Question for programmers....

[TheFaQQer]

I'm a long way past 35 and still love programming. I think those who lose interest are the ones who took it up because "it seemed like a good career". They're usually not very good at it anyway, so it's hardly surprising they get fed up.

If you do it because you find it fascinating, challenging, and fun then you're unlikely to suddenly, or even gradually, lose interest.

I gradually lose interest on all the projects I work on - from my first one when I was 23 though to the current one. When I hit the point where I've lost too much interest, I move onto the next challenge.

[TheFaQQer]

Did you know that IT professionals earn on average £35kp.a.?

Someone else quoted that figure the other day.

It's what I earned when I left Oracle after six years as a consultant.

[VectraMan]

I was a bit sick to death of development a few years ago, then I left my job and became a contractor and I've generally enjoyed it a lot more since. Probably because of the variation you get as a contractor.

What I'm doing now isn't thrilling, but I'm not sure what else I'd do that I'd enjoy more. I don't think I could hack being a PM: I'd be completely bored on day one, plus I'm just not dishonest enough to charge that much money for not contributing anything.

[Shimano105]

I hated dev work until I got into some good VB6 projects.

Don't laugh, this was late 90s. Oh ok do laugh then.

I then started to hate it more and more as my 'skills' were getting less and less relevant and to try and change track was seeming to be more and more of an impossibility. Eventually I started to learn the new stuff, took a few exams (just to prove to myself that I could do it) and started to immerse myself in all the blogs and such out there on t'web.

Now I have got a contract using it I feel part of the cool stuff again and feel revitalised.

So if you want to keep interested in coding you need to keep reading and reskilling on an almost daily basis. Let it go stale and you'll hate it.

[voodooflux]

So if you want to keep interested in coding you need to keep reading and reskilling on an almost daily basis. Let it go stale and you'll hate it.

Optimum hammer nail interface there. That's one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.

[PAH]

Did you know that IT professionals earn on average £35kp.a.?

Is that good or bad, when compared to other industries that typically require a degree or equivalent?

[PAH]

So if you want to keep interested in coding you need to keep reading and reskilling on an almost daily basis. Let it go stale and you'll hate it.

How do we know which of the cutting edge stuff is actually worth getting into, incase it turns out to be a turkey that is useless on your CV?

Seems a lot of companies are a few years behind the 'cutting edge', some a long way behind.

[PAH]

I was a bit sick to death of development a few years ago, then I left my job and became a contractor and I've generally enjoyed it a lot more since. Probably because of the variation you get as a contractor.

Funny thing is it's easy to keep getting renewed (ok, maybe not so easy in a recession ), so you eventually outlast some of the permies on your team.

Never had a contract that lasted under a year, despite them all being 3 monthers initially. So it's the thought that someday soon I'll be moving on that keeps me going, even though it might not be quite so soon really.

Don't think I could stand being at the same company for more than 2-3 years, there's no challenge anymore, unless you're lucky and they have a lot of varied projects on offer.

[PAH]

Connect 4.

[Shimano105]

PAH, wot I did:

decide to use .NET - learn c#
decide to look at ASP.Net - learn the following additionally:

MVC approach,
XML, XSLT, XPATH

need to improve client side knowledge - learn the following:

XHTML, CSS, jscript, jquery, investigate layout with these and best practice for standards compliance

get familiar with dev tools:

XMLSpy, Notepad++

Read up on:

Design Patterns, Test Driven development, XP methods, Continuous Integration etc.
Learn NUnit, Nant, NCover, CruiseControl, FXCop etc.

So you see, plenty to go at, all driven by decision to go down a particular path and exploring all the offshoots. Still loads more to learn as well.

Can't see that all the above could be taken care of by IronSpeed or any other generator. I do use some of the generation tools as well to avoid duplication and donkey work.