O.T. any computer programers out there

old hermit

Member
If so can one of you give me a list of good books to help learn about this. im in school for it right now doing visual basic and im having lots of trouble with it. the book i have and also using is Step by Step Visual Basic 6.0. if someone can help i would appreciate it a whole lot. the teachers at my school suck and act like you either have it or you dont and apparently they think i dont so im on my own.:rolleyes:
 

bang guy

Moderator
My best advice would be to invest some serious time into the first part of your book again. Write the Objects over repeatedly adding different options each time. Repetition will help. Once you get behind in class you can't catch up by going forward. You must go back and revisit previous sections of the book.
Guy
 

jarre

Member
I agree with you Bang Guy!
I usually recommend Beginning Visual Basic by Peter Wright (Wrox Press). I've used it here to train a couple of people and suggest reading and following the first 9 chapters.
Then take a small project using the button control. With each button make the form background change to the color specified on the button face. The color and amount of buttons to use is you're choice.
Then take that small project and start appling it to different controls. ie: (Option Buttons, then Array of Option Buttons, then list box, etc) When you are comfortable with doing this project with the various basic controls then design a small project that is totally for you and design it using these controls.
I hope this helps. I've found the process to be helpful to others.
 

old hermit

Member
thanks both of you for the help. i am getting visual studio this weekend i hope to work at home too. now i have another question. when you went into a new job just out of school did you struggle. i am really worried about that. i can make the grades and get through but i dont know if it is enought to apply it to a job very well. i had 12 months (6 left now) to get through GW Basic, HTML, Visual Basic, C, C++, and Java. cramming all those classes into a 12 month period is making it rough, and i dont think i will know these languages like i should. sorry for all the questions im just getting worried about the whole thing. Thanks again.
 

jarre

Member
Well, when I got into the field from school I went into operations and from there programming. While in operations I spent most of my time at home working on the OLD computer. (It was an 8086 4.77 Mhz!! :D) The server at work was a Novel 286 8 Mhz and it was the fastest on the market at the time. My how things have changed!!!!!
I did struggle, but at the same time I was the project manager, programmer, documenter, etc and there was a ton of pressure on me to do well. I'm so damned tenious that I was able to accomplish the job and learned basic (DOS based) very, very well.
Instead of being concerned about what you know it may be best for you to consider the quality of what you know. I own this company and hired a guy today. He has one more class before he graduates. I didn't hire him for the amount of languages or how much of any one language he knew. I hired him on what I think is his ability to apply what he knows and his ability to learn. Most employers that I know of hire based on the ability to learn when they are looking for someone fresh out of school.
Hope that helps to answer your question.
 

iceburger

Member
jarre,
I am currently in college (Freshman) I'm currently majoring in computer sciences and minoring in political sciences.....anyway my question is, what kind of computer bussiness are you running and also what is the norm starting pay for a programmer... as soon as i graduate i have a job waiting for me at NCR, starting at 100k a year, that is if i graduate with a 3.5 GPA but anyway, I have yet to look at any other jobs, since it will be another 3 1/2 years untill i hit the job market.......J/W...
 

jarre

Member
That's quite an interesting minor to go along with CS! I've taken a few Political Sceince courses and found them very interesting!
The starting salary varies greatly. There are a tremendous amount of variables involved. What is a freshman doing with an offer of 100k? That is very unusal unless you have some really good connections!!
I'm a service bureau for list brokers. I maintain company advertising (telemarketing and direct mail) databases and store compiler list which are use for fulfillment. The database size varies from 6,000,000 to 150,000,000 name list.
It's rather interesting when you think about the technology. I'm running on a client/server platform and competing again mainframes. Thus far I'm doing well and growing. Especially since I can pull any zipcode in the US in less than a second from the largest list here.
I'm the guy everyone loves to HATE!! Including me at times!!! LOL :p
 

tangman99

Active Member

Originally posted by iceburger
jarre,
I am currently in college (Freshman) I'm currently majoring in computer sciences and minoring in political sciences.....anyway my question is, what kind of computer bussiness are you running and also what is the norm starting pay for a programmer... as soon as i graduate i have a job waiting for me at NCR, starting at 100k a year, that is if i graduate with a 3.5 GPA but anyway, I have yet to look at any other jobs, since it will be another 3 1/2 years untill i hit the job market.......J/W...

Dude, I assume you know someone at NCR who is going to take care of you and if so, you have an awsome advantage. I know people who have been in I.T. for many years that don't make 6 figures. Actually, if you look at the salary surveys (take them with a grain of salt) most people don't make 6 figures.
It also depends on where you live. 100K in San Francisco is not a lot of money. You have to consider the cost of living for the job location.
As far as struggling out of school, I think everyone goes through the enlightning phase where you come to terms with the fact that real world is nothing like what you learned in college. You get to work on real teams with people that you wonder how they dress themselves in the morning and that office politics can often determine your career success more than what you know. Don't oversell yourself out of school and you should be fine. Take some internships and get some real workplace experience.
Keep your mind open to the I.T. world also. There are a lot of other things instead of programming. I was a programmer for about 8 years and loved it, but I did hit burnout a few times. Most of the people I know making the huge dollars these days are DBA's and UNIX administrators or specialty people like Peoplesoft and Sieble (sp.). I left the employee phase of my life a couple of years ago and I work as an Independent Consultant through my own company now.
Good luck,
Tangman :D
 

q

Member
I am currently getting into PC stuff too.
For some reason I got it in my head that I wanted to host websites.
Man talk about a shock. Anyways I am just finishing up a CSS book and am 2/3 through my JavaScript book. Next up is Linux and apache. Then PHP, MySQL, ModPerl, Java, and eventually C++.
If you havn't done it allready try finding a good BB for the subject. Sometimes you will find just the thing you need to get things clicking.
Good luck,
 

jarre

Member
There are several good IRC Channels for Linux and Unix out there. I don't use them but understand there on Dalnet.
 

iceburger

Member
well, yes i do have somewhat of a connection.....my cousin is way up there in the company, not sure what his title is........and he's only 3 years out of college (althogh he did go to yale) the reason I was offered this is because he already knows what i can do, we've worked together on many things before college and what have you...so i guess i'll be working my butt off some more and get this job heh........ then i can get one hell of a reef tank lol
 

danrw84

Active Member
ive got a big folder full of ebooks somewhere...and i know theres a bunch of visual basic books too. If you need the program for your computer, i have it laying around in some folder as well, if you have a fast connection ;)
 

q

Member
Jarre: What is the going rate for a T1. I checked into it a few months ago and I came up with a quote of like 600 - 700 per month.
 

jarre

Member
I'm paying $600 a month with a three year contract. I've also have voice and data mixed. Whenever I received a call I loss 64k of bandwidth and then pick it back up when the call is over. That goes for each line on the phone system.
 

jarre

Member
Q - I just noticed you have a Euro-Reef PS. How do you like it? I've got a CS 12-1 that will be used for the two new systems I'm putting together. Both will use the same sump, fug, etc.
 
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