A career in Information Technology?

Tim Robbins

ChRoMe wrote: »

Again back to this, I cant fathom how you are assigning these negative attributes to only IT. We are not unique snowflakes in this business!

Absolutely. Because what you know becomes irrelevant in IT very quickly.

ChRoMe

Tim Robbins wrote: »

And how many times have you been in a company / project where they decided to just cherry pick who they would let go?

And another one - how many hours a week do you spend outside work keeping skills up to date?

I came to London, because essentially I was told "Irish end of the business is losing money, we have lots of work in London. So take your pick London or dole queue". My response after a weekend of talking with the missus was "When do I leave?"

Now to put that into context, this was 2008ish, so someone willing to pay me relocation and arrange everything for me to move to London seemed like a no brainer.

Outside of work, maybe 5-7 hours ****ing about with personal projects on the weekend. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I'm constantly learning new stuff independently in the office/going on training courses paid for by my employer. So I dont have a massive motivation to come home and keep coding all night.

Edit to add: The company I am now with is not the Irish company who relocated me.

ChRoMe

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Absolutely. Because what you know becomes irrelevant in IT very quickly.

Data structures or algos don't change, the design patterns in use have also been pretty stagnant. I mean really, its not that fast moving when you think of it. The fundamental concepts being applied have not changed in decades.

That said I dont get into stuff like functional programming etc. I'm happy with C style syntax languages.

Graham

Tim Robbins wrote: »

No, the company you work can be conservative and be new technology adverse.

If you think that's to the detriment of you or your career, what would stop you moving on?

Tim Robbins wrote: »

And how many times have you been in a company / project where they decided to just cherry pick who they would let go?

See answer above, time to move on. Contracts don't get renewed/won, companies fold/get sold.

Tim Robbins wrote: »

And another one - how many hours a week do you spend outside work keeping skills up to date?

I don't work, I get paid for what would otherwise be my hobby. I refer to my previous post about people that work in IT because its a 'good career' and people that work in IT because they have a genuine interest in it.

ChRoMe

Graham wrote: »

If you think that's to the detriment of you or your career, what would stop you moving on?


See answer above, time to move on. Contracts don't get renewed/won, companies fold/get sold.



I don't work, I get paid for what would otherwise be my hobby. I refer to my previous post about people that work in IT because its a 'good career' and people that work in IT because they have a genuine interest in it.

I wish I could "thanks" your post more than once. Spot on.

questioner

tylercheribini wrote: »

I made the huge error of entering a computing course in D.I.T 4 years ago. I absolutely hated every aspect of the experience and left after two years, achieving a worthless Level 6 Higher cert by the skin of my teeth. As stated in previous posts on this thread, do not enter this field purely for economic/employment reasons like I did. You will not last, trust me. Programming in particular is an acquired taste to put it mildly. Like alot of skills it is not something you can become proficient at without some passion or interest in it.

I was in a similar position to the OP two years ago, I had an undergrad and masters in law and no hope of work in the field( unsure if I really wanted it either TBH), unlike the OP, I had a huge interest in IT and had been repairing laptops/phones (h/w and s/w) for years both from necessity and interest.

I cannot emphasise how important it is to have an interest in technology if you are even considering taking a conversion course. If you are the sort of type whose eyes glaze over when people start talking about the latest smart phones then IT will destroy your soul. I'm not saying that having the latest iPhone will help you write code but its a tiny indicator of how much interest you have in the area overall. Take a look through the front page of this forum and see how many of the topics(not just the ones related to coding) you would click into out of interest, if it's not many then I think you will have a hard time finding IT engaging. I hope I'm not coming across as condescending but I've seen first hand how stressful people who have no interest in technology find computing modules.

It's hard to emphasise how wide ranging and detailed these courses will be, it won't be just one new thing you'll have to learn, it'll be dozens of new concepts. Remember most conversions are level 8 qualifications, meaning you'll probably sit a lot of third year exams, think of your business degree in third year and how you would have found the christmas exams if you'd been studying the material for 12 weeks.

I'm at the far end of the interest scale and I found programming extremely hard to pick up, for me it was essentially like trying to learn the rules of a game through a foreign language. That was a HDip in IT in Maynooth, this year I'm doing the Ericsson masters in DIT and the HDip which I found hard but manageable, was a walk in the park compared to this year. I had no maths(I did pass for the leaving, many,many years ago) and this is a severe handicap. Curse discrete maths, curse it to hell

I get the impression that a lot of people think IT is all about coding, it isn't. I think, in my very very limited experience with coding that it should be considered more of a vocation than a career. As has probably been said already, nobody asks accountants to talk about accounting projects they worked on for free in their spare time.

