Listen to I just have to say this for everybody else out there there is no serverless design it's not like the fucking things running in JavaScript on the clients there are servers the whole name is stupid come up with a better name for service man it's not serverless God help us
I am certain we could easily create this using websockets and p2p browser data streams... whos coming with me? Crowd fund me and i will release a prototype
From my experience in the last year-and-a-half I would say that the Consulting model is changing to one where the developer team is an outsourced arm from the business yet it's an invaluable part of the business. For example there's a company called clear measure who I believe are looking at driving the bottom line and creating a long-term relationship where growth in the client results in higher profits for the Consulting company through either raising their rates or some other agreement. I know personally as an independent contractor my Approach is to look at how I can affect driving business growth and not so much understanding what the client is asking for as a programming task
Well I wonder who the PE team is because perhaps they see value that exists intrinsically in quality programmers that know how to design software both quickly and at a high quality level and engineer it in a way that it can be built-in iterations and refined into a maintainable system.
For example someone like Joel Spolsky could probably find a way to drive profits from the TW team and so maybe its a programmer that knows business behind the PE money.
You know as a programmer myself for the last 15 years I can see how the market has changed and everything is becoming part of the global economy which means the rates are a lot lower which means Ukraine and India are playing a bigger and bigger role I could see private Equity trying to lower costs by outsourcing.
I think there's a fundamental flaw in the idea that you can just pay for cheaper labor- as Steve Jobs has said before the difference in a good programmer and an outstanding programmer can be 50 to 1 or 100 to 1 you can't capture that by trying to cut your cost from $100 an hour to $20 an hour.
Software inherently is one of the most scalable business models in the world the cost of manufacturing is almost zero all of the cost is in the design they should be able to make money. The mindset of being a consulting firm has to be changed.
This is stupid its funny how long I keep it going. It's a little stressful when your trying to get your characters quota typed out and you have to keep selecting other modal windows but all in all it feels like "I am on track" with my fake work life.
Your guess is as good as mine. What would you do to someone that used their money to take away home land that has been in your family for generations because you didn't have the right paper work to prove your ownership in a court of law.
Living out here you realize that the bodies are not buried in dirt.
I live on Kauai. I moved here 5 years ago from Canada. I can tell you most people don't understand Hawaii has a much different culture, history and people than "mainland" America.
Mark is making a huge mistake. The people on this island in particular are much more community and heart based. The fundamental mistake Mark is making is that he is entering into a lose-lose situation. This will NEVER be forgotten and he will NEVER be welcome here. He will always have to watch his back while he is here.
In my opinion his best course of action is to stop all law suits and make amends. People will forgive him for making a mistake but only if he can admit it first. This is not California. The island will "spit him out".
Kauai is known for being the last island of Aloha. Good luck Mark.
I am 36 and been contracting full time since I was 22. Really I was only an employee at my first programming job. The concern that you have is of technology stack. The concern you are alluding to is how to stay relevant when being an older person.
The first concern is easy. Stick with some fundamentals. JavaScript for example is a perfect choice. By now we should all know JavaScript and another example is the Dom API’s. Those are solid gold. CSS of course and after that your good to go learn some cool framework like ReactJS.
Given that you know C then C# is likey to be your best friend. I have stuck with .NET since its release in Feb 2002 and always have been a productive developer. I have used every version of Visual Studio.
So after drawing a few boxes around things the world gets smaller. .NET was just ported to linux and renamed Dot Net Core 1.0 with it’s first release expected soon. So I would say .NET is as safe a bet as any. Of course there is the small challenge that .NET isn’t cool in the start-up world. That is mostly due to haters having to hate and not based on merit.
So the technology choices get easier and easier if you start to zero in. Dot Net has an MVC framework which is at version 6 but I think maybe renamed to Core 1.0 as well.
Your tech stack isn’t a problem. Stick with those and you will find something. As for your hourly rate I can tell you from experience the global market is making it very competitive so suck that up.
As for getting too old to program that is not actually the question. The question to ask yourself is can you find and follow your excitement. We are in the golden age. There are a few leading edge sources which deal with this. I love Bashar and Abraham-Hicks. To quote Bashar
“When you understand what excitement is, you'll understand why you don't have to look at every little detail to know what to do.
Your excitement is telling you that's the next thing you need to do. Following your excitement is actually the shortest path to what you want.
Act on your joy to the best of your ability. If you look at all your options and realize that taking a walk or driving your car or calling a friend is the most exciting, then THAT is the thing to do. When you can take no more further action on that thing, then look around for the next exciting thing you have the greatest ability to take action on and do it.
Excitement is its own self contained kit and its own driving engine.”
- Rob