Career advice needed

[Herouth Maoz]

Hello, fellow Linuxers. I'd like your advice regarding a job change.

My company has been acquired. There is a chance that my boss won't
stay around, and if so, I'm not going to stay around, either -
because the chances are that the business will become yet-another-
dotnet-based-web-portal.

I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've
been doing more integration work and problem solving than any web
development (being the only one except our sysadmin who is not afraid
of shell scripts). Now, this merger gives me a unique opportunity -
I've been in my current company for 6 years, so I'm due a lot of
compensation should I quit (quitting after an acquisition is
considered being laid off), meaning I can basically keep my standard
of living for at least 6 months without actually working.

I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of
programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in
an open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is
- what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate
a programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular
(other than the web)? Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no
golden cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire).

Needless to say, I'm talking about Linux-oriented (or at least Unix)
jobs here, I'm not looking to change to .Net, I don't even have a
Windows box available at home.

My CV in a nutshell: B.Sc. from 1989, military service doing
application programming in environments that no longer exist, until
1994, then some tech support until 1996-7, and since then I've done
web programming, at first in Java, then in PHP, though I did a
refresher course in Java recently (but never got around to writing
anything in it).

Any advice will be appreciated. Sneers and jeers will not. :)

Herouth

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[Shachar Shemesh]

Post by Herouth Maoz
I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of
programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in an
open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is -
what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate a
programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular (other
than the web)?

First of all, (good) web programmers have a high demand. What they do
not have, unfortunately, is a high salary. The amount of not-so-good web
programmers around means that it's very hard to differentiate yourself.
The clients, usually, do not have the understanding to evaluate the
quality of product they get, and the result is that good web programmers
and not-so-good web programmers get paid, more or less, the same.

Post by Herouth Maoz
Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no golden cages for the
chance of becoming a millionaire).

Not being enslaved is, more or less, only a matter of self control. If
you refuse to be enslaved (but still deliver the goods), you will likely
get along in all but huge companies and start-ups that are managed by
control freaks.

THE hottest skill today is Linux kernel programming (usually, but not
always, drivers). If you know your stuff, there is no reason you won't
be able to get enough skill within a couple of months to be able to get
a job (which means you skill set improves while you're getting paid).
This will also leave you with enough safety margin to change direction
should you see that this one isn't working out.

Whatever you do, be sure to select an area that interests you. You can
get a decent paying job if you are skilled enough in just about any
Linux related task, so if that particular area is not interesting to
you, it is better to find a lower paying job elsewhere than to hate your
job.

Shachar

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[Herouth Maoz]

Post by Shachar Shemesh
First of all, (good) web programmers have a high demand. What they do
not have, unfortunately, is a high salary. The amount of not-so-
good web
programmers around means that it's very hard to differentiate
yourself.
The clients, usually, do not have the understanding to evaluate the
quality of product they get, and the result is that good web
programmers
and not-so-good web programmers get paid, more or less, the same.

Very true. Not just about the salaries, but also about the clients'
inability to tell good work from bad.

Post by Shachar Shemesh
Not being enslaved is, more or less, only a matter of self control. If
you refuse to be enslaved (but still deliver the goods), you will likely
get along in all but huge companies and start-ups that are managed by
control freaks.

One cannot stuff 60 man-hours into a 45 hour week. If your bosses are
willing to accept your time estimates and accept projects to suit
your speed, it's great. But if they set up deadlines according to
pressure from customers, and these deadlines mean one has to do 60
hours of work in one week, then insisting you can't means that you
can't "deliver the goods", and then, it's either the golden cage or
the unemployment agency.

Post by Shachar Shemesh
THE hottest skill today is Linux kernel programming (usually, but not
always, drivers). If you know your stuff, there is no reason you won't
be able to get enough skill within a couple of months to be able to get
a job (which means you skill set improves while you're getting paid).
This will also leave you with enough safety margin to change direction
should you see that this one isn't working out.
Whatever you do, be sure to select an area that interests you. You can
get a decent paying job if you are skilled enough in just about any
Linux related task, so if that particular area is not interesting to
you, it is better to find a lower paying job elsewhere than to hate your
job.

That sounds like good advice, and I'll keep it in mind.

Thanks,
Herouth

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[guy keren]

Post by Shachar Shemesh

Post by Herouth Maoz
I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of
programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in an
open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is -
what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate a
programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular (other
than the web)?

First of all, (good) web programmers have a high demand. What they do
not have, unfortunately, is a high salary. The amount of not-so-good web
programmers around means that it's very hard to differentiate yourself.
The clients, usually, do not have the understanding to evaluate the
quality of product they get, and the result is that good web programmers
and not-so-good web programmers get paid, more or less, the same.

Post by Herouth Maoz
Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no golden cages for the
chance of becoming a millionaire).

Not being enslaved is, more or less, only a matter of self control. If
you refuse to be enslaved (but still deliver the goods), you will likely
get along in all but huge companies and start-ups that are managed by
control freaks.

this is true, _if_ you bring qualities that are hard to find. if you're
one of the pack, you'll find it hard to justify going home "on time" in
a company where everyone else stays late.

however, there are companies where people don't stay at work more then 9
hours a day. i believe they are mostly to be found in the north - but
there are such companies in gush dan as well.

