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derFunkenstein
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:17 am

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whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:23 am

derFunkenstein wrote:
https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/compare/

Thanks, I just D/L it and let us see if it will work in Wine.
 
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:30 am

Got a feeling it won't work well that way but I use it in a VM (no VB support or Windows Forms in the Mac version) on my Mac. You can get Windows for free through Microsoft Imagine and use Virtual Box to run it in a VM. No money that way.
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whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:45 am

derFunkenstein wrote:
Got a feeling it won't work well that way but I use it in a VM (no VB support or Windows Forms in the Mac version) on my Mac. You can get Windows for free through Microsoft Imagine and use Virtual Box to run it in a VM. No money that way.

Yeah no dice. Looks like I'm going to have to install Windows either on bare metal or a VM wither I want to or not.
 
SecretSquirrel
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:49 am

whm1974 wrote:
OK some of the impressions I'm getting from this thread is that a lot of schools don't teach C and Assembly or at least they not are required courses to take. I'm under the impression that an understanding of both makes for better developers. I'm also of the thought that knowing both C and C++ will allow one to write for any platform.

I feel that knowing both C and C++ will help my career since my longer term goal is game development.


Then you better start learning. With perhaps a few exceptions, none of you classes are going to teach you a language. You aren't going to have C++ programming 101 or C programming 202. You might find those in trade school type program, but in my experience, they are rare in a four year university program. Instead, you care going to have a Data Structures class when the professor expects you to use C++, or and Operating Systems class where you are expected to use C, or a UI class where you are expected to use C#, etc. You will be expected to learn those languages on you own in the space of a week or two, to a sufficient level to do you class work.

Many years ago, I went through a computer engineering program. We had exactly one programming class -- Introduction to Computer Systems Engineering. It taught you the basics of C programming. All the other classes were focused on concepts and the programming and language was a tool you used to learn the concept.

--SS
 
whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:56 am

SecretSquirrel wrote:
whm1974 wrote:
OK some of the impressions I'm getting from this thread is that a lot of schools don't teach C and Assembly or at least they not are required courses to take. I'm under the impression that an understanding of both makes for better developers. I'm also of the thought that knowing both C and C++ will allow one to write for any platform.

I feel that knowing both C and C++ will help my career since my longer term goal is game development.


Then you better start learning. With perhaps a few exceptions, none of you classes are going to teach you a language. You aren't going to have C++ programming 101 or C programming 202. You might find those in trade school type program, but in my experience, they are rare in a four year university program. Instead, you care going to have a Data Structures class when the professor expects you to use C++, or and Operating Systems class where you are expected to use C, or a UI class where you are expected to use C#, etc. You will be expected to learn those languages on you own in the space of a week or two, to a sufficient level to do you class work.

Many years ago, I went through a computer engineering program. We had exactly one programming class -- Introduction to Computer Systems Engineering. It taught you the basics of C programming. All the other classes were focused on concepts and the programming and language was a tool you used to learn the concept.

--SS

Ah. Not that is more clearer. I guess I should learn the concepts well then. Well then, I'm going to really busy the rest of the year beginning in summer.
 
derFunkenstein
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 8:36 am

whm really if you start now it'll be so much easier this summer. Don't wait to be shown the ropes.

SecretSquirrel wrote:
Then you better start learning. With perhaps a few exceptions, none of you classes are going to teach you a language. You aren't going to have C++ programming 101 or C programming 202. You might find those in trade school type program, but in my experience, they are rare in a four year university program. Instead, you care going to have a Data Structures class when the professor expects you to use C++, or and Operating Systems class where you are expected to use C, or a UI class where you are expected to use C#, etc. You will be expected to learn those languages on you own in the space of a week or two, to a sufficient level to do you class work.

Many years ago, I went through a computer engineering program. We had exactly one programming class -- Introduction to Computer Systems Engineering. It taught you the basics of C programming. All the other classes were focused on concepts and the programming and language was a tool you used to learn the concept.

--SS

A four-year program might be that way, but down here in the community college world it's all about getting you ready for the majority of entry-level development jobs by teaching specific languages. My program requires introductory courses that very specifically teach Java or C++ (whatever your preference), C#, Visual Basic, and Python. Specific SQL implementations like Oracle PL-SQL and Microsoft TSQL. APIs like Windows Forms and WPF. They're weed-out courses that eliminate people from contending for the more advanced courses (which I'm finally into). Those get into the concepts of things like data structures and algorithms. I have a feeling his experience will be closer to mine than it is to anybody here that went through a 4-year program.
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whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 8:44 am

I guess I'll start now. I have find to where I put that C introductory manual I D/L a while back...
 
