SQL database design and programming should be useful in many places. Oh, SQL, table structure design, stored procedures, transactions - it all comes with the territory when doing PHP programming, I thought I didn't need to mention that... Nevertheless, I really want to get away from the LAMP business, at least not have it as my main occupation. well, what is it that you _do_ want to do? no one can help you without you telling something on the positive side. --guy = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 01/09/2007, at 16:19, guy keren wrote: Herouth Maoz wrote: On 01/09/2007, at 03:22, Amos Shapira wrote: , you might want to consider expanding your existing skills towards related ones - SQL database design and programming should be useful in many places. Oh, SQL, table structure design, stored procedures, transactions - it all comes with the territory when doing PHP programming, I thought I didn't need to mention that... Nevertheless, I really want to get away from the LAMP business, at least not have it as my main occupation. well, what is it that you _do_ want to do? no one can help you without you telling something on the positive side. I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting to me, given the time and money constraints. So far I'm told that kernel drivers are in demand. I've noted that to myself (as well as the other general advices given), and it's an option. Basically, any suggestion will be welcome - I'm trying to get a feel of the market, not to make an instant decision. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 9/1/07, Herouth Maoz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So far I'm told that kernel drivers are in demand. I've noted that to myself (as well as the other general advices given), and it's an option. Basically, any suggestion will be welcome - I'm trying to get a feel of the market, not to make an instant decision. Herouth Well, from my short swim in the industry I can tell you the following market trends: 1. Advertising is hot, everything from analytical people to graphical designers goes. 2. System Analysts are being hired quickly today, you must have a firm background in your field. 3. DBA, not system but those that responsible for scalability and optimization of the scheme. 4. Good networking people are always in demand. 5. JAVA, as in serverlets and jsp's can be a good direction for you. 6. Security experts, you can merge into a security firm as web application security consultant. 7. Well, QA is also an option if your looking for a relaxed position. HTH. On a personal note, I never agreed with the claim Current market demand. My answer to this is simple - If you want to make a difference, start thinking differently. In translation to the software industry, I you want to make a `fine` salary and work in a good company - find something your interested in and pursue, be good at what you do and work will just pop up for you. Maxim. -- Cheers, Maxim Veksler Free as in Freedom - Do u GNU ? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 01/09/2007, at 22:17, Maxim Veksler wrote: Well, from my short swim in the industry I can tell you the following market trends: 1. Advertising is hot, everything from analytical people to graphical designers goes. 2. System Analysts are being hired quickly today, you must have a firm background in your field. 3. DBA, not system but those that responsible for scalability and optimization of the scheme. 4. Good networking people are always in demand. 5. JAVA, as in serverlets and jsp's can be a good direction for you. 6. Security experts, you can merge into a security firm as web application security consultant. 7. Well, QA is also an option if your looking for a relaxed position. Thanks, that adds a few more options to my list. On a personal note, I never agreed with the claim Current market demand. My answer to this is simple - If you want to make a difference, start thinking differently. In translation to the software industry, I you want to make a `fine` salary and work in a good company - find something your interested in and pursue, be good at what you do and work will just pop up for you. That's what I'm trying to do, basically. Only I don't believe in The Secret and its ilk. If I decided that I'm interested in CGI, or artificial intelligence, or quantum computing, or Macintosh application programming, do you really think that a job would pop up? Should I spend my 6 months on a pipe dream? I'll have to fall back on LAMP then, and if so, I'd rather take a vacation in Japan instead, at least I'll have fine memories. ;) Anyway thanks, I appreciate the above list and the advice. Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Hi Herouth, Herouth Maoz wrote: Since Django is racing towards the 1.0 release (currently in 0.97-pre), you'll be getting in to in on this project at the best of time: a killer framework that dwarfs any thing else around in the field (save maybe to Ruby on Rails), which is already productive but still the best kept secret of the geeks. Sort of Linux in 2.2 days :-) If I'd have to bet my career on something in the web area or even general application development right now, Django would be it. Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the career supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says Django? If that's how you think about planning your career, you have much bigger problems then which technology to learn. I'm not trying to be rude, I am trying to make a point - you're thinking about this in the completely wrong way. Let me prove it to you: Do the following experiment with me (I mean REALLY do it, don't just read this!): Open the career supplement of a newspaper or that awful Job-net site and start counting positions for, I don't know, security guards, the kind that earns sub minimum wage by being a human bomb shield at a supermarket. How many are there? well, a lot right? Now look for open positions of CEO, CTO or CFO for companies. How many are there? I'd be dammed if you could find more then 2, probably none. Of course, CxO level jobs are rare just like the people who have qualify for them and they don't usually get published in those sections in the newspapers or Job-net, right? (actually there are sections in different papers for these too, like Globes, but even there they are quite few). Here's the million dollar question that should REALLY bake your noodle right now: If you were someone with amazingly excellent CxO credentials, versus being someone with amazingly excellent security guard credentials, which job would be easier for you to land? Security guards are cogs. Excellence simply doesn't matter and so it wont help you. CxO on the other hand are very rare. Excellence is everything - you wont need go looking for a job, the head hunter will come looking for you. Yes, I took the very ends of the spectrum to make a point, but there's a lesson here. And if you've understood anything I was trying to get through, I can now answer your question: Luckily for you, you will not find Django listed in job credentials in the papers in next 6 months, probably not in the next 2 years. BUT, if you play your cards just right and take advantage of being able to be an expert in Django before it's huge and everyone know about it (and it will be) right from the beginning by being involved in building both the frame work and the first commercial users of it, you will have attained the position of not ever needing to look for a job again - you'll simply have to choose from the opportunities presented to you. I seriously doubt that. Currently, the web market in Israel is almost exclusively controlled by ASP.Net, even finding a PHP job (where PHP is at version 5 and has been in the commercial market for well over seven years) is difficult. I don't think that the marketplace will be demanding workers in any technology which is currently pre-release for at least 2 years, and the Israeli market - who knows. Do you have compelling arguments to the contrary? The market for interchangeable web site programmers is indeed controlled by ASP.Net drones. If you plan to be an interchangeable cog that should certainly be the technology to follow. If, however, you want be in a position to get the jobs that *aren't* listed in any paper or web site, to be bogged down by head hunters calling very politely every six month on the clock just to check in if you happen to fancy hearing about a new job opening and being able to pick and choose jobs because you are a rare and irreplaceable source of knowledge about a useful technology that is used by only the few biggest corporations and most sophisticated and cutting edge start-ups , then by all means do consider Django and Python. And BTW: kernel programmers aren't going to become cogs any time soon, but they aren't as rare as they once were too and it will only get worse (or better, depends were you stand). I believe now is NOT the best time time to go into this technology. Not a problem if you really like it because after all, kernel hacking is not web programming, but don't do it just for the sake of looking being rare. Anyway, if I have to go looking for a new job, it's really time for a change for me, and I don't want to miss this opportunity. If it's shifting bits around that lands me in a safe and interesting job, I am not afraid of it. I've been shifting bits when I was 14 years old and had a 99-byte emulator on a game console to play around with... ;) I never doubted for a minute
Re: Career advice needed
One thing's for sure, Gilad. If I needed to hire an excellent motivational speaker who gives irresistible sales pitches, I'd go for Steve Jobs. But failing that, I'll certainly ask for you. :) On 02/09/2007, at 00:29, Gilad Ben-Yossef wrote: Security guards are cogs. Excellence simply doesn't matter and so it wont help you. CxO on the other hand are very rare. Excellence is everything - you wont need go looking for a job, the head hunter will come looking for you. You failed to mention a crucial thing that get CxOs jobs - connections. People know about them. They have a nice black book of contacts from their previous jobs and military service which they maintain. They have people who owe them favors. That's how you get jobs in high positions, at least in this country. There is another logical fallacy here - is rarity the result of being part of an elite group of people, or a result of extinction? I must tell you that I can't find many FORTRAN77 jobs in the newspapers, either... When I finished the military I could write applications on MacOS. That was a rare skill. There was absolutely no demand for it. There still isn't. At least not in Israel. Israel is not the place to be exotic. BUT, if you play your cards just right and take advantage of being able to be an expert in Django before it's huge and everyone know about it (and it will be) right from the beginning by being involved in building both the frame work and the first commercial users of it, you will have attained the position of not ever needing to look for a job again - you'll simply have to choose from the opportunities presented to you. This is speculation. If I manage to hit the right seam of gold, I'd find myself in a great position. However, if the seam I happen to strike is a dry one, and turns out not to