Success of VB

[Robin Tucker]

Jeff,

I think the OP was talking about how to get that initial job, rather than
how to progress from one to the next. In the former case, you need
qualifications or a substantive body of work as a demonstration of your
skills and knowledge. In the latter case your previous employment shows your
experience and areas of competence.


Robin

 

[Nicholas M. Makin]

I have been at this job search for months with little or no luck. I have a
degree in mathematics with a minor in CS. I took almost evey math class the
school offered (many were grad classes) and all of the CS classes they would
let me take (there are all kinds of requirements to take various higher
level CS classes at the university I went to). I also have a ton of Navy
schools in electronics and computer repair. None of this makes one iota of
differance. I can't get anyone to look seriously at me. I have gotten a few
phone interviews... they stop when they find out my last job was not in
programming.

Interviewer, "So what was your last job?"
Me, "Well I worked at a stone shop for a friend of mine working as an
operator/technician on some new equipment he just purchaced."
Interviewer, "So that was not programming?"
Me, "Well I developed some applications for the office in Excel and Visio,
VBA mostly."
Interviewer, "Well, tell you what I am going to do, I amgoing to kick this
upstairs and see if they want to continue the interview. Thank you for your
time."

Translation: I have just been blown off.

I have been though about 6-7 different versions of the above conversation. I
*think* that I am getting better at putting a positive spin on things but I
still can't seem to get an actual interview.

I read that statistics. 199/200 programmers can't program, 15/20 interviewd
can't even solve simple problems, 7/8 interviewed don't even know basic
syntax for loop construction etc etc etc....

I understand WHY employers are so nervous about hiring people. I may be a
hobbiest but I have a degree in a technical field and LOTS of experiance
(not to mention a good bit of CS theory classes). But I need to find a
better way to present myself to employers because what I am doing now is
just NOT working.

 

[Nicholas M. Makin]

I didn't mean I would give up on finding a job... just defending VB against
its attacks as a toy language.

 

[Robin Tucker]

Nicholas,

I can see your predicament. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, but
on the whole a CS education is better than not if you see what I mean. I'm
not a careers advisor but if I were to give some advice it would be to find
an employment agency that deals with technical recruitment and get them to
pitch you to potential employers at the graduate level. You also need to be
looking at small to medium sized companies. Large companies tend to take
the top graduates straight from uni into their graduate programmes and then
hire experienced staff at other levels. If that fails find a susbstantive
project to work on that can show evidence of competence. I know a lot of CS
masters graduates who majored in other subjects - off the top of my head,
one in Physics, the other in Mining Engineering - they are probably the two
most competent engineers in our code-shop. To be honest a degree in
Mathematics is one of the most useful you can have for software development.
Don't emphasise your hobbiest experience because that may make you look
unprofessional. If you have some spare $$$ or are able to service a career
development loan you could always study for a MCTS or MCPD
(http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcsd/default.mspx).

I don't know how it is in the US but in the UK I don't think you would be
unemployed for long.


Robin

 

[Guest]

I like this sentence from the article.

80% of C# programmers are good, while 80% of VB programmers are not good.

This means that there are in fact confirm the writter much more good VB
programmers than C# programmers in absolute figurs.

I guess it's because VB is easier to pick up ... hence it attracts less
skilled developers.

I found this to be the case with classic VB developers who pick up VB.NET.
They assume VB.NET is the same as VB6 ... and they end up writing horrid
non-OO code.

However, if you get someone who is comfortable in an OO environment
(Java/C#/C++, etc)... VB.NET, C#, etc won't really make a difference.

 

[Guest]

Twelve weeks later, Banker's Trust hired seven trainees, and six of us
came from the "quickie" computer courses. They explained that a
computer science degree taught folks lots of theory, but the quickie
programs taught how to solve business problems using computers.

<sigh>

Yeah I found community college grads sure can churn out programs - but the
quality is horrid. Unfortunately the ones I met *think* they're good
programmers, but I had to keep myself from snickering.

Anyways, that's my (limited) experience with quickie computer courses...

 

[Guest]

Interviewer, "So what was your last job?"
Me, "Well I worked at a stone shop for a friend of mine working as an
operator/technician on some new equipment he just purchaced."
Interviewer, "So that was not programming?"
Me, "Well I developed some applications for the office in Excel and
Visio, VBA mostly."
Interviewer, "Well, tell you what I am going to do, I amgoing to kick
this upstairs and see if they want to continue the interview. Thank
you for your time."

I understand WHY employers are so nervous about hiring people. I may
be a hobbiest but I have a degree in a technical field and LOTS of
experiance (not to mention a good bit of CS theory classes). But I
need to find a better way to present myself to employers because what
I am doing now is just NOT working.

I would start building some serious applications on the side. Perhaps
shareware?

