2011 - Three Jobs In a Year (Part 3/3)

So I got released from my second job in 2011. Don't be mistaken - I have no problem calling a spade a spade. If I was fired, I'd say so. But I can't honestly say I was "fired" or "retrenched" because there was no monetary compensation involved. I wasn't "asked to resign" either. So, for lack of a better term, "released" or "let go" seems more appropriate. Technically, I hadn't passed my probation.

But meh. Splitting hairs much?

Interviewing.

Getting that new job

So once again, it was time for an interview spree. This was becoming second nature by now. I'd become so familiar with the process I mostly breezed through it. Managed to land two interviews just before my final month in the company was up. And both gave me offers! 100% success rate! That gave me a world of confidence, and let me know that technically, I was solid. Like a rock. Either that, or I'd just become pretty damn good at selling myself. Especially when you consider that the first company was interviewing for an ASP.NET developer, a platform I wasn't at all well-versed in.

The first interviewer spent almost three hours with me. My inexperience with ASP.NET gave him pause, but I did have extensive HTML and CSS credentials now, along with back-end scripting and database knowledge. I was an experienced web developer - all I was missing was ASP.NET.

The second company's interviewer struck me as a nice easygoing guy. They were using PHP, but it was in the form of Drupal. And after my last experience, I'd had enough of CMSs for now, thanks very much.

Feeling the need to get out of that comfort zone, I opted for the ASP.NET job. The pay was slightly lower due to my inexperience with the platform, but what the hell, right? I asked for permission to visit the company and familiarize myself with my environment a few days in advance. The Technical Director was only too pleased to oblige. Which again confirms what I've always said - in the absence of skill, enthusiasm counts for something.

Climb harder, maggot.

Learning the ropes

I threw myself into the new job with gusto. My colleagues were a PRC team lead and a few other programmers from Myanmar. They were more than happy to share what they knew. And while I wasn't their match in C#, I soon found that my working experience gave me an edge. I was better at Photoshop due to the countless nights slaving over slicing up Photoshop files to turn into HTML and CSS. Needless to say, my CSS was several levels above theirs too. Where client communications were concerned, I was also ahead. I give my previous boss full credit - the hell he'd put me through really paid off.

Tempered by fire.

In the first three weeks, not only did I learn C#, I learned SQL Server and Coldfusion. So much free software and tools got uploaded onto my laptop. I actually felt that even if they eventually decided to let me go too, I'd definitely gotten a huge bargain. Not only did they not let me go, they even ended my probationary period early.

Epilogue

Enough blathering! Suffice to say, I eventually left this company too. But that's another year, another story. Just felt like recapping one of the toughest years of my professional career, ever. It was a roller-coaster ride all the way. The battle to stay afloat goes on.

Thanks for reading. What can I say? Good job... er, jobs.
T___T

So you want to be a Web Developer? (Part 2/4)

In the last segment, we discussed the front-end technologies of web development, and the things you'll need to know as a web developer. However, don't take it as an exhaustive list. Even barring the fact that technology changes - and is changing even as we speak - I'm fairly sure I missed out certain things. It's actually pretty hard to get everything. Yes, if you want to be a web developer, you'll need to know that many things, and more, on the front-end.

Intimidated? Don't be. You ain't seen nothing yet. We're talking about back-end technologies next.

Back-end

By back-end technologies, I mean server-side stuff. Server configuration and server-side scripting.

However, while configuration is important, one could actually scrape by without it unless you're in an environment where you have to take charge of your own server. Otherwise, this is pretty much the province of your vendor.

For server-side scripting, there are tons of scripting languages out there, each with their own quirks and preferred operating systems and databases as complements. Do your research. Some of them are proprietary and require licenses.

Just to list a few...

ASP.NET (http://www.asp.net/)
PHP (http://php.net/)
Python (https://www.python.org/)
Ruby (https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/)
Coldfusion (http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion-family.html)
JSP (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaee/jsp/index.html)
Perl (https://www.perl.org/)

For a more complete list, see this link. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripting_language)

(Yes, I'm aware that ASP.NET is a framework and not a scripting language per se. This is for the layman, so bear with me.)

Pick one of these and get intimately familiar with it. And once you've reached a certain level of proficiency with it, pick up a second one. A third, if you're so inclined, but as a benchmark, most web developers know at least two.

What you must know

Regardless of what languages you end up learning, the following are a must. As with JavaScript, you'll need to know the following:
- Data types.
- Operators.
- Number and date formatting.
- Arrays.
- Programming constructs, ie. For, While, If-Else, etc.

And these as well:
- Database connections and CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) functions.
- Input sanitization.
- File handling.
- GET and POST.
- Sessions and cookies.

AJAX

If you're good with your JavaScript and have picked up at least one back-end scripting language, you'll want to combine these skills to produce a totally awesome package known as AJAX. To put it simply, with AJAX you can leverage on your JavaScript skills to interface with your back-end scripting language, to produce wonders on screen.

More on AJAX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming))

Good-to-haves

Again, these are optional. Companies are veering towards frameworks and IDEs, but if you haven't a decent foundation in the basics, forget about it. You don't want to be one of those developers who's totally crippled without an framework.

PHP Frameworks such as CodeIgniter, Symfony, CakePHP, Zend

Python Frameworks such as Django and Pyramid.

Ruby Frameworks such as Ruby On Rails.

For a more complete list, check out this link! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_frameworks)

What are my career options?

With just back-end scripting? Not good. You'll forever play second-fiddle to software developers who are the "actual" programmers. And front-end web developers are simply more highly valued. The ability to make things look pretty leverages on artistic talent, which isn't something that can simply be learned. On the other hand, programming and scripting is about logic. Anyone with an average IQ and enough interest can pick it up.

No one flourishes on back-end web scripting alone. Without databases and the front-end portion of web development, you're screwed.

Next

We're going to go even further back-end, and talk about databases.