be in demand, what do you suggest I do? Fall back on LAMP? Move back in with my mother and live on her pension? The biggest gamble I've ever taken was 50 NIS for a lottery ticket. Losing 50 NIS won't hurt me. Losing six months worth of money and landing back in the LAMP dump is. The market for interchangeable web site programmers is indeed controlled by ASP.Net drones. If you plan to be an interchangeable cog that should certainly be the technology to follow. No, I have no intention of doing that, unless my rent is really at risk. If, however, you want be in a position to get the jobs that *aren't* listed in any paper or web site, to be bogged down by head hunters calling very politely every six month on the clock just to check in if you happen to fancy hearing about a new job opening and being able to pick and choose jobs because you are a rare and irreplaceable source of knowledge about a useful technology that is used by only the few biggest corporations and most sophisticated and cutting edge start-ups , then by all means do consider Django and Python. Um, you do remember that I said I want to work normal hours. That means both start-ups and huge companies are not exactly a tempter. Anyway, I must say your message left me more depressed than motivated. :( Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Herouth, Would like to learn MBA or marketing? Languages will change one another, but economic will lasts forever. Constantine. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On Sun, Sep 02, 2007 at 01:36:40AM +0300, Herouth Maoz wrote: You failed to mention a crucial thing that get CxOs jobs - connections. People know about them. They have a nice black book of contacts from their previous jobs and military service which they maintain. They have people who owe them favors. That's how you get jobs in high positions, at least in this country. O can second that. I have a friend who, without connections when the startup he was CFO for failed, he took a job as a security guard. He's been working 60-70 hours a week for 3 years until the next one happens. It's not been wasted time,he's done other things, such as tried to proscute a copyright thief, figured out the difference between a bad lawyer and a good one, a bad patent agent and a good one and how to tell BEFORE you hire them. He has been reading many texts on enterpenurial finance, writing business plans and starting a startup, and is writing a book on it for people starting their first startup. All of the books he has been able to find, websites, etc are all about doing it in the U.S. which barely applies. But without contacts, the only people beating a path to his door are looking for a meal. :-( BTW, when I was in the loop of starting startups, by the time they are at the stage they are getting their first real funding, they have long since found all of the people they need by connections. It's not until they have been around for a while that they are looking for random people off the street. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel [EMAIL PROTECTED] N3OWJ/4X1GM IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Herouth Maoz wrote: I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in an open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is - what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate a programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular (other than the web)? First of all, (good) web programmers have a high demand. What they do not have, unfortunately, is a high salary. The amount of not-so-good web programmers around means that it's very hard to differentiate yourself. The clients, usually, do not have the understanding to evaluate the quality of product they get, and the result is that good web programmers and not-so-good web programmers get paid, more or less, the same. Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no golden cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire). Not being enslaved is, more or less, only a matter of self control. If you refuse to be enslaved (but still deliver the goods), you will likely get along in all but huge companies and start-ups that are managed by control freaks. THE hottest skill today is Linux kernel programming (usually, but not always, drivers). If you know your stuff, there is no reason you won't be able to get enough skill within a couple of months to be able to get a job (which means you skill set improves while you're getting paid). This will also leave you with enough safety margin to change direction should you see that this one isn't working out. Whatever you do, be sure to select an area that interests you. You can get a decent paying job if you are skilled enough in just about any Linux related task, so if that particular area is not interesting to you, it is better to find a lower paying job elsewhere than to hate your job. Shachar = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Herouth Maoz wrote: Hello, fellow Linuxers. I'd like your advice regarding a job change. .. I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've been doing more integration work and problem solving than any web development .. I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in an open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is - what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate a programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular (other than the web)? Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no golden cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire). If the general web application area suites you, and you don't want to go all kernel hacking or some such, I'd seriously consider getting into Python and Django. Don't be afraid of learning a new language - you wont need to. I'm writing non trivial Django web applications and I don't actually know Python (though I'm learning it fast without noticing). In tandem, start getting involved with the Django project as much as you can: contribute code, documentation etc. Since Django is racing towards the 1.0 release (currently in 0.97-pre), you'll be getting in to in on this project at the best of time: a killer framework that dwarfs any thing else around in the field (save maybe to Ruby on Rails), which is already productive but still the best kept secret of the geeks. Sort of Linux in 2.2 days :-) If I'd have to bet my career on something in the web area or even general application development right now, Django would be it. Cheers, Gilad = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 31/08/2007, at 17:02, Gilad Ben-Yossef wrote: Since Django is racing towards the 1.0 release (currently in 0.97- pre), you'll be getting in to in on this project at the best of time: a killer framework that dwarfs any thing else around in the field (save maybe to Ruby on Rails), which is already productive but still the best kept secret of the geeks. Sort of Linux in 2.2 days :-) If I'd have to bet my career on something in the web area or even general application development right now, Django would be it. Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the career supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says Django? I seriously doubt that. Currently, the web market in Israel is almost exclusively controlled by ASP.Net, even finding a PHP job (where PHP is at version 5 and has been in the commercial market for well over seven years) is difficult. I don't think that the marketplace will be demanding workers in any technology which is currently pre-release for at least 2 years, and the Israeli market - who knows. Do you have compelling arguments to the contrary? Anyway, if I have to go looking for a new job, it's really time for a change for me, and I don't want to miss this opportunity. If it's shifting bits around that lands me in a safe and interesting job, I am not afraid of it. I've been shifting bits when I was 14 years old and had a 99-byte emulator on a game console to play around with... ;) Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 31/08/2007, at 16:44, Shachar Shemesh wrote: First of all, (good) web programmers have a high demand. What they do not have, unfortunately, is a high salary. The amount of not-so- good web programmers around means that it's very hard to differentiate yourself. The clients, usually, do not have the understanding to evaluate the quality of product they get, and the result is that good web programmers and not-so-good web programmers get paid, more or less, the same. Very true. Not just about the salaries, but also about the clients' inability to tell good work from bad. Not being enslaved is, more or less, only a matter of self control. If you refuse to be enslaved (but still deliver the goods), you will likely get along in all but huge companies and start-ups that are managed by control freaks. One cannot stuff 60 man-hours into a 45 hour week. If your bosses are willing to accept your time estimates and accept projects to suit your speed, it's great. But if they set up deadlines according to pressure from customers, and these deadlines mean one has to do 60 hours of work in one week, then insisting you can't means that you can't deliver the goods, and then, it's either the golden cage or the unemployment agency. THE hottest skill today is Linux kernel programming (usually, but not always, drivers). If you know your stuff, there is no reason you won't be able to get enough skill within a couple of months to be able to get a job (which means you skill set improves while you're getting paid). This will also leave you with enough safety margin to change direction should you see that this one isn't working out. Whatever you do, be sure to select an area that interests you. You can get a decent paying job if you are skilled enough in just about any Linux related task, so if that particular area is not interesting to you, it is better to find a lower paying job elsewhere than to hate your job. That sounds like good advice, and I'll keep it in mind. Thanks, Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On Friday 31 August 2007, Herouth Maoz wrote: Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the career supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says Django? I seriously doubt that. Can you even find jobs, today, where the skills required include Python? -- Dan Armak = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Shachar Shemesh wrote: Herouth Maoz wrote: I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in an open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is - what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate a programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular (other than the web)? First of all, (good) web programmers have a high demand. What they do not have, unfortunately, is a high salary. The amount of not-so-good web programmers around means that it's very hard to differentiate yourself. The clients, usually, do not have the understanding to evaluate the quality of product they get, and the result is that good web programmers and not-so-good web programmers get paid, more or less, the same. Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no golden cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire). Not being enslaved is, more or less, only a matter of self control. If you refuse to be enslaved (but still deliver the goods), you will likely get along in all but huge companies and start-ups that are managed by control freaks. this is true, _if_ you bring qualities that are hard to find. if you're one of the pack, you'll find it hard to justify going home on time in a company where everyone else stays late. however, there are companies where people don't stay at work more then 9 hours a day. i believe they are mostly to be found in the north - but there are such companies in gush dan as well. THE hottest skill today is Linux kernel programming (usually, but not always, drivers). If you know your stuff, there is no reason you won't be able to get enough skill within a couple of months to be able to get a job (which means you skill set improves while you're getting paid). This will also leave you with enough safety margin to change direction should you see that this one isn't working out. if someone spent several years in PHP, i don't think that within 2 month they can become skilled enough in kernel programming. if they were on a full-time job, then in 6 month they could get the hang of it enough to get another job. the switch from PHP to C in the kernel is quite large. one thing is true - since there are so few linux kernel programmers available, then mere mention of i've done a free software kernel project or even i read rubini's book and hacked on the book's drivers might be enough to get a job with linux kernel programming. but i think this is mostly true for two groups of people: - programmers with very little experience. - programmers with user-space experience on Unix systems. do note, however, that the market is not that large, and this situation might change (i.e. if more people start to shift to this small niche). by the wa - this is true for gush dan. in the north - there are close to zero open jobs for linux kernel programmers (i would say zero - but maybe someone had such job openings lately) --guy = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On Fri, 2007-08-31 at 19:39 +0300, Dan Armak wrote: On Friday 31 August 2007, Herouth Maoz wrote: Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the career supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says Django? I seriously doubt that. Can you even find jobs, today, where the skills required include Python? I've been in one such interview (granted they were using Jython mostly), and have heard of a couple of other such opportunities - but even Perl jobs are still more in demand and these are also a small minority. -- Oded = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 8/31/07, Oded Arbel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've been in one such interview (granted they were using Jython mostly), and have heard of a couple of other such opportunities - but even Perl jobs are still more in demand and these are also a small minority. It is not like in Java but we have this web site: http://jobs.perl.org.il/ Gabor http://www.szabgab.com/ = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
THE hottest skill today is Linux kernel programming (usually, but not always, drivers). If you know your stuff, there is no reason you won't be able to get enough skill within a couple of months to be able to get a job (which means you skill set improves while you're getting paid). This will also leave you with enough safety margin to change direction should you see that this one isn't working out. This could help you to learn the kernel: http://www.linuxdriver.co.il/kernel_map = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Herouth Maoz wrote: Sorry Maoz, but I don't have a good advice, but I can give you some pointers where to start your own research. http://www.job4me.net/ - a google lookalike web site which searches every Hi-tech company for their job offers. http://free-electrons.com/ - excellent web site which offers free training material mainly for embedded system. http://free-electrons.com/community/kernel/ - a good resource to learn about linux kernel/drivers development. http://janitor.kernelnewbies.org/ - A good place for kernel newbies. Also some PHP open source projects: http://gallery.menalto.com/ http://www.freepbx.org/ and of course a lot more I hope it will give you a better view of your options. Hello, fellow Linuxers. I'd like your advice regarding a job change. My company has been acquired. There is a chance that my boss won't stay around, and if so, I'm not going to stay around, either - because the chances are that the business will become yet-another-dotnet-based-web-portal. I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've been doing more integration work and problem solving than any web development (being the only one except our sysadmin who is not afraid of shell scripts). Now, this merger gives me a unique opportunity - I've been in my current company for 6 years, so I'm due a lot of compensation should I quit (quitting after an acquisition is considered being laid off), meaning I can basically keep my standard of living for at least 6 months without actually working. I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in an open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is - what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate a programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular (other than the web)? Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no golden cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire). Needless to say, I'm talking about Linux-oriented (or at least Unix) jobs here, I'm not looking to change to .Net, I don't even have a Windows box available at home. My CV in a nutshell: B.Sc. from 1989, military service doing application programming in environments that no longer exist, until 1994, then some tech support until 1996-7, and since then I've done web programming, at first in Java, then in PHP, though I did a refresher course in Java recently (but never got around to writing anything in it). Any advice will be appreciated. Sneers and jeers will not. :) Herouth = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Ravid Baruch Naali [EMAIL PROTECTED] +972 4 6732729 +972 52 5830021 = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