Post by Shachar Shemesh
THE hottest skill today is Linux kernel programming (usually, but not
always, drivers). If you know your stuff, there is no reason you won't
be able to get enough skill within a couple of months to be able to get
a job (which means you skill set improves while you're getting paid).
This will also leave you with enough safety margin to change direction
should you see that this one isn't working out.

if someone spent several years in PHP, i don't think that within 2 month
they can become skilled enough in kernel programming. if they were on a
full-time job, then in 6 month they could get the hang of it enough to
get another job. the switch from PHP to C in the kernel is quite large.

one thing is true - since there are so few linux kernel programmers
available, then mere mention of "i've done a free software kernel
project" or even "i read rubini's book and hacked on the book's drivers"
might be enough to get a job with linux kernel programming. but i think
this is mostly true for two groups of people:

- programmers with very little experience.
- programmers with user-space experience on Unix systems.

do note, however, that the market is not that large, and this situation
might change (i.e. if more people start to shift to this small niche).

by the wa - this is true for gush dan. in the north - there are close to
zero open jobs for linux kernel programmers (i would say zero - but
maybe someone had such job openings lately)

--guy

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[Muli Ben-Yehuda]

Post by guy keren
by the wa - this is true for gush dan. in the north - there are
close to zero open jobs for linux kernel programmers (i would say
zero - but maybe someone had such job openings lately)

I know of at least two companies in the north where Linux kernel
programmers will be appreciated. I also know several companies which
are hiring remote Linux kernel programmers. Feel free to ping me
off-list.

Cheers,
Muli

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[Constantine Shulyupin]

Post by Shachar Shemesh
THE hottest skill today is Linux kernel programming (usually, but not
always, drivers). If you know your stuff, there is no reason you won't
be able to get enough skill within a couple of months to be able to get
a job (which means you skill set improves while you're getting paid).
This will also leave you with enough safety margin to change direction
should you see that this one isn't working out.

This could help you to learn the kernel: http://www.linuxdriver.co.il/kernel_map

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[Gilad Ben-Yossef]

Post by Herouth Maoz
Hello, fellow Linuxers. I'd like your advice regarding a job change.

..

Post by Herouth Maoz
I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've been
doing more integration work and problem solving than any web development

..

Post by Herouth Maoz
I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of
programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in an
open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is - what
directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate a
programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular (other
than the web)? Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no golden
cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire).

If the general web application area suites you, and you don't want to
go all kernel hacking or some such, I'd seriously consider getting into
Python and Django.

Don't be afraid of learning a new language - you wont need to. I'm
writing non trivial Django web applications and I don't actually know
Python (though I'm learning it fast without noticing).

In tandem, start getting involved with the Django project as much as you
can: contribute code, documentation etc.

Since Django is racing towards the 1.0 release (currently in 0.97-pre),
you'll be getting in to in on this project at the best of time: a killer
framework that dwarfs any thing else around in the field (save maybe to
Ruby on Rails), which is already productive but still the best kept
secret of the geeks. Sort of Linux in 2.2 days :-)

If I'd have to bet my career on something in the web area or even
general application development right now, Django would be it.

Cheers,
Gilad

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[Herouth Maoz]

Post by Gilad Ben-Yossef
Since Django is racing towards the 1.0 release (currently in 0.97-
pre), you'll be getting in to in on this project at the best of
time: a killer framework that dwarfs any thing else around in the
field (save maybe to Ruby on Rails), which is already productive
but still the best kept secret of the geeks. Sort of Linux in 2.2
days :-)
If I'd have to bet my career on something in the web area or even
general application development right now, Django would be it.

Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the
career supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the
assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says
"Django"? I seriously doubt that. Currently, the web market in Israel
is almost exclusively controlled by ASP.Net, even finding a PHP job
(where PHP is at version 5 and has been in the commercial market for
well over seven years) is difficult. I don't think that the
marketplace will be demanding workers in any technology which is
currently pre-release for at least 2 years, and the Israeli market -
who knows. Do you have compelling arguments to the contrary?

Anyway, if I have to go looking for a new job, it's really time for a
change for me, and I don't want to miss this opportunity. If it's
shifting bits around that lands me in a safe and interesting job, I
am not afraid of it. I've been shifting bits when I was 14 years old
and had a 99-byte emulator on a game console to play around with... ;)

Herouth

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[Dan Armak]

Post by Herouth Maoz
Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the
career supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the
assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says
"Django"? I seriously doubt that.

Can you even find jobs, today, where the skills required include "Python"?

[Oded Arbel]

Post by Dan Armak

Post by Herouth Maoz
Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the
career supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the
assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says
"Django"? I seriously doubt that.

Can you even find jobs, today, where the skills required include "Python"?

I've been in one such interview (granted they were using Jython mostly),
and have heard of a couple of other such opportunities - but even Perl
jobs are still more in demand and these are also a small minority.

--
Oded


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[Gabor Szabo]

Post by Oded Arbel
I've been in one such interview (granted they were using Jython mostly),
and have heard of a couple of other such opportunities - but even Perl
jobs are still more in demand and these are also a small minority.

It is not like in Java but we have this web site:
http://jobs.perl.org.il/

Gabor
http://www.szabgab.com/

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[Shachar Shemesh]

Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the career
supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the
assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says
"Django"?

It greatly depends on an aspect you did not specify - employee or free
lance?

I can tell you about PHP that I'm sure it's extremely difficult to find
work as a PHP programmer employee, but not at all difficult to do so as
a free lance.

Don't get me wrong. Free lance life is not for everyone. It's a constant
roller coaster. If you have the nerves, you can really control your life
this way. If not, go for employee.

The best you can get, in that respect, is work for a (small?) consulting
company. The nerves are someone else's, and you have (at least the
illusion) of stability (none of Lingnu's employees are reading this
thread, right?), while maintaining the flexibility of consulting work.

Shachar

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[Herouth Maoz]

Post by Shachar Shemesh

Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the career
supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the
assignment agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says
"Django"?