On the other hand, if you find that it is for you then I think its a great time to be coming to the field, springboard and ICT skillnets (I'm on a skillnets program at the minute) fund courses the length and breadth of the country. There's more online courses than it is possible to even keep track of even keep track of.

Personally, if I was going to do the HDip again I would have done the CCNA beforehand, there's a serious learning curve and its nothing to do with coding per se but in terms of learning about how computers work and adding another string to your bow it would be well worth the effort. Networking covers a lot of computing basics(binary math, algorithms, command line, operating systems, TCP/IP etc) My last lecturer for networks runs a CCNA school and I found him to be brilliant, I think the course runs about a thousand a go but I would have gladly spent it. Networking is a bit more hands on too, it's hard but not as frustrating as coding. If you do decide to do a Hdip then in Sept you will be streets ahead of your classmates.

Tim Robbins

Graham wrote: »

If you think that's to the detriment of you or your career, what would stop you moving on?

Absolutely. But harder to do when you have to consider kids and work locations.
And very few companies in Dublin, are using a top quality technology stack.

I don't work, I get paid for what would otherwise be my hobby. I refer to my previous post about people that work in IT because its a 'good career' and people that work in IT because they have a genuine interest in it.

Well I would consider myself to have a genuine interest in it. But also some genuine concerns as well.

Sparks

ChRoMe wrote: »

One on the way

Congratulations...
...and welcome to what we're talking about
You've got a choice coming up - either you let your other half handle all the parenting (and feel like a complete heel for it, not to mention missing out on all the best bits) - or you miss out on all the sleep to try to keep up and even then fail to do as much as you think you ought.

I dont worry about my skills stagnating as I work with an exceptional architect who has enough trust in me to allow me to go and get stuck into new technologies so we can leverage them.

From a lot of what you're saying, I get the feeling you won the lotto with your current job. I know that most, if not all of the people I've worked with or even known in the industry would not be able to say they have things as good as you seem to.

Which makes you rather a bad data point to use, I'm afraid.

I dont worry at all if I was going to be made redundant. I get 5-10 contacts from recruiters a week asking me if I'm happy in my current position. My boss knows this and acts accordingly

You're not alone in that...
...because there's a bit of a recession going on in the recruitment world, or so it seems - they've got a faint whiff of desperation off them at the moment. Which is probably why I keep getting cold-called at my desk by someone who has this perfect role I could go for in Cork. As a junior DBA. (I've never been a DBA, I'm a while past the junior stage, and every CV I've ever filed with anyone came with a note saying "can't drop everything and move cross-country so don't ask"). They just do a buzzword search and coldcall all the results, regardless.

I've been in central London for about 5 years at this stage.

Ah.
Now.
Here.

That's called burying the lead
We're talking about the Irish market and you're in the middle of London? That's something you might have flagged up front, y'know :P

Tim Robbins

ChRoMe wrote: »

Data structures or algos don't change, the design patterns in use have also been pretty stagnant. I mean really, its not that fast moving when you think of it. The fundamental concepts being applied have not changed in decades.

That said I dont get into stuff like functional programming etc. I'm happy with C style syntax languages.

Maybe that's the difference. I respect your optimism. But,
I think a senior person should know as much as possible. And knowing a good bit about FP would be a major part of that.

Why? Because non-FP Architectures are creeking all over the place and become absolutely nightmares. The idea in FP are trying address some of these problems for example immutable state.

Also go up to the web tier and why is most people's JavaScript an utter mess and headache to look at because they do not understand the functional concepts in JS.

This isn't just important for your job but it is also one of the most fascinating ideas in the computer science.

Tim Robbins

Sparks wrote: »

As a junior DBA...

Someone made the point earlier IT is not all about coding. So let's look at another role the DBA. One of the motivation of NoSQL architectures is to remove the need for the DBA.

So, if you are a DBA you need to assess that threat and be prepared.

As I said this is the recuring theme in software / I.T.:

Something complicated happens, a new way comes along to do the task which is less complicated and then something more complicated comes along.

I just think sitting beside a super architect and having no stress sounds like another poster said winning the lotto job wise. well done Chrome.