Herouth Maoz wrote: Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the career supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says Django? It greatly depends on an aspect you did not specify - employee or free lance? I can tell you about PHP that I'm sure it's extremely difficult to find work as a PHP programmer employee, but not at all difficult to do so as a free lance. Don't get me wrong. Free lance life is not for everyone. It's a constant roller coaster. If you have the nerves, you can really control your life this way. If not, go for employee. The best you can get, in that respect, is work for a (small?) consulting company. The nerves are someone else's, and you have (at least the illusion) of stability (none of Lingnu's employees are reading this thread, right?), while maintaining the flexibility of consulting work. Shachar = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 8/31/07, Herouth Maoz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, fellow Linuxers. I'd like your advice regarding a job change. My company has been acquired. There is a chance that my boss won't stay around, and if so, I'm not going to stay around, either - because the chances are that the business will become yet-another- dotnet-based-web-portal. I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've been doing more integration work and problem solving than any web development (being the only one except our sysadmin who is not afraid of shell scripts). Now, this merger gives me a unique opportunity - I've been in my current company for 6 years, so I'm due a lot of compensation should I quit (quitting after an acquisition is considered being laid off), meaning I can basically keep my standard of living for at least 6 months without actually working. I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in an open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is - what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate a programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular (other than the web)? Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no golden cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire). Needless to say, I'm talking about Linux-oriented (or at least Unix) jobs here, I'm not looking to change to .Net, I don't even have a Windows box available at home. My CV in a nutshell: B.Sc. from 1989, military service doing application programming in environments that no longer exist, until 1994, then some tech support until 1996-7, and since then I've done web programming, at first in Java, then in PHP, though I did a refresher course in Java recently (but never got around to writing anything in it). Any advice will be appreciated. Sneers and jeers will not. :) Herouth I recently had a talk with fellow colleges, I been told a story about company X that was looking for php software house under the following conditions: 1. They have more then 4 employees. 2. There in business for over 1 year. 3. They have a large php project to back their work. It seems that there were not even one decent company in Israel that would fall under these conditions. This was ~2 years ago. So they turned to .Net. I don't mean to be all too rude but: What about starting your own company? You definitely have the necessary experience, skill, motivation and with proper guidance/managements you could fill in a blank that is clearly missing here in the local market. I could even suggest this organization would be a hybrid of Django (which is getting hotter by the minute!) and php ajax software house. Do it in the open source way (i.e. keep using fresh FOSS technology, contribute back) and there's surly a bright future ahead. Maxim. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Cheers, Maxim Veksler Free as in Freedom - Do u GNU ? = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 08:35:25PM +0300, guy keren wrote: by the wa - this is true for gush dan. in the north - there are close to zero open jobs for linux kernel programmers (i would say zero - but maybe someone had such job openings lately) I know of at least two companies in the north where Linux kernel programmers will be appreciated. I also know several companies which are hiring remote Linux kernel programmers. Feel free to ping me off-list. Cheers, Muli = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Career advice needed
On 31/08/2007, Herouth Maoz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've Short of doing a whole switch to kernel programming (or switch to becoming an airline pilot, which is what a friend of mine did and I wish I could :), you might want to consider expanding your existing skills towards related ones - SQL database design and programming should be useful in many places. Also I'm not sure about the market in Israel but I see demand for Perl programmers abroad (for all sorts of stuff, including web, system and application programming and system administration). Also taking this opportunity to learn administrative skills should pay off in any career you choose, IMHO. Good luck, --Amos