It greatly depends on an aspect you did not specify - employee or free
lance?

Employee, definitely. I don't have the iron nerves it takes to be
independent.

Post by Shachar Shemesh
I can tell you about PHP that I'm sure it's extremely difficult to find
work as a PHP programmer employee, but not at all difficult to do so as
a free lance.

I have a feeling that this is a self-feeding problem. I mean, our
company has advertised in the past for PHP programmers, and we had
very little luck finding any, even as far as sending us a CV. Because
there are no workers, there are no places that work in PHP, and
because there are no places, there are no workers.

Anyway, I don't want to work in PHP anymore, that's why I'm looking
for this change.

Post by Shachar Shemesh
The best you can get, in that respect, is work for a (small?)
consulting
company. The nerves are someone else's, and you have (at least the
illusion) of stability (none of Lingnu's employees are reading this
thread, right?), while maintaining the flexibility of consulting work.

:-)

I'll keep that in mind, though I have a feeling one can only get into
one of those through connections, not through advertising.

Herouth

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[Shachar Shemesh]

Post by Herouth Maoz
:-)
I'll keep that in mind, though I have a feeling one can only get into
one of those through connections, not through advertising.

Huh?

I have seen several such companies (Lingnu included) advertise right
here. Of Lingnu's technical workers, most are people I know merely
because they applied for the job after I advertised.

I think the source of your mistake is that there are not that many
companies, and they don't often recruit. I never said it was easy, just
that it's a path. Being as it is that you are not interested in PHP,
that part is not really relevant anyways.

Post by Herouth Maoz
Herouth

Shachar

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[Gilad Ben-Yossef]

Hi Herouth,

Post by Gilad Ben-Yossef
Since Django is racing towards the 1.0 release (currently in
0.97-pre), you'll be getting in to in on this project at the best of
time: a killer framework that dwarfs any thing else around in the
field (save maybe to Ruby on Rails), which is already productive but
still the best kept secret of the geeks. Sort of Linux in 2.2 days :-)
If I'd have to bet my career on something in the web area or even
general application development right now, Django would be it.

Do you think that 6-7 months from now, I'll be able to open the career
supplement of a newspaper, or Job-net, or apply to one of the assignment
agencies, and find jobs where the skill set required says "Django"?

If that's how you think about planning your career, you have much bigger
problems then which technology to learn. I'm not trying to be rude, I am
trying to make a point - you're thinking about this in the completely
wrong way. Let me prove it to you:

Do the following experiment with me (I mean REALLY do it, don't just
read this!):

Open the career supplement of a newspaper or that awful Job-net site and
start counting positions for, I don't know, security guards, the kind
that earns sub minimum wage by being a human bomb shield at a
supermarket. How many are there? well, a lot right?

Now look for open positions of CEO, CTO or CFO for companies. How many
are there? I'd be dammed if you could find more then 2, probably none.
Of course, CxO level jobs are rare just like the people who have qualify
for them and they don't usually get published in those sections in the
newspapers or Job-net, right? (actually there are sections in different
papers for these too, like Globes, but even there they are quite few).

Here's the million dollar question that should REALLY bake your noodle
right now: If you were someone with amazingly excellent CxO credentials,
versus being someone with amazingly excellent security guard
credentials, which job would be easier for you to land?

Security guards are cogs. Excellence simply doesn't matter and so it
wont help you. CxO on the other hand are very rare. Excellence is
everything - you wont need go looking for a job, the head hunter will
come looking for you.

Yes, I took the very ends of the spectrum to make a point, but there's
a lesson here. And if you've understood anything I was trying to get
through, I can now answer your question:

Luckily for you, you will not find Django listed in job credentials in
the papers in next 6 months, probably not in the next 2 years.

BUT, if you play your cards just right and take advantage of being able
to be an expert in Django before it's huge and everyone know about it
(and it will be) right from the beginning by being involved in building
both the frame work and the first commercial users of it, you will have
attained the position of not ever needing to look for a job again -
you'll simply have to choose from the opportunities presented to you.

I
seriously doubt that. Currently, the web market in Israel is almost
exclusively controlled by ASP.Net, even finding a PHP job (where PHP is
at version 5 and has been in the commercial market for well over seven
years) is difficult. I don't think that the marketplace will be
demanding workers in any technology which is currently pre-release for
at least 2 years, and the Israeli market - who knows. Do you have
compelling arguments to the contrary?

The market for interchangeable web site programmers is indeed controlled
by ASP.Net drones. If you plan to be an interchangeable cog that should
certainly be the technology to follow.

If, however, you want be in a position to get the jobs that *aren't*
listed in any paper or web site, to be bogged down by head hunters
calling very politely every six month on the clock just to check in if
you happen to fancy hearing about a new job opening and being able to
pick and choose jobs because you are a rare and irreplaceable source of
knowledge about a useful technology that is used by only the few biggest
corporations and most sophisticated and cutting edge start-ups , then by
all means do consider Django and Python.

And BTW: kernel programmers aren't going to become cogs any time soon,
but they aren't as rare as they once were too and it will only get worse
(or better, depends were you stand). I believe now is NOT the best
time time to go into this technology. Not a problem if you really like
it because after all, kernel hacking is not web programming, but don't
do it just for the sake of looking being rare.

Anyway, if I have to go looking for a new job, it's really time for a
change for me, and I don't want to miss this opportunity. If it's
shifting bits around that lands me in a safe and interesting job, I am
not afraid of it. I've been shifting bits when I was 14 years old and
had a 99-byte emulator on a game console to play around with... ;)

I never doubted for a minute that you have the ability to do anything
you set you mind to do. On the contrary - I think you are aiming too low.