ChRoMe

Sparks wrote: »

Ah.
Now.
Here.

That's called burying the lead
We're talking about the Irish market and you're in the middle of London? That's something you might have flagged up front, y'know :P

Sparks, I have so much respect for your intellectual superiority, that my Location being listed as "Facking London bruv" would have tipped you off?!

In all seriousness, apologies, I assumed it had been taken into account. I certainly wasnt attempting to be disingenuous.

Sparks

Graham wrote: »

If you think that's to the detriment of you or your career, what would stop you moving on?

Kids. Schools/creches. Wives/partners and the point that they have careers too. The need to plan a jump because life gets complicated. The point that lots and lots of rapid shifts in a CV doesn't look great after the first few years. And the point that going through all that into a new job means that the new company damn well better not be one that might fold up within six months leaving you high and dry.

eg. I keep getting pushed by the old man to take a job back home in Kerry with someone like Fexco. Thing is, while they're fairly healthy, it would mean the end of the wife's job, it'd mean a change in creches for the little lad, and it'd mean putting all the economic eggs in one basket - if the job didn't work out, you'd be screwed because you're in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to jump to that wasn't "down" in some sense.

That's the kind of thing that sits in my mind when I think of a jump - not where am I going to, but what do I do if it goes sideways, how likely is that to happen, how much are we risking and so on.

Some people find that kind of thing thrilling and exhilarating or even just mundane and more power to them for it; to me, at this point in my life, it's something else, a barrier to moving and an expenditure of mental energy that's in pretty fecking short supply right now. And I suspect I'm not a unique snowflake in that regard...

Sparks

ChRoMe wrote: »

Sparks, I have so much respect for your intellectual superiority, that my Location being listed as "Facking London bruv" would have tipped you off?!

It would if I'd been looking but I was focussed on the writing not the tagline

I suspect things might be a bit better over there btw; if for no other reason than that there are more places around and the setup seems - at least from afar - to be slightly less cowboyish than over here.

ChRoMe

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Something complicated happens, a new way comes along to do the task which is less complicated and then something more complicated comes along.

Which inevitably leads us to go around in circles. Case in point, its interesting to see mainframe now be rebranded as cloud

Regarding our FP thread of discussion, you make a very valid point. My reason for sticking in the boring old OO world, is mainly because I still feel I have a huge amount more to learn in it. I'm also not seeing FP creep into the sectors where I have most interest (I've avoided finance like the plague). There is a strong argument to make that this is a negative against me. However at the core, I consider myself a software engineer and in no way a computer scientist, which is a distinction I think a lot of people get confused on.

Tim Robbins

Sparks wrote: »

That's the kind of thing that sits in my mind when I think of a jump - not where am I going to, but what do I do if it goes sideways, how likely is that to happen, how much are we risking and so on.

+1 I feel your pain.

I got offered a very senior technical role with a company but I didn't feel my creche drop off times worked out and I was basically risk adverse so couldn't take it.

Also, a year or two ago I did a rake of interviews for very senior roles and you could literally be asked anything - to explain why Corba based architectures failed, to explain why I think Java will be pass / fail in the next few years / to how you can upgrade with zero downtime / to code an efficient shuffling algorithm / what advantages scala or groovey have over Java / explain how you would improve performance on every single tier, and I found out that when you are going for senior roles you are up against a high standard and the line between getting an offer and not can be a very very thin one.

You need a very good broad detailed technical knowledge to impress.

Tim Robbins

ChRoMe wrote: »

Regarding our FP thread of discussion, you make a very valid point. My reason for sticking in the boring old OO world, is mainly because I still feel I have a huge amount more to learn in it. I'm also not seeing FP creep into the sectors where I have most interest (I've avoided finance like the plague). There is a strong argument to make that this is a negative against me. However at the core, I consider myself a software engineer and in no way a computer scientist, which is a distinction I think a lot of people get confused on.

FP and OO are not mututally exclusive - look at scala.

Anyway, if you are saying you are still learning OO you are perhaps at a different stage in career. And I am not trying to be patronising but perhaps we need to be clear about those things. When I was learning OO it was 13 years ago and my opinions were very different.

The thing about IT you master something and in most careers you are sorted once you master something. But in IT you are just as vulnerable as you were at the very beginning.

ChRoMe

Tim Robbins wrote: »

FP and OO are not mututally exclusive - look at scala.

