41–50 of 54 posts
But without a college degree, experience or a stack of projects in my pocket no one is going to believe me. Step 1: figure out which of this is easiest to change. Hint: it's "stack of projects". Step 2: change it. Yay, github.
EDIT: "our" startup We've always got room at the lodge: http://gdkr.ma/LodgingSociety Seriously, we're always welcoming hackers to come hang with us in NY. We put you up, give you plenty of your own time to work on what you want, and ask for a part time contribution to our startup. Hit me up if that interests you, Adrian
If I had the money to fly to NY, gee, that sounds both awesome and frightening. I envy people who can just take the already filled suitcase out of their closet and end up in a distant place without fear or confusion about what to do next.
Sadly, one busks out of need more than passion. But it seems to me that hunger is a metafore in your case. Otherwise you could exchange your laptop for a guitar and some lessons. To document your experience the best you can do is to fix bugs into any popular open source project, like WordPress, Rails, ... If you know how to program, it will be easy for you to enter those dev groups and be taken into account.
However in the App Store there is a distribution network that checks for purchase before download and signs ipa files with DRM technology. I wish there was something like that for artists (but their isn't and probably never will be).
My advice is to learn ObjC and get the money up front for freelancing gigs while registering as a sole-proprietorship with your local chamber of commerce. Then pay Apple a registration fee for the App Store. It takes about 10 days to get their approval. Or learn another language. Go to Starbucks or whatever coffee house is in the "nice and upscale" part of town and eavesdrop on the business deals that are going down. Learn what people want and figure out a full proof way to help them get what they want while getting paid for your effort. Now. Be greedy. They will be. Trust me.
That's my advice. You're welcome to it. If you can't make money as a software developer and you CAN ACTUALLY PROGRAM software, then I don't know what to say except learn some confidence. Life isn't hard unless you make it.
I'm in the same position... We should build something together, solve some problems, put them on github, learn from each other.
EDIT: "our" startup We've always got room at the lodge: http://gdkr.ma/LodgingSociety Seriously, we're always welcoming hackers to come hang with us in NY. We put you up, give you plenty of your own time to work on what you want, and ask for a part time contribution to our startup. Hit me up if that interests you, Adrian
Sadly I'm not American. I forgot to add my location, I didn't think it would be important as I doubt many of HN's readers are German, which I am. If I had the money to fly to NY, gee, that sounds both awesome and frightening. I envy people who can just take the already filled suitcase out of their closet and end up in a distant place without fear or confusion about what to do next.
Good luck man, I really wish you all the best!
You can teach kids programming. If they learn to make small games their parents might pay you some money. And material you create while teaching kids can later be converted into book form and published.
I had only toyed around before that.
Anyway, I think prtk is right: there is a lot to be picked up in education. And as always; make yourself cheap enough to build portfolio at first.
But without a college degree, experience or a stack of projects in my pocket no one is going to believe me. Step 1: figure out which of this is easiest to change. Hint: it's "stack of projects". Step 2: change it. Yay, github.
I fear that I neglected that for too long. I don't know what is complex enough to impress anyone, but I doubt I can hack something together in under a month that will reach that level.
The point of this is to market yourself as an Actual Programmer, and it doesn't take much time or effort to reach that point. (Although, in my case, I was distinguishing myself from the plethora of generic comp sci students, and you might have a higher barrier.) After all, whoever hires you will _really_ judge based on how well you interview, which is just a few hours of your life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the unpaid trainee is working on open source projects under your supervision, that might be ethical. On the other hand, a traditional apprenticeship entails a formal contract which places substantial obligations on the master...that's why most industries use employees today.
Wow, this thread sparked a lot of criticism, I should have clarified that it's work on open source, he gets to totally own the code. We're also not U.S. based.