To make sure it is clear: what I wrote here is 100% serious. I might be
wrong with Django and Python. I am not wrong about being rare.

And yes, it takes guts to go chase some crazy technology that no one but
a couple of geek friends heard about written in a language that isn't
even mentioned in job ads. It will also take a lot of hard work to get
good enough to be The expert in this. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

On a more personal note, I took a similar path with a different
technology in somewhat similar stage more then 10 years ago and I assure
you it's worth it.

Good Luck,
Gilad


PS. Maybe I need to give a "Career Planning for Geeks or How to become a
part of an (almost) extinct race for fun and profit" lecture at
{Haif|Tel|??}ux. Is anyone interested?

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[Herouth Maoz]

One thing's for sure, Gilad. If I needed to hire an excellent
motivational speaker who gives irresistible sales pitches, I'd go for
Steve Jobs. But failing that, I'll certainly ask for you. :)

Post by Gilad Ben-Yossef
Security guards are cogs. Excellence simply doesn't matter and so
it wont help you. CxO on the other hand are very rare. Excellence
is everything - you wont need go looking for a job, the head hunter
will come looking for you.

You failed to mention a crucial thing that get CxOs jobs -
connections. People know about them. They have a nice black book of
contacts from their previous jobs and military service which they
maintain. They have people who owe them favors. That's how you get
jobs in high positions, at least in this country.

There is another logical fallacy here - is rarity the result of being
part of an elite group of people, or a result of extinction? I must
tell you that I can't find many FORTRAN77 jobs in the newspapers,
either...

When I finished the military I could write applications on MacOS.
That was a rare skill. There was absolutely no demand for it. There
still isn't. At least not in Israel. Israel is not the place to be
exotic.

Post by Gilad Ben-Yossef
BUT, if you play your cards just right and take advantage of being
able to be an expert in Django before it's huge and everyone know
about it (and it will be) right from the beginning by being
involved in building both the frame work and the first commercial
users of it, you will have attained the position of not ever
needing to look for a job again - you'll simply have to choose from
the opportunities presented to you.

This is speculation. If I manage to hit the right seam of gold, I'd
find myself in a great position. However, if the seam I happen to
strike is a dry one, and turns out not to be in demand, what do you
suggest I do? Fall back on LAMP? Move back in with my mother and live
on her pension? The biggest gamble I've ever taken was 50 NIS for a
lottery ticket. Losing 50 NIS won't hurt me. Losing six months worth
of money and landing back in the LAMP dump is.

Post by Gilad Ben-Yossef
The market for interchangeable web site programmers is indeed
controlled by ASP.Net drones. If you plan to be an interchangeable
cog that should certainly be the technology to follow.

No, I have no intention of doing that, unless my rent is really at risk.

Post by Gilad Ben-Yossef
If, however, you want be in a position to get the jobs that
*aren't* listed in any paper or web site, to be bogged down by head
hunters calling very politely every six month on the clock just to
check in if you happen to fancy hearing about a new job opening and
being able to pick and choose jobs because you are a rare and
irreplaceable source of knowledge about a useful technology that is
used by only the few biggest corporations and most sophisticated
and cutting edge start-ups , then by all means do consider Django
and Python.

Um, you do remember that I said "I want to work normal hours". That
means both start-ups and huge companies are not exactly a tempter.

Anyway, I must say your message left me more depressed than
motivated. :(

Herouth

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[Constantine Shulyupin]

Herouth,

Would like to learn MBA or marketing?
Languages will change one another, but economic will lasts forever.

Constantine.

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Post by Constantine Shulyupin
Would like to learn MBA or marketing?
Languages will change one another, but economic will lasts forever.

It's not 6 monthes, however. Also, not having any marketing experience
would mean
very base-level job for at least a number of years, I think.


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[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Post by Herouth Maoz
You failed to mention a crucial thing that get CxOs jobs -
connections. People know about them. They have a nice black book of
contacts from their previous jobs and military service which they
maintain. They have people who owe them favors. That's how you get
jobs in high positions, at least in this country.

O can second that. I have a friend who, without connections when the startup
he was CFO for failed, he took a job as a security guard. He's been
working 60-70 hours a week for 3 years until the next one happens.

It's not been wasted time,he's done other things, such as tried to
proscute a copyright thief, figured out the difference between a bad
lawyer and a good one, a bad patent agent and a good one and how to tell
BEFORE you hire them. He has been reading many texts on enterpenurial
finance, writing business plans and starting a startup, and is writing a
book on it for people starting their first startup. All of the books he
has been able to find, websites, etc are all about doing it in the U.S.
which barely applies.

But without contacts, the only people beating a path to his door are
looking for a meal. :-(

BTW, when I was "in the loop" of starting startups, by the time they are
at the stage they are getting their first real funding, they have long since
found all of the people they need by connections. It's not until they
have been around for a while that they are looking for "random" people
"off the street".

Geoff.

[Ravid Baruch Naali]

Herouth Maoz wrote:


Sorry Maoz, but I don't have a good advice, but I can give you some
pointers where to start your own research.


http://www.job4me.net/ - a google lookalike web site which searches
every Hi-tech company for their job offers.


http://free-electrons.com/ - excellent web site which offers free
training material mainly for embedded system.


http://free-electrons.com/community/kernel/ - a good resource to learn
about linux kernel/drivers development.


http://janitor.kernelnewbies.org/ - A good place for kernel newbies.


Also some PHP open source projects:

http://gallery.menalto.com/

http://www.freepbx.org/

and of course a lot more


I hope it will give you a better view of your options.