Anyway, if you are saying you are still learning OO you are perhaps at a different stage in career. And I am not trying to be patronising but perhaps we need to be clear about those things. When I was learning OO it was 13 years ago and my opinions were very different.

The thing about IT you master something and in most careers you are sorted once you master something. But in IT you are just as vulnerable as you were at the very beginning.

I have no doubt you are operating at a higher level.

In addition I'd like to clarify that I see this as a job (a job I love, but still a job). So the learning decisions I make are based on their ability to increase my salary not their academic value.

Edit to add: Honestly, I consider myself a mediocre developer, at best. Its just that the average standard is so low, I look a lot better than I am

starlit

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Yes and No. I commend your ability to deal with stress sincerely however it is unusual that people have that attitude.

If you look at the top people James Gosling, Rich Hickey etc and listen to them talk they get their drive by absolutely hating something so much that are compelled to innovate a completely new approach.

There is a very common pattern in software of complexity driving people mad, a new approach to minimize complexity and then more complexity.

Examples:
* Memory leaks driving C++ programmers demented - enter Java.
* Mutable state, code bloat driving Java heads mad - Enter Ruby, Scala, Groovey
* Distributed Garbage collection and distributed state, lack of vendor portabillity in Corba enter web services
* Clunky specs in WS and distributed state enter REST
* Millions of different ways of doing diagrams enter UML
* JavaScript is too complicated - GWT
* O/R mapping - hibernate JPA

If these problems didn't drive people mad, the innovations would never have happened. There are only two technologies I can think that haven't driven people completely mad.

1. Relational databases (and that's debatable suffice to say they have been around 40+ years)
2. HTTP

So the industry is unique in that it has many things that drive people mad.
How you react to it is I suppose personal.

I can totally relate to that as HTTP and Relational Databases doesn't really change and that IT is just as complicated to learn more so than other areas of IT. VBA and java drove me nuts while the other languages were a bit more straight forward for me to learn though wouldn't think actionscript that easy to learn mind. While some areas of networking wouldn't always been straight forward there is a lot of problem solving in that area. Some other codes are difficult sometimes but once you get the hang of them its easy to debug and spot the coding mistakes especially in SQL, vb, python and web programming languages I find are easy enough to spot a mistake compared to Java.

Some aspects of coding and IT are so complex its easy to get lost and not know what is really happening and can be frustrating whether you good, poor at it or flying it.

Its true, some IT careers are easier to transition into compared to other careers in IT when starting out or if you changing careers or little experience or no knowledge of IT sometimes some people just touch the surface of it and happy with that like service management.

IT consultancy or IT recruitment or lecturing/teaching could be something you could get into? Get a broad knowledge of IT and explore those career areas, quality or project management might be something to look into too OP.

Tim Robbins

ChRoMe wrote: »

I have no doubt you are operating at a higher level.

In addition I'd like to clarify that I see this as a job (a job I love, but still a job). So the learning decisions I make are based on their ability to increase my salary not their academic value.

Edit to add: Honestly, I consider myself a mediocre developer, at best. Its just that the average standard is so low, I look a lot better than I am

Enjoy the honeymoon period Chrome. And fair play for getting what sounds like a super set up to grow your career. My superficial knowledge would lead me to believe London is a better standard than here. I get a lot of recruiters from London with sexy roles and the ones I hear about here are usually far less sexy.

ChRoMe

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Enjoy the honeymoon period Chrome.

Thanks, I'm aware I've been very lucky in many respects. What is your biggest complaint, that you are working more than a 40 hour week?

Tim Robbins

ChRoMe wrote: »

Thanks, I'm aware I've been very lucky in many respects. What is your biggest complaint, that you are working more than a 40 hour week?

Burnout.

danish pasterys

Anyone know a site I could lear basic C programming as it will be in my degree in september for networking, tried code academy theyve no material on it

moneymad

danish pasterys wrote: »

Anyone know a site I could lear basic C programming as it will be in my degree in september for networking, tried code academy theyve no material on it

http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/

Sparks

Apart from Shaw's excellent book linked above, just get the K&R book (make sure it's an edition after the ANSI C standard came out, so 2nd edition only - though I've not seen first editions for a while now). It's one of the few books that lives on my desk and gets used regularly, and it's probably the best book ever written on C (and if more languages had books this good on them, it would be a Good Thing(tm))./