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:31 am

toastie wrote:

As for the pay, Development is a lot better than Tech Support, and I'm pretty sure that in 10 years, most support jobs will be replaced by AI systems of some sort anyway.


I agree except for those people who can diagnose and repair.
As soon as most support is able to be done by AI all those level 1 jobs will go poof and good number of level 2 jobs with it. Level 3 support will still be staffed by humans. Talk about contraction in a job market!
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 10:07 am

Waco wrote:
SQL is a fun (and not simple at all) dive into efficient queries. I'm a bit out of touch - do dev degrees include assembly, C, or anything low-level these days? I'm always short on developers that actually understand how hardware works. :(


No, anything coming out of CS buildings totally ignore that for awhile now. Some CE programs still pay attention to it because they have to, although there are some pretend-CE that are basically CS schools now.
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 10:15 am

Aranarth wrote:
toastie wrote:
As for the pay, Development is a lot better than Tech Support, and I'm pretty sure that in 10 years, most support jobs will be replaced by AI systems of some sort anyway.

I agree except for those people who can diagnose and repair.
As soon as most support is able to be done by AI all those level 1 jobs will go poof and good number of level 2 jobs with it. Level 3 support will still be staffed by humans. Talk about contraction in a job market!

Yeah, our L3 people are good. IMO most of them could easily move into a network/system admin role, or even into development. But this is L3 support for a pretty technical product (large-scale, enterprise-grade data storage systems). Although I'm on the R&D side of the house, one of the hats I wear is effectively L4; I'm one of the people L3 comes to if there's something that has them stumped.
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:43 am

Bauxite wrote:
Waco wrote:
SQL is a fun (and not simple at all) dive into efficient queries. I'm a bit out of touch - do dev degrees include assembly, C, or anything low-level these days? I'm always short on developers that actually understand how hardware works. :(


No, anything coming out of CS buildings totally ignore that for awhile now. Some CE programs still pay attention to it because they have to, although there are some pretend-CE that are basically CS schools now.

Did you read my reply to Waco?

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=120628#p1376059
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whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:31 pm

Well I found the www.wikibooks.org manual I was using late last year. Started this morning.
 
whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:02 pm

I don't why I didn't think of this last year, but I just looked at Amazon free kindle books section and D/L two C language books. Looks like I will be really busy the rest of the year.
 
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:12 pm

Once you start you won't be able to stop. You'll just have to be in learning mode.

I couldn't take any summer classes so I spent about $50 on Udemy for two C# classes and a Xamarin Forms class. A couple months later, my hobby became my job and starting in September I was working full time to rewrite the project I was working on to pretty it to Xamarin. It ships next week, pending a last round of QA.
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whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:25 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
Once you start you won't be able to stop. You'll just have to be in learning mode.

I couldn't take any summer classes so I spent about $50 on Udemy for two C# classes and a Xamarin Forms class. A couple months later, my hobby became my job and starting in September I was working full time to rewrite the project I was working on to pretty it to Xamarin. It ships next week, pending a last round of QA.

Good luck with the project.
 
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:26 pm

whm1974 wrote:
Yeah no dice. Looks like I'm going to have to install Windows either on bare metal or a VM wither I want to or not.


Check out Visual Studio Code. https://code.visualstudio.com/

It's a cross platform Electron app, and it has lots of plugins for various languages, including C#. It's also simpler them Visual Studio, which can be a good thing.
 
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:52 pm

FlamingSpaceJunk wrote:
whm1974 wrote:
Yeah no dice. Looks like I'm going to have to install Windows either on bare metal or a VM wither I want to or not.


Check out Visual Studio Code. https://code.visualstudio.com/

It's a cross platform Electron app, and it has lots of plugins for various languages, including C#. It's also simpler them Visual Studio, which can be a good thing.

Installed
 
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:05 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
Once you start you won't be able to stop. You'll just have to be in learning mode.

I couldn't take any summer classes so I spent about $50 on Udemy for two C# classes and a Xamarin Forms class. A couple months later, my hobby became my job and starting in September I was working full time to rewrite the project I was working on to pretty it to Xamarin. It ships next week, pending a last round of QA.

So how much do you hate Product Managers (me) and Marketing now?
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:12 pm

Everyone hates marketing, except for the people in marketing. And they're just weird. :P
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whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:39 pm

Redocbew wrote:
Everyone hates marketing, except for the people in marketing. And they're just weird. :P

I have yet to have the misfortune of dealing with marketing guys, and with all of the bad stuff I've heard about them, I'm not sure if I want to.
 