Post by Herouth Maoz
Hello, fellow Linuxers. I'd like your advice regarding a job change.
My company has been acquired. There is a chance that my boss won't
stay around, and if so, I'm not going to stay around, either - because
the chances are that the business will become
yet-another-dotnet-based-web-portal.
I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've been
doing more integration work and problem solving than any web
development (being the only one except our sysadmin who is not afraid
of shell scripts). Now, this merger gives me a unique opportunity -
I've been in my current company for 6 years, so I'm due a lot of
compensation should I quit (quitting after an acquisition is
considered being laid off), meaning I can basically keep my standard
of living for at least 6 months without actually working.
I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of
programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in an
open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is -
what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate a
programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular (other
than the web)? Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no golden
cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire).
Needless to say, I'm talking about Linux-oriented (or at least Unix)
jobs here, I'm not looking to change to .Net, I don't even have a
Windows box available at home.
My CV in a nutshell: B.Sc. from 1989, military service doing
application programming in environments that no longer exist, until
1994, then some tech support until 1996-7, and since then I've done
web programming, at first in Java, then in PHP, though I did a
refresher course in Java recently (but never got around to writing
anything in it).
Any advice will be appreciated. Sneers and jeers will not. :)
Herouth
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ravidbn-***@public.gmane.org
[phone]
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[Herouth Maoz]

Post by Ravid Baruch Naali
Sorry Maoz, but I don't have a good advice, but I can give you some
pointers where to start your own research.
http://www.job4me.net/ - a google lookalike web site which searches
every Hi-tech company for their job offers.
http://free-electrons.com/ - excellent web site which offers free
training material mainly for embedded system.
http://free-electrons.com/community/kernel/ - a good resource to learn
about linux kernel/drivers development.
http://janitor.kernelnewbies.org/ - A good place for kernel newbies.
http://gallery.menalto.com/
http://www.freepbx.org/
and of course a lot more
I hope it will give you a better view of your options.

Thank you, I'll keep these on hand.

Herouth

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[Maxim Veksler]

Post by Herouth Maoz
Hello, fellow Linuxers. I'd like your advice regarding a job change.
My company has been acquired. There is a chance that my boss won't
stay around, and if so, I'm not going to stay around, either -
because the chances are that the business will become yet-another-
dotnet-based-web-portal.
I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've
been doing more integration work and problem solving than any web
development (being the only one except our sysadmin who is not afraid
of shell scripts). Now, this merger gives me a unique opportunity -
I've been in my current company for 6 years, so I'm due a lot of
compensation should I quit (quitting after an acquisition is
considered being laid off), meaning I can basically keep my standard
of living for at least 6 months without actually working.
I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of
programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in
an open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is
- what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate
a programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular
(other than the web)? Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no
golden cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire).
Needless to say, I'm talking about Linux-oriented (or at least Unix)
jobs here, I'm not looking to change to .Net, I don't even have a
Windows box available at home.
My CV in a nutshell: B.Sc. from 1989, military service doing
application programming in environments that no longer exist, until
1994, then some tech support until 1996-7, and since then I've done
web programming, at first in Java, then in PHP, though I did a
refresher course in Java recently (but never got around to writing
anything in it).
Any advice will be appreciated. Sneers and jeers will not. :)
Herouth

I recently had a talk with fellow colleges, I been told a story about
company X that was looking for php software house under the following
conditions:

1. They have more then 4 employees.
2. There in business for over 1 year.
3. They have a large php project to back their work.

It seems that there were not even one decent company in Israel that
would fall under these conditions. This was ~2 years ago. So they
turned to .Net.

I don't mean to be all too rude but: What about starting your own
company? You definitely have the necessary experience, skill,
motivation and with proper guidance/managements you could fill in a
blank that is clearly missing here in the local market. I could even
suggest this organization would be a hybrid of Django (which is
getting hotter by the minute!) and php ajax software house. Do it in
the open source way (i.e. keep using fresh FOSS technology, contribute
back) and there's surly a bright future ahead.


Maxim.

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--
Cheers,
Maxim Veksler

"Free as in Freedom" - Do u GNU ?

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[Herouth Maoz]

Post by Maxim Veksler
It seems that there were not even one decent company in Israel that
would fall under these conditions. This was ~2 years ago. So they
turned to .Net.

We had a similar problem in our company. When we had a project that
was too large for our number of developers and needed to outsource
it, we simply couldn't find any LAMP-based company that could do it.

Post by Maxim Veksler
I don't mean to be all too rude but: What about starting your own
company? You definitely have the necessary experience, skill,
motivation and with proper guidance/managements you could fill in a
blank that is clearly missing here in the local market. I could even
suggest this organization would be a hybrid of Django (which is
getting hotter by the minute!) and php ajax software house. Do it in
the open source way (i.e. keep using fresh FOSS technology, contribute
back) and there's surly a bright future ahead.

I'm afraid that would only be an option if I could get a partner that
would take care of all the non-technical matters. I am qualified for
neither management of people (I always turn down team leader
positions) nor marketing and sales.

But thanks for the additional angle.

Herouth

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[Amos Shapira]

Post by Herouth Maoz
I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've

Short of doing a whole switch to kernel programming (or switch to becoming
an airline pilot, which is what a friend of mine did and I wish I could :),
you might want to consider expanding your existing skills towards related
ones - SQL database design and programming should be useful in many places.
Also I'm not sure about the market in Israel but I see demand for Perl
programmers abroad (for all sorts of stuff, including web, system and
application programming and system administration).

Also taking this opportunity to learn administrative skills should pay off
in any career you choose, IMHO.

