Stoked this is coming to my city.....

Also remember now people in trades pay virtually no taxes, none of them report cash or personal checks... My brother could not qualify for a mtg his GF had to get it but he has tons of cash so much so he's building an 80's style arcade in his basement, skeeball, Mortal Combat, Off Road, PacMan, Demolition derby (table top 4 player), Sega Rally, Out Run etc.

Do you know there are people whose job is Dave and Busters... They master the games, win ipads then sell them on craig's list... You can make 100k a year if there are a few DMBs near you as they don't like you taking them for more than 2 ipads per week... They roll in during the day with pads and pen and they keep stats on their winning percents, they know which games to play and which to avoid. They read the manuals online to get an edge, they even talk to other under ground players about what is paying what. One guy does it twice a week and has a regular job, he's making 50k a year doing it. Two ipads per week..

Also remember now people in trades pay virtually no taxes, none of them report cash or personal checks... My brother could not qualify for a mtg his GF had to get it but he has tons of cash so much so he's building an 80's style arcade in his basement, skeeball, Mortal Combat, Off Road, PacMan, Demolition derby (table top 4 player), Sega Rally, Out Run etc.

Do you know there are people whose job is Dave and Busters... They master the games, win ipads then sell them on craig's list... You can make 100k a year if there are a few DMBs near you as they don't like you taking them for more than 2 ipads per week... They roll in during the day with pads and pen and they keep stats on their winning percents, they know which games to play and which to avoid. They read the manuals online to get an edge, they even talk to other under ground players about what is paying what. One guy does it twice a week and has a regular job, he's making 50k a year doing it. Two ipads per week..

damn i need in on that shit.. and that arcade basement sounds sick .. id never leave

Tech, what the hell is the difference between a programmer, a developer and a software engineer?

Those all mean roughly the same thing. "Computer programmer" is a term that dates back to the origin of the general-purpose computer. These days the term is a little archaic. People who talk about "programmers" or "coders" these days are generally referring to the lowest level on the totem pole.

"Software engineer" is also an old term that isn't used very much any more. It dates back to the days when software was considered kind of an afterthought by electronic engineers. This term became even less popular with the advent of software development methodologies that reject traditional engineering wisdom, like agile software development.

"Software developer" is the most recent term and the most common these days. It became more popular as software emerged as a distinct field from electronic engineering, with more in common with mathematics than with engineering.

Agreed...and so my question is why are not any more students aspiring to be programmers, developers and software engineers?

That question absolutely baffles me also. I completely do not understand why it's so amazingly difficult to hire a software developer.

We have known for decades that people who could build software would be in high demand. We have had high unemployment in our country for the last four years, during which time the unemployment rate among software developers has been basically zero. So why aren't there more people learning to write code? It's really mind boggling and I don't understand it.

Software development is and always will be somewhat experimental...and maybe that's what we can't wrap our heads around?

IMHO it's like the question of why girls don't do as well on math tests as boys. It's mainly because they think that they're not supposed to do as well. In the same way, when people see computer code, it reminds them of math. And most people are conditioned to think that math is hard. So their eyes glaze over when they see even the simplest of computer code.

This:

Code: Select all

def add(x, y)
  x + y
end


...may as well be this:

Screen Shot 2012-06-04 at 2.58.49 PM.png (10.4 KiB) Viewed 316 times

People allow themselves to see those two things as equivalent, when really the first one just says "the value of add(x,y) is x + y." But lots of people just see 'math' and they don't even try to understand the code. They just assume that it's too hard for them. Like a little girl brainwashed by her Barbie doll that tells her, "Math is hard!"

I been meaning to try with that ruby on rails website. What do you think of that site?

I'm not sure which site you mean. But I definitely recommend starting at http://TryRuby.org and then moving on to http://RailsForZombies.org if you're interested in learning about Ruby on Rails development. I used both sites, plus training videos from Peepcode to train my latest new developer. He is now a full-time, professional web software developer after about six months.

I'm not sure which site you mean. But I definitely recommend starting at http://TryRuby.org and then moving on to http://RailsForZombies.org if you're interested in learning about Ruby on Rails development. I used both sites, plus training videos from Peepcode to train my latest new developer. He is now a full-time, professional web software developer after about six months.

Does he still post on the 'Occupy' site?

No, I keep him very busy these days. He never posted much there anyway. He just read what I posted there, about how maybe some of the people putting all of that energy into protesting against unemployment should put some energy into developing marketable new job skills instead. So he did, and now he has a full-time telecommuting gig and a career in a high-demand industry.

There are new trainees on the horizon though, and they're also on the TryRuby -> RailsForZombies -> Peepcode training path.

There are new trainees on the horizon though, and they're also on the TryRuby -> RailsForZombies -> Peepcode training path.

I remember you recommending those sites, but how many companies other than yourself would hire some Occupier off the street who's education is only based on a couple websites?

If you're hiring software talent then you don't care about diplomas or GPAs, you only care about what people can do. That's common. There are lots of self-trained professionals in software who do really well. The DJ who I hired from TNL who now makes $85/hr was also self-trained. All of the best are self-trained to some extent because there aren't formal schools for all of the bleeding-edge technology so we're all constantly self-training or else we're useless and obsolete in a few months.

I made the Occupier prove that he could do it by publishing a site to my specifications on Heroku. That simple test eliminated 99.9999....% of the population. He invested the time in learning to do that, and succeeded, so I invested more in training him to do more. He successfully learned more so I invested more in his training. That cycle continued for months and now he's full-time and he's responsible for a project of his own.

I learned the basics of what I do in school, however I will say I learned so much more by doing. School didn't teach me how to shoot in pitch-black environments, I had to go out and do that myself.