Also offer to send code of a complete working application to an employer to
review?

Unfortunately since you've only done excel/visio/vba programming - it's
pretty much tinkering.

 

[Michel Posseth [MCP]]

I was once a car mechanic :-|

And this is the truth , i am not joking , and if i read this hole thread , i
see some people that in my opinion understand what it takes to be a true
programmer , and i see some people only focussing on degrees .

I program in basic since 13 years of age , and i could and can learn pretty
good ( autodidact ) , so after a career in the automotive ( last three
years , management level , and got all my certs to be a qualified mechanic
on the highest level ) i decided i wanted to make from my hobby my work .

So i got employed as a software tester , at a company who makes automotive
cataloging systems , as a person coming from the actuall business i was
perfect for the job of reviewing there software ( as i had also lots of
computer knowledge ) at some point they asked me if i could also do the
second line helpdesk , cause they noticed that i could solve lots of
installation errors .

In this position i also had access to computers with a dev environment ( VB
4 - 5 ) so in the silent hours i wrote a helpdesk program , in a later stage
i ported this program to the web for our european offices ( Classic ASP )
after a few years while these programs were even beeing sold to third
partys they asked me if i would like to join there development team .

The team existed out of 2 proggers and a designer , these university
skilled proggers never shared anny knowledge, even better they did there
best to make me feel bad as i was not a true progger cause i did not have
the formel education , i was just a "Hobbyist" who could not write a true
application in the way it was intended , so i started buying books from
Amazon and studyed ( i have a whole library by now ) i signed up with VUE
and started to study for my MCP`s

In the meanwhile it was noticed by the management that :

1. My customers where verry statisfied with me ( i could deliver what they
asked )
2. My programs where the most stable of the company with userbase of 20000
throughout Europe but the helpdesk lines were almost silent for my progs (
in contradiction to those of my co workers )

At a certain stage in my career at this company i was asked to create a
hughe web project with the designer ( VS.Net ) , however as this project
was so hughe the customer had rented a German firm to review all sources ,
when these people arived and started with there questions , i noticed that i
could verry easy give all the right answers ( and believe my i was verry
afraid of this encounter ) , when they reviewed and tested my source codes
( mainly the Business Logic components ) they were verry impressed and
certified everything without anny noticable problems . i did not have to
redo anny work source level at all ( only needed to change some
documentation )

I have written dozens of Winforms and Web applications commercial with a
userbase of 20000 users throughout europe ( only in germany the userbase was
already 6000 ) in VB 6 and VB.Net i did them all alone from scratch
inclusive installation routines .

My co workers now had a new one ,,,,, " You can only program so good
because you know the business so well , you have a unfair advantage opon us
, if you would have to make a program outside of the automotive you would
have been lost " .

Well i see why my good knowledge of the automotive branche would have made
my programs more as how the customer wants it , however i do not see why my
programs were more stable as there`s

However i never go away from a challenge so , last year after almost 8 years
deployment at this company i decided to quit this job , i currently work
internally for a big international firm , and work in a three man team on a
new internall production system, this firm relates to the energy sector i
got a contract for a half year
but after three months my manager wanted to talk to me ( i thought i was
going to be sacked ) however he offered me a new contract , one that is
valid until my retirement .

So i guess i am doing something good ??

In my opinion a good programmer is someone who is eager to learn and never
stops learning

I have once thought about getting my degree , however here in the
Netherlands these educations are verry expensive , and take a long time ( 4
years , for your BCH ) , and on the other hand if i need to explain to new
co workers who have these degrees what is BCNF and how a object preferably
should be constructed
i guess i do not need it .

But as i said i never stop learning , i am still a good customer of Amazon
and i buy all the self pacerd traing kits and the advanced topics books of
MS Press
i guess it is time to get some MCTS , MCPD certificates this year ( if i
can find the time to attend them ) .

i still do multiple disciplines of programming winforms , web ,
distributed ( remoting , COM , webservices )
so i have really gone from mechanic to enterprise developer


In the end the person makes the programmer not the paper


Michel Posseth

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

Spam,

I guess it's because VB is easier to pick up ... hence it attracts less
skilled developers.

I think it's important to clarify what "not good" means when talking about a
programmer. Most of the code written is simple automation code or simple
applications used indoor to perform certain operations. There is no need to
them being very performant, very secure, well-architectured, ... These
applications simply need to work in order to get some data processed.
However, I do not think people writing these applications are bad
programmers. They just do not have as strict requirements as developers of,
for example, libraries (which are reused several times) do.

I found this to be the case with classic VB developers who pick up VB.NET.
They assume VB.NET is the same as VB6 ... and they end up writing horrid
non-OO code.

Well, in the C# group I regularly see people coming from C++ who write
horrible C# code because they try to apply low-level tricks they were able
to use in C++.

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

Nicholas,

I understand WHY employers are so nervous about hiring people. I may be a
hobbiest but I have a degree in a technical field and LOTS of experiance
(not to mention a good bit of CS theory classes). But I need to find a
better way to present myself to employers because what I am doing now is
just NOT working.

Unfortunately that's reality. I don't linke employers who are asking for a
list of technologies one has been working with because people who want the
job won't give true answers. However, in reality employers want people who
have all current technologies in their portfolio, which is impossible!
Maybe you are attempting to get the wrong job. By holding a degree you
don't need to apply for a simple programming job. It's the knowledge in the
field of your education which you are selling, not the ability to write
working looping constructs in a certain programming language.

 

[Guest]

Well, in the C# group I regularly see people coming from C++ who write
horrible C# code because they try to apply low-level tricks they were
able to use in C++.

True ... people who come from an unmanaged background sometimes do use
tricks that do not work well in a managed enviornment. Then again, I'm sure
a lot of C++ programmers complain about "lazy" .NET/Java programmers who
attempt to program C++

 

[Nicholas M. Makin]

Unfortunately since you've only done excel/visio/vba programming - it's
pretty much tinkering.

Unfortunately since you've only done excel/visio/vba programming - it's
pretty much tinkering.

lol - Lets see I started out programming on a Tandy CoCo II in BASIC around
1990. I then moved to COBOL, then Pascal, C/C++, then was obsessed with
assembly. In the Navy I used Perl and TCL/TK on HP-UX. This is also where I
was introduced to VBS and VBA. In school things were mostly Java, and
Mathematica, with a tincture of MatLab thrown in there from the engineering
classes.

When I say that I am a "hobbyist" programmer, I am NOT talking about a few
push button apps in VBA. I was writing TSR programs for MS-DOS before I
graduated high school. I wrote my first graphics library in C/Assembly then
too. The CS classes at the university were cake for me because I had been
tutoring the CS students at a local university when I was in high school.

Over 15 years of experience as a programmer does not equate to "only done
excel/visio/vba programming" and this is my problem, I am not able to convey
my experience and passion for programming. This, "it's pretty much
tinkering" thing comes across, not the 15 years worth of code in over 20
languages: I once programmed a BBS in SALT for TELIX -- remember that? I
wrote a great little mad-lib program in LISP. I have the bulk of my
mathematics research in mathematica and C++, I have school projects in Java.
I have an oscilloscope circuit analyzer written in VB using DirectX8. I have
about 100 different mathematical screen savers written in about 5 languages
(whatever I was "into" at the time).

How can anyone imagine 15 years of programming implies a few scripts in VBA?

lol, this is my frustration.

How did this thread end up on this topic anyway? Though I do appreciate
the comments. Finding a job has been frustrating me for months. I hope that
once I get a decent interview I will be able to convey my passion for what I
have dedicated my life to doing. Belive it or not I have had a good bit of
success as an actor and playwrite, something that I also love, but have
chosen to let slide because THIS is what I have always wanted to do.

 

[Nicholas M. Makin]

Unfortunately that's reality. I don't linke employers who are asking for

a list of technologies one has been working with because people who want
the job won't give true answers. However, in reality employers want
people who have all current technologies in their portfolio, which is
impossible! Maybe you are attempting to get the wrong job. By holding a
degree you don't need to apply for a simple programming job. It's the
knowledge in the field of your education which you are selling, not the
ability to write working looping constructs in a certain programming
language.

Thank you very much for your insight. This is one of the most helpful things
anyone has said to me this entire job search.

You know the world in changing. NASA is hoping to begin a sustained mission
to the moon. SUSTAINED MISSION. There is SO much work to be done, and I for
one want nothing more than to help. Ever since I was a boy I have felt that
man kind is trapped here and felt a need to help mankind "get off this
rock." For years I was depressed because as I grew I realized that such
fantastic ideas were not very economically friendly and often it seems as
though economics are THE most important thing on the planet. (Though I wish
it were something more in tune with the well-being of mankind as a whole).
Now NASA proposes to build the jumping off point -- so that maybe such
things will become economically feasible.

We always look back on the past and say, "I wish I were alive in that
exciting time" when the world was changing. The beginning of the industrial
revolution, the beginning of the information revolution... now just may be
the beginning of the space revolution -- and here we are.

This is an area I personally would really like to work in, and the above
advice is just the sort of thing I need to think about to do that. Thank
you.

 

[Guest]

lol - Lets see I started out programming on a Tandy CoCo II in BASIC
around 1990. I then moved to COBOL, then Pascal, C/C++, then was
obsessed with assembly. In the Navy I used Perl and TCL/TK on HP-UX.
This is also where I was introduced to VBS and VBA. In school things
were mostly Java, and Mathematica, with a tincture of MatLab thrown in
there from the engineering classes.

That was the impression I got when you mentioned VBA. It seems like you
have a wealth of knowledge.

Hmmm could it be the resume? Are you landing interviews? Do you feel like
posting an "anonymized" copy of the resume online for critique?

 

[Michel Posseth [MCP]]

well in my hole blah blah beating myself on the chest story ( sory for
that )

you should have read

In my opinion a good programmer is someone who is eager to learn and never
stops learning about his job

You must just find a employer who dares to take the risk to let you proove
yourself , in my situation i could take the job against a lower salary as i
had when i changed from my management job at a Volkswagen Audi dealership ,
however i could get the job only because i brought in my automotive
knowledge . ( in the end it turned out right )

So maybe you should search yourself for an employer who might be interested
in a combinbation of knowledge that you posess , then if you have the
position ( have the title programmer , software developer or whatever they
call it ) it will be very easy to get in by another company .

Last time i used monster ( monsterboard ) i got 38 invitations after 2 days
while i made a note that i do not hold anny degree at all

regards

and success

Michel

 

[Johnny Jörgensen]

Interviewer, "So what was your last job?"

Me, "Well I worked at a stone shop for a friend of mine working as an
operator/technician on some new equipment he just purchaced."
Interviewer, "So that was not programming?"

Here's a workaround idea for you: If employers "complaint" that your last
job was not in software development, then why don't you just start a company
for yourself? Doesn't matter how much or how little you program, you can
truthfully say "I've got my own software development company" even though
your "real work" might be something else. You would probably have to find
some excuse for wanting to "quit" your business and take up regular
employment. Maybe something like "too much administration with employees,
taxes etc - All I really want to do is code..."

This is not exactly cheating, just bending the truth a little. In the end it
wont matter to your employer if you do a good job for him.

Cheers,
Johnny J.

 

[aaron.kempf]

Cor

your logic is flawed kid

4 million VB DEvelopers = 800,000 good VB Developers

10,000 C# Developers = 8,000 good C# developers


there is no such thing as a 'good C# developer' because C# is a trendy
friggin language WITH NO POINT


C# was never invented, ****tard

 

[aaron.kempf]

we don't resist change

we resist POINTLESS CHANGE

we resist getting ADO.net where you can neither keep a connection open
or use two recordsets at once


do the math-- VB6 has a larger installation base than this DOTNOT crap

I suppose you are correct. I have been down the BASIC bashing route
myself. Of course for me it was because QuickBasic didn't offer the VESA
graphics abilities that I was able to get at with C/Assembly. So I moved
on. Then windows began to change and become less and less DOS-Like and
things like DirectX and OpenGL surpassed my neat little VESA libraries and
I wake up one day to find all my little applications to be obsolete.
Problem is I hated writing windows applications in C/C++. Not being a
programmer by trade at the time I didn't have all that much time to muck
about the windows API and messaging system. So someone suggested VB4
(Actually the suggestion was for rapid development of a database
application I had in mind). I discovered a platform where I could quickly
develop windows applications without all of the heartache of C. I was able
to quickly produce applications and as a graphics minded programmer I
quickly found that most of the big objections had been overstated. As you
said it was mostly and emotional point BASIC vs C or in point of fact
BASIC vs Any-NonBASIC-Language-Here -- there were Pascal programmers who
hated BASIC, there were Fortran programmers who hated BASIC, even COBOL
programmers who hated BASIC, which I, having spent a little time in COBOL,
thought was unfair.

Even the statistics I have found recently have been VB Bashing. It seems
that I am not the only one who hates the advent of .NET (don't get me
wrong there are lots of great thing about .NET... And VB has always needed
its "runtime" libraries... so really there should not be such a problem).
But seeing how there are the regular BASIC-bashers, and now the
dotNET-bashers what is the point in trying to defend VB's dignity?

A lot of the anti-VB.NET stuff you'll read comes from a not-so-small and
very vocal group of VB 6 (pre .NET) advocates who are resisting change to
their collective dying breath. If you want to find them, just post a .NET
question in one of the non-.NET VB groups.
Personally, I disagree with their position and resistance to change, but my
opinion doesn't mean much. I used VB 6 for several years and I welcome the
transition to a true object oriented language with greater capabilities and
a far better class library.

--
Peter [MVP Visual Developer]
Jack of all trades, master of none.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

 

[aaron.kempf]

Robin

you're full of crap
there is no point to a formal education

What are they going to teach you.. machine language and Cobol?

Universities are 20 years behind reality

 

[aaron.kempf]

we write horrid non-oo programs.. because OO is mother ****ing
pointless, kid



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