Good luck,

--Amos

[Boaz Rymland]

As someone who worked in Zend up to recently and got a good sense of the
market searching for opportunities that suits my somewhat similar needs,
I can add the following bits of information:


- Demand for PHP programmers in Israel has grown nicely recently. From
very little some two years ago (and little tendency of the various local
"producers" to use PHP) to very nice demand. I bet you're aware of the
growing usage of PHP in Israel anyway. I know about lots in inquiries
Zend people get, in a steadily growing pace, about either outsourcing
PHP programming jobs or request for references for PHP speaking people.

- Perl jobs are achievable as well. While searching for PHP jobs I was
always been told by recruitment agencies "if you want to utilize your
Perl experience just let us know - we have offers for you". Yet, Perl
programming is, at least from what I've been offered, mostly QA
programming or other automated stuff (not what I preferred).


Good luck with it! (I do believe you can find something good for you
with less difficulty than estimated).

Boaz.

Post by Herouth Maoz
I'm basically a PHP programmer, though in the past two years I've
Short of doing a whole switch to kernel programming (or switch to
becoming an airline pilot, which is what a friend of mine did and I
wish I could :), you might want to consider expanding your existing
skills towards related ones - SQL database design and programming
should be useful in many places. Also I'm not sure about the market in
Israel but I see demand for Perl programmers abroad (for all sorts of
stuff, including web, system and application programming and system
administration).
Also taking this opportunity to learn administrative skills should pay
off in any career you choose, IMHO.
Good luck,
--Amos

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[Herouth Maoz]

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Post by Amos Shapira
Short of doing a whole switch to kernel programming (or switch to
becoming an airline pilot, which is what a friend of mine did and I
wish I could :)

I have a hunch that would take a lot more than 6 months and all the
money I have on Earth...

Post by Amos Shapira
, you might want to consider expanding your existing skills towards
related ones - SQL database design and programming should be useful
in many places.

Oh, SQL, table structure design, stored procedures, transactions - it
all comes with the territory when doing PHP programming, I thought I
didn't need to mention that...

Nevertheless, I really want to get away from the LAMP business, at
least not have it as my main occupation.

Herouth
--Apple-Mail-7--112883372
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/html;
charset=ISO-8859-1

<HTML><BODY style=3D"word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; =
-khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On 01/09/2007, at =
03:22, Amos Shapira wrote:</DIV><BR =
class=3D"Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type=3D"cite"><P =
style=3D"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial; =
min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P style=3D"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px =
0.0px"><FONT face=3D"Arial" size=3D"3" style=3D"font: 12.0px =
Arial">Short of doing a whole switch to kernel programming (or switch to =
becoming an airline pilot, which is what a friend of mine did and I wish =
I could :)<BR></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR =
class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>I have a hunch that would take a =
lot more than 6 months and all the money I have on =
Earth...</DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type=3D"cite"><P style=3D"margin: =
0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face=3D"Arial" size=3D"3" style=3D"font: =
12.0px Arial">, you might want to consider expanding your existing =
skills towards related ones - SQL database design and programming should =
be useful in many places.=A0</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>Oh, =
SQL, table structure design, stored procedures, transactions - it all =
comes with the territory when doing PHP programming, I thought I didn't =
need to mention that...=A0</DIV><DIV><BR =
class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Nevertheless, I really want =
to get away from the LAMP business, at least not have it as my main =
occupation.</DIV><DIV><BR =
class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Herouth</DIV></BODY></HTML>=

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[Shachar Shemesh]

Post by Herouth Maoz
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Post by Amos Shapira
Short of doing a whole switch to kernel programming (or switch to
becoming an airline pilot, which is what a friend of mine did and I
wish I could :)

I have a hunch that would take a lot more than 6 months and all the
money I have on Earth...

Light aircraft license is about 10-15K NIS. Can be accomplished in a few
months. Assuming you were not a pilot for the air force, your only real
option is flying for Arkia. You will need to do IFR training, and
conversion to bigger aircrafts, but I think the airliner sponsors that
part anyways.

Then again, commercial piloting is about as boring as it can possibly
get. It is so mind boggingly boring it's hard to imagine. Doing
databases is probably a much much much more interesting work to do.

Post by Herouth Maoz
Oh, SQL, table structure design, stored procedures, transactions - it
all comes with the territory when doing PHP programming, I thought I
didn't need to mention that...
Nevertheless, I really want to get away from the LAMP business, at
least not have it as my main occupation.

Shachar

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[Amos Shapira]

Post by Shachar Shemesh
Light aircraft license is about 10-15K NIS. Can be accomplished in a few
months. Assuming you were not a pilot for the air force, your only real
option is flying for Arkia. You will need to do IFR training, and
conversion to bigger aircrafts, but I think the airliner sponsors that
part anyways.

Shachar, you should know better than that. You don't have to be an air force
pilot to work for El-Al.
Besides, my friend could afford the career switch (and better flying
options) because he's an American citizen...

But we are digressing...

--Amos

[Shachar Shemesh]

Post by Shachar Shemesh
Light aircraft license is about 10-15K NIS. Can be accomplished in a few
months. Assuming you were not a pilot for the air force, your only real
option is flying for Arkia. You will need to do IFR training, and
conversion to bigger aircrafts, but I think the airliner sponsors that
part anyways.
Shachar, you should know better than that. You don't have to be an air
force pilot to work for El-Al.

That at least used to be a requirement. I have not heard of it being lifted.

Post by Shachar Shemesh
Besides, my friend could afford the career switch (and better flying
options) because he's an American citizen...

