VB Development Career Help

CodedFire

Hello everyone,

I got into programming a number of years ago and have dabbled with many languages but eventually gravitated back to VB (05/08). I have no formal training per se and since I bought my house and am in full time employment college is not an option. I recently took a week off and immersed myself in all the more abstract parts of the framework, it was the best time ive had in my life. I hate my current job and really want out so ive decided to put together a portfolio of applications to demonstrate my knowledge to make up for my lack of formal training.

The issue im having is what skills to priorites and learn first. With the advent of WPF should I disregard winforms. Is ASP.NET the hottest thing out there. Should DataBase Managment be the first thing I learn?

So basicly what skills are employers looking for in new candidates and how much should I know before I start applying for jobs.

Thanks in advance for your responses

CodedFire

I would also like to state that I am as proficient in c# as i am in VB but only because i felt it necessary to be a .net programmer, if possible id rather vb, but im open to options.

Ginger

Have you considered certification to help further your career a bit

WinForms are still here to stay. There are a lot of server apps that require a windows interface and they wont be written in WPF yet.

Database development skills are a neccessary part of the toolkit for any developer, more so with .NET which tends to have a database attached to every app regardless

DB Management skills while nice to have arent a requirement for most jobs but you will find the smaller the company the more you will need it. Understanding indexing strategies tho is a very very good thing.

Main thing is knowledge of the framework and how to leverage it also backed up by experience. Also if you have previous experience on an existing technology such as ASP and migrating it to ASP.NET for example, its quite a bonus for some employers.

If you can get into SharePoint development its quite lucrative at the moment. A lot of companies are starting to use WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 as their document management solutions, publishing solution, workflow etc etc. Its so big that you can have a couple of developers working in seperate parts and they will never cross paths.

DublinWriter

CodedFire wrote: »

So basicly what skills are employers looking for in new candidates and how much should I know before I start applying for jobs.

Employers look for experience, experience and experience, in that order.

As for college - don't worry. Some of the best and most highly paid programmers I know left school at 14.

Learn to get your way around a DBMS, either SQL Server or Oracle. You can download free versions for your own personal use.

I'd also say concentrate more on C# than VB.NET.

ASP.Net is a vital skill to have. Once you get into it you'll also find yourself getting into writing bits of Javascript for client-side stuff.

none

Learn to get your way around a DBMS, either SQL Server or Oracle.

Just be prepared these are very different. After a decade on the T-SQL side, PL/SQL looks the most illogical thing ever.

I'd also say concentrate more on C# than VB.NET.

Absolutely. VB.Fred was dead-born. After being with VB for a good few years (since Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code to VB6) I moved to other technologies when MS decided to abandon its favourite kid. So C# (their favourite kid now) is definitely better (I would also add that Java is the best anyway).

Yes, except for universal programming languages you'll also find it useful to have knowledge in at least two other areas: DB and Web technologies. Most serious projects nowadays involve a Web frontend and DB backend.

CodedFire

Thanks for your replies everyone. While I do prefer VB to C# I can see that more employers are looking for C# programmers. I have a question about experience. Obviously my current job counts for nothing. So how does one gather experience. For instance if some asked me which is the best way to preform a task I would have little difficulty explaining how to preform said task. I imagine that doesn't count for much though. Would a portfolio be desirable? What would be the best to put in this portfolio and what would be considered fluff?

Saint_Mel

CodedFire wrote: »

I have a question about experience. Obviously my current job counts for nothing. So how does one gather experience.

Try to bring VB programming into your current job (if possible!).
If theres a manual task try and write a application to automate it, or to record results etc. Then if you do interview for a programming job you can bring up how you showed inititive to automate something saving time for other employees while also building up your own VB experience.

I was in a similar situation, worked as a programmer for a few years, then went travelling and was around 6-8 months away from IT work.Found it hard to get VB work when I got back and the IT job I moved into just wasnt moving my career in the direction I wanted, so I got myself back into the programming loop and that helped getting back into a programming job.

DublinWriter

none wrote: »

Just be prepared these are very different. After a decade on the T-SQL side, PL/SQL looks the most illogical thing ever.

True, but there's an awful lot more Oracle out there than SQL Server and Sybase put together.

none

DublinWriter wrote: »

True, but there's an awful lot more Oracle out there than SQL Server and Sybase put together.

"An awful lot" would be an exaggeration. I think the installed base of Oracle and SQL Server are comparable and, in fact, SQL Server is gaining the market share. Sybase, yes, despite its all credits, is a relict species.

DublinWriter

none wrote: »

"An awful lot" would be an exaggeration. I think the installed base of Oracle and SQL Server are comparable and, in fact, SQL Server is gaining the market share. Sybase, yes, despite its all credits, is a relict species.

I think the last IDC report I saw had Oracle at around 50%, Microsoft at 20% and IBM at 25% and Sybase at 5%.

You'll find a lot of Financial Institutions religiously hanging onto Sybase.

I do agree SQL Server is gaining market share, but I'd say mysql is gaining a lot more.

Oracle still remains the only player in town for enterprise-scale unix databases.

Ginger

Gartner figures are about 47% Oracle, 22% IBM, 20% MS.

none

Ginger wrote: »

Gartner figures are about 47% Oracle, 22% IBM, 20% MS.

Well, I personally don't believe in slogans like "20 of the 20 top insurers". I remember a while ago an analytical article on Oracle market share which said something along these lines: "Yes, most of them do have an Oracle software but it is not what they run for business. If you count all boxes on the shelf then yes, all of the big companies probably have one of them with Oracle." From my experience I worked in two T-SQL places and one PL/SQL. And if you say that here in Ireland, which is what I meant, Oracle projects or companies outweigh Microsoft more than 2/1 then, again, I won't believe, sorry

Ginger

You know what they say, lies, damn lies and statistics..

So far I have dealt with 3 companies that use Oracle but those companies were both massive multinationals (telco, aviation and medical). Then again being an MS head, thats not bad!

The other 50 or so have been using MSSQL.