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Sat Feb 10, 2018 12:54 am

It's not that bad really. Marketing just has different priorities than engineering does. As an engineer I don't have some grand vision for the project or the company. I don't pretend I'm building a road from the present to the future. I want to fix the pot holes in the road. :P
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Sat Feb 10, 2018 1:03 am

Marketing guys are there to convince customers the pot holes don't exist...
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Sat Feb 10, 2018 7:46 am

Real quick: the original point was don't wait for class. If you're interested in something, there's tons of other options. Always learn and make yourself more valuable. :D

DancinJack wrote:
So how much do you hate Product Managers (me) and Marketing now?
I had *been* hating them for a long time, really since I took over this project in late 2015. :lol: No matter what this page might tell you, Genero Mobile apps are not both native and beautiful. If you go the native route, the Android app will look like some Ice Cream Sandwich holdover. Instead, the guy that got this thing off the ground before me chose to go HTML/CSS/JS for the front end and it was kludgy, especially on Android. But it looked decent, at least.

And good luck finding help online if you get stuck. The only 4JS or Genero Mobile questions on Stack Exchange are mine, and they never got replies. Better yet, their support told me that relatively basic things weren't possible. I've never been so glad to have to start over.

Waco wrote:
Marketing guys are there to convince customers the pot holes don't exist...

Or sometimes it's L1 support's job. :p
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whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Sat Feb 10, 2018 7:57 am

derFunkenstein wrote:
Real quick: the original point was don't wait for class. If you're interested in something, there's tons of other options. Always learn and make yourself more valuable. :D

Thanks I started reading one of the books I D/L on C last night. Btw what languages skills have the highest demand? I really want to get into Linux application and game development.
 
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Sat Feb 10, 2018 8:10 am

Redocbew wrote:
It's not that bad really. Marketing just has different priorities than engineering does. As an engineer I don't have some grand vision for the project or the company. I don't pretend I'm building a road from the present to the future. I want to fix the pot holes in the road. :P

The problem is, sometimes marketing's vision of that road is orthogonal to reality. In a well-run organization, marketing and R&D/engineering have a cooperative relationship; when that breaks down, that "road to the future" is littered with so many potholes that it ends up being unusable. :wink:

Developers, managers, and marketing types alike also need to read The Mythical Man-Month. Sadly, it is still just as relevant today as when it was originally published over 4 decades ago.

True story (I've actually lived through variations of this multiple times throughout my career, this is but one example):

"Yes, we know these goals are pretty ambitious, but the first step is to double your development staff. It'll be fine!"
-- new corporate overlords

Famous last words.

So you spend the next 3 months interviewing and hiring a hundred new developers (while dealing with a completely new and poorly understood hiring process, since the company has just been acquired); the 3 months after that training the new hires (never mind that much of your development environment is ad-hoc and the documentation for said environment and the existing code base is... "sub-optimal"); then factor in multiple office moves affecting the entire R&D staff (once to temporary facilities, then again back to the newly remodeled original facility), revamping of the corporate network to integrate it into the parent corporate network, resource shortages (build servers, test servers, power and cooling to accommodate more servers to alleviate the lack of servers) due to the doubling of R&D staff, and the fact that the people who were there prior to the hiring binge still had to spend a large percentage of their time supporting the existing product.

A year later, I'd guesstimate that we were finally back to the approximate level of productivity we'd had a year prior, and things (mostly) continued to get better from there. But in the meantime we blew all of the original estimates by a wide margin. Go figure. :roll:
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whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Sat Feb 10, 2018 8:15 am

I'm going to have to get a copy of that book as I've been hearing about it for years now.
 
derFunkenstein
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Sat Feb 10, 2018 10:04 am

whm1974 wrote:
derFunkenstein wrote:
Real quick: the original point was don't wait for class. If you're interested in something, there's tons of other options. Always learn and make yourself more valuable. :D

Thanks I started reading one of the books I D/L on C last night. Btw what languages skills have the highest demand? I really want to get into Linux application and game development.

If your focus is Linux I'd have to think C++ would be the best place to start. C is for kernel development (and probably some other lower-level uses) these days.
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Sat Feb 10, 2018 10:17 am

derFunkenstein wrote:
C is for kernel development (and probably some other lower-level uses) these days.

Anything that's severely resource constrained. Embedded microcontrollers and such. There's a good chance your car, microwave, washing machine, thermostat, network switch, digital kitchen thermometer, etc. are running C code in some cheap-ass 16-bit (possibly even 8-bit...) microcontrollers to control low-level functions.
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whm1974
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Re: Application development or Help Desk, both?

Sat Feb 10, 2018 10:33 am

Thanks guys, you have been very helpful. I'm wondering how many extra courses I will have to take in order to reach my goals?

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