I doubt that makes it any less boring. Helicopter pilots get better (but
not great) job satisfaction (unless you work for the Israeli electricity
company, flying right next to high voltage poles). The pilots that spray
fields with insecticides get really interesting work, but they used to
have to go through blood tests every six months to make sure they are
not poisoned. The requirement was lifted only due to the fact that
recent studies show that it takes about 20 years for the poisons to show
up in a blood test.

I'll stick to computers. Don't want to get cancer.

Again

Post by Shachar Shemesh
But we are digressing...
--Amos

Shachar

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[guy keren]

Post by Herouth Maoz

Post by Amos Shapira
, you might want to consider expanding your existing skills towards
related ones - SQL database design and programming should be useful
in many places.

Oh, SQL, table structure design, stored procedures, transactions - it
all comes with the territory when doing PHP programming, I thought I
didn't need to mention that...
Nevertheless, I really want to get away from the LAMP business, at
least not have it as my main occupation.

well, what is it that you _do_ want to do?

no one can help you without you telling something on the positive side.

--guy

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[Herouth Maoz]

Post by guy keren

Post by Herouth Maoz

Post by Amos Shapira
, you might want to consider expanding your existing skills
towards related ones - SQL database design and programming
should be useful in many places.

Oh, SQL, table structure design, stored procedures, transactions -
it all comes with the territory when doing PHP programming, I
thought I didn't need to mention that...
Nevertheless, I really want to get away from the LAMP business,
at least not have it as my main occupation.

well, what is it that you _do_ want to do?
no one can help you without you telling something on the positive side.

I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current
market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice what
to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's available
I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting to me, given
the time and money constraints.

So far I'm told that kernel drivers are in demand. I've noted that to
myself (as well as the other general advices given), and it's an
option. Basically, any suggestion will be welcome - I'm trying to get
a feel of the market, not to make an instant decision.

Herouth

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[Maxim Veksler]

Post by Herouth Maoz
So far I'm told that kernel drivers are in demand. I've noted that to
myself (as well as the other general advices given), and it's an
option. Basically, any suggestion will be welcome - I'm trying to get
a feel of the market, not to make an instant decision.
Herouth

Well, from my short swim in the industry I can tell you the following
market trends:

1. Advertising is hot, everything from analytical people to graphical
designers goes.
2. System Analysts are being hired quickly today, you must have a firm
background in your field.
3. DBA, not "system" but those that responsible for scalability and
optimization of the scheme.
4. Good networking people are always in demand.
5. JAVA, as in serverlets and jsp's can be a good direction for you.
6. Security experts, you can merge into a security firm as web
application security consultant.
7. Well, QA is also an option if your looking for a relaxed position.

HTH.

On a personal note, I never agreed with the claim "Current market
demand". My answer to this is simple - If you want to make a
difference, start thinking differently. In translation to the software
industry, I you want to make a `fine` salary and work in a good
company - find something your interested in and pursue, be good at
what you do and work will just pop up for you.

Maxim.
--
Cheers,
Maxim Veksler

"Free as in Freedom" - Do u GNU ?

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[Herouth Maoz]

Post by Maxim Veksler
Well, from my short swim in the industry I can tell you the following
1. Advertising is hot, everything from analytical people to graphical
designers goes.
2. System Analysts are being hired quickly today, you must have a firm
background in your field.
3. DBA, not "system" but those that responsible for scalability and
optimization of the scheme.
4. Good networking people are always in demand.
5. JAVA, as in serverlets and jsp's can be a good direction for you.
6. Security experts, you can merge into a security firm as web
application security consultant.
7. Well, QA is also an option if your looking for a relaxed position.

Thanks, that adds a few more options to my list.

Post by Maxim Veksler
On a personal note, I never agreed with the claim "Current market
demand". My answer to this is simple - If you want to make a
difference, start thinking differently. In translation to the software
industry, I you want to make a `fine` salary and work in a good
company - find something your interested in and pursue, be good at
what you do and work will just pop up for you.

That's what I'm trying to do, basically. Only I don't believe in "The
Secret" and its ilk. If I decided that I'm interested in CGI, or
artificial intelligence, or quantum computing, or Macintosh
application programming, do you really think that a job would "pop
up"? Should I spend my 6 months on a pipe dream? I'll have to fall
back on LAMP then, and if so, I'd rather take a vacation in Japan
instead, at least I'll have fine memories. ;)

Anyway thanks, I appreciate the above list and the advice.

Herouth

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[Nadav Har'El]

Post by Herouth Maoz
If I decided that I'm interested in CGI, or
artificial intelligence, or quantum computing, or Macintosh
application programming, do you really think that a job would "pop
up"?

Obviously, you can't "decide" that you're interested in something... You
need to convince employers that you have one or more of (with bonus points if
you have more than one of them):

1. Burning desire (a passion) for the topic
2. Better than average knowledge in the topic
3. Better than average experience in the topic

For example (to start with your example), I took a Quantum Computing course
in the Technion. Does that make me employable in this subject? Of course not.
I have no passion for this subject, I don't have much knowledge on this subject
that hundreds of other Technions students don't have, and I have absolutely
no experience. On the other hand, if you look at my involvement in the Hebrew
linguistic world - I think I demonstrated a passion for it (not everybody
writes a spell-checker for fun...) and experience (again, not everybody
designed and wrote a working spell-checker and morphological analyzer). This
kind of passion, knowledge and experience *is* something that you can do in
6 months, and in fact the first working version of Hspell (if you allow me
to continue with this example) was ready in less than 6 months. But the first
thing - "passion" - is kind of hard to "develop" (if you find a particular
topic boring, it won't be easy to develop a passion for it - not in 6 months
and not in a lifetime).
--
Nadav Har'El | Sunday, Sep 2 2007, 19 Elul 5767
nyh-TS7m/3hpY0sOpacJJkBjfT4kX+***@public.gmane.org |-----------------------------------------
Phone [phone], ICQ 13349191 |As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a
http://nadav.harel.org.il |cat.

