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22 and no life

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Re: 22 and no life

#131

Post by NegativeK »

bazillion wrote: post #98
willurd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost joined the navy right out of high school. I went through much of the recruiting process, but ultimately decided against it. For me, that was one of the best decisions of my life. For you, you should consider it, but give a lot of thought to it before you even start the recruiting process. Military recruiters will lie to you and your family (maybe not all of them, but it happened to me) to make sure you join…

My first chief, who is a great inspiration in my life, was once a recruiter. I asked him how he felt about recruiting, and if he had to lie to get people to join. His response was this: "I never had to lie to anyone about joining the military. The secret is that no one walks into my office if everything is going right in their life. I just find what that problem is, and figure out how the military can solve it." Recr…

Some recruiters will tell you flat-out lies. I had three (two from one branch, one from another) try to convince me that breaking my arm twice as a youth wasn't worth telling the processors. The pair that tag-teamed me were conveniently ignoring the framed statement in their very office that said that lying about anything during your recruitment process was a violation of the UCMJ.

I really hope those three guys were in the minority, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Re: 22 and no life

#132

Post by Paul_D_Santana »

dpcan wrote: post #120
sctechie wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your lack of ability to google or search on your own is a bit worrisome, but I spent a few minutes doing your work for you. =) There 18k+ open source repos on github for c#: https://github.com/search?l=C%23&q=c&type=Repositori... There are 44k+ open source repos on github for java: https://github.com/search?l=Java&q=c&type=Repositori... I'm not even gonna bother for Asp.Net. Now, for some real advice. 'Open Source' a…

I think: By saying "appropriate" he wasn't really asking how to find open source projects in his language of choice, but how to know which ones will eventually get him noticed, or how to pick the open source project that seems to have meaning to other people, etc. It appears that the op may have had a stroke of good luck by picking the perfect OS projects. It would be a bummer to extend yourself in an area that nobod…

Yes! Exactly. Thank you for understanding what I meant.

I want to hear about the decision process behind how or why Zaphar chose the open source project he did, and how others here choose their open source projects?

Just a little advice, so that I too (and others reading), can (wisely) choose our first open source project to contribute to.

Re: 22 and no life

#133

Post by wyclif »

zaphar wrote: post #28

I've been where you are right now. Only I was married with 4 kids and one on the way. No job, No home, No degree, and what looked like No future. I don't know what your exact circumstances are but here is how I went from there to working for Google. 1. I got exposure. I hung out online with open source developers and participated. I did stuff in perl and blogged about it. 2. I did whatever I needed to to survive and…

Wow. I didn't know about the stuff before your numbered list (except that you had a family), but I remember finding your blog when you were at #1 and still doing Perl. I was motivated to get involved with FOSS because of it. Really inspiring. I don't know if I've ever said that to you but it's true.

Re: 22 and no life

#134

Post by Paul_D_Santana »

gcr wrote: post #85
sctechie wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your lack of ability to google or search on your own is a bit worrisome, but I spent a few minutes doing your work for you. =) There 18k+ open source repos on github for c#: https://github.com/search?l=C%23&q=c&type=Repositori... There are 44k+ open source repos on github for java: https://github.com/search?l=Java&q=c&type=Repositori... I'm not even gonna bother for Asp.Net. Now, for some real advice. 'Open Source' a…

As an example of an excellent C# program that's pretty widely accepted in Linux/Gnome, why not take a look at Tomboy Notes? http://projects.gnome.org/tomboy/ There are lots of opportunities for addons/etc, and it's reasonably extensible. Could be a great first project.

Thank you.

Re: 22 and no life

#135

Post by bazillion »

willurd wrote: post #104
bazillion wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first chief, who is a great inspiration in my life, was once a recruiter. I asked him how he felt about recruiting, and if he had to lie to get people to join. His response was this: "I never had to lie to anyone about joining the military. The secret is that no one walks into my office if everything is going right in their life. I just find what that problem is, and figure out how the military can solve it." Recr…

Yes, I absolutely agree with this. Too many people rush into life-changing decisions like this. It's also nice to hear another perspective on recruiters. Mine really did lie to my parents, however. We met with my parents, he told them one thing, then we left to go back to the recruiting office and he said "what I told your parents wasn't true, I just didn't think they would say yes otherwise".

It's a common thing when you're in the military to toss around disparaging comments about the person that recruited you. Personally, everything my recruiter had said was true:

"When they ask you if you want to be a Nuc, say no." -- he could have got a lot of good will at his recruiting office if I chose to be a nuclear tech, but he was absolutely right in telling me this. They never came to ask me, because I had never taken algebra in high school.

"If you have a choice between an east coast and west coast ship, choose west coast." -- Absolutely agree with this. West coast is a much more relaxed attitude compared to east coast, unless you're forward deployed.

"In bootcamp, get the yeoman job." -- I listened to him and was able to get the division yeoman job. This allowed me to travel around base by myself -- something you'd appreciate if you've been through the bootcamp experience. It also led to me getting a meritorious promotion (only 2 or so recruits per division of like 30-50 got this), and getting promoted earlier decreases the amount of time required for you to advance to the next rank.

"Run a lot before you go to bootcamp". Ironically, he was a very slow runner, but I took his advice and worked out nearly daily for the two months before I left. At the time, in order to pass the run test and graduate from bootcamp you were required to run 1.5 miles in 12:15, which would have been nigh impossible for me had I not practiced a bunch beforehand. I eventually got it down to 10:25 in bootcamp, which is a decently admirable run time. Women get approx. an extra minute longer.

Re: 22 and no life

#136

Post by zaphar »

Paul_D_Santana wrote: post #132
dpcan wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think: By saying "appropriate" he wasn't really asking how to find open source projects in his language of choice, but how to know which ones will eventually get him noticed, or how to pick the open source project that seems to have meaning to other people, etc. It appears that the op may have had a stroke of good luck by picking the perfect OS projects. It would be a bummer to extend yourself in an area that nobod…

Yes! Exactly. Thank you for understanding what I meant. I want to hear about the decision process behind how or why Zaphar chose the open source project he did, and how others here choose their open source projects? Just a little advice, so that I too (and others reading), can (wisely) choose our first open source project to contribute to.

I just chose what I liked and had fun with. Hung out with people working on Blender. Hung out in the perl IRC channel on freenode. Hung out with a group doing an Open Source game called Planeshift which wasn't high profile in any way but it gave me experience. And put me in contact with people who had connections.

Re: 22 and no life

#137

Post by brandonhall »

bazillion wrote: post #81

Honestly, probably one of the best things you could do is join the military. If you are tech savvy, then chances are that you can score high enough on the ASVAB (entry test) in order to get into a really high speed career field. I joined the Navy, became an arabic linguist, left after a few years, and got a programming job as a contractor for 102k/year. Here's the process you're looking at if you want to take a simil…

This is a great option for a lot of people. Glad to see you posted this. Spend 4 years in the military and you leave with great experience, have learned how to "work hard", you're respected by your peers and future employers plus you likely have a bunch of money in savings. Really wonderful option for the right people.

Re: 22 and no life

#138

Post by Paul_D_Santana »

zaphar wrote: post #116
Paul_D_Santana wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one find an (appropriate) open source project to contribute to, especially as a C#, Asp.Net or Java developer?

I was never really that into the Microsoft world but others have mentioned places to look for OpenSource projects for those platforms. There is no reason you can't move platforms or languages though. If you know C# or Asp.Net you know enough to get started in ruby, python, perl, or any other language. You don't have to limit yourself in this industry.

That is true. Funny you mention Ruby as I have just completed Code School's Try Ruby course this weekend!

However, how could I make any particularly meaningful contribution in a language I am just learning? I feel that any issues or new features in an open source project probably require some fairly advanced knowledge, no?

Re: 22 and no life

#139

Post by halis »

My advice is don't join the military unless you really have no other options. You don't want something that's going to take up years of your life cause you won't have time to hack around.

You can start something up yourself, but just know that it will be a struggle. I started halis.io and every user I get is like a small miracle. It's a tough go at first when nobody knows you.

It's good that you know how to program but I would focus on the most basic, but in demand skills, when marketing yourself. HTML, CSS, Javascript. If you can prove that you know how to do a database, great, but almost any company needs websites.

You probably won't get paid as much just doing sites (at first). But the goal is to build a portfolio that you can show off to get further up the food chain later.

Best of luck to you bud.

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