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[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Post by Nadav Har'El
Obviously, you can't "decide" that you're interested in something... You
need to convince employers that you have one or more of (with bonus points if
1. Burning desire (a passion) for the topic
2. Better than average knowledge in the topic
3. Better than average experience in the topic

I don't know if that's true or not. IMHO you decide what you want to do in
life and do it. Your decision may be affected by other concerns such as
making a living, schools for your family, etc., so it's not just a technical
decision.

Sometimes as you've said, there are no jobs IN ISRAEL for certain skills.
Or it may be a case of not knowing where to find them. For example, there
have been Macintosh jobs here and there still are. If they are open, is
another question, but the Hebrew version of the Macintosh operating system
was developed here until around 2000, when it was dropped.

There are two Hebrew supporting Macintosh word processing programs, one
was Nisus, which was availble when I started to care about such things,
in 1991, and a descendent of it is still around. They are based in
California. There is also Melel, which is based in Tel Aviv.

If you did not know about them, you would have never approached them.

There is also a lot of "offshoring" done here, but most companies
keep it quiet.

I don't know you, except for your approximate age and that you want to
be an employee (both of which were recently posted), but if you
really want to get a job doing something you like, you may have
to spend a few years in Silicon Valley. You then make the contacts
to go work for a start up and "offshore" yourself.

Geoff.

[Nadav Har'El]

Post by Geoffrey S. Mendelson
Sometimes as you've said, there are no jobs IN ISRAEL for certain skills.

Which is why I think it's pointless to acquire only certain skills. I've
worked in several jobs in my life, and each one of them was very different
from the previous one. I never said to myself (or employers), "hey, I worked
on TCP/IP in my last job, so now I must find another TCP/IP job". The best
way to make sure you have a job is to have a relatively wide array of skills,
not just one skill. Like someone already said, being the world's finest
Fortran 77 coder might not help you much to get a job (although, believe it
or not, there are still companies who value this skill).

Post by Geoffrey S. Mendelson
I don't know you, except for your approximate age and that you want to
be an employee (both of which were recently posted), but if you
really want to get a job doing something you like, you may have
to spend a few years in Silicon Valley. You then make the contacts
to go work for a start up and "offshore" yourself.

This advice was true 20 years ago, but I'd advise against this today (unless,
of course, you want to "see the world"). There are plenty of computer jobs in
Israel - in large companies, medium companies, and startups. Unless you insist
on specializing in some very specific subject that nobody in Israel is
interested in, there is simply no reason to move the the US. Heck, I even had
a job offer from one of the most sought-after US employers, and rejected it,
because I was so sure that I won't have a problem finding a job in Israel in
the forseable future, and because I want to stay in Israel (Call me a Zionist,
if you must...)
--
Nadav Har'El | Sunday, Sep 2 2007, 19 Elul 5767
nyh-TS7m/3hpY0sOpacJJkBjfT4kX+***@public.gmane.org |-----------------------------------------
Phone [phone], ICQ 13349191 |Politics, n: from Greek, "poly"=many,
http://nadav.harel.org.il |"ticks"=blood sucking parasites.

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[Omer Zak]

Post by Nadav Har'El
This advice was true 20 years ago, but I'd advise against this today (unless,
of course, you want to "see the world"). There are plenty of computer jobs in
Israel - in large companies, medium companies, and startups.

True, a resource for computer jobs in Israel:
http://www.cji.co.il/archive.htm

--- Omer
--
One cannot argue with a Bayesian filter. Peter Lorand Peres
My own blog is at http://www.zak.co.il/tddpirate/

My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone.
They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which
I may be affiliated in any way.
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[Stanislav Malyshev]

I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current market
demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice what to
change to depends on what's available, and out of what's available I'm
hoping to select what will seem the most interesting to me, given the
time and money constraints.

If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP anymore,
you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX, etc. These days
I think it is becoming a real programming market. Not sure if there's
easy to find such job without it being combined with design (which are
two entirely different jobs, but not everybody understands it). It
doesn't have to do much with Linux, though :)



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[Herouth Maoz]

Post by Stanislav Malyshev

Post by Herouth Maoz
I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current
market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice
what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's
available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting
to me, given the time and money constraints.

If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP
anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX,
etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market.
Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined
with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not
everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux,
though :)

Thanks. I sort of regard Ajax as part of the territory these days.

Herouth

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[Danny Lieberman]

Herouth
I see Matrix are looking for a J2EE programmer on the list.....that might be
an indicator.....Danny

Post by Herouth Maoz

Post by Stanislav Malyshev

Post by Herouth Maoz
I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current
market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice
what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's
available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting
to me, given the time and money constraints.

If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP
anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX,
etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market.
Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined
with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not
everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux,
though :)

Thanks. I sort of regard Ajax as part of the territory these days.
Herouth
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--
Danny Lieberman
Reduce risk with practical threat analysis- visit us at
www.ptatechnologies.com
"All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best
one." Occam's razor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.software.co.il/blog - Israeli software, music and mountain biking
www.software.co.il/pta - Download a free copy of the PTA-Practical
threat analysis tool
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Cell + 972 54 447-1114

[Maxim Veksler]

Post by Herouth Maoz
Herouth
I see Matrix are looking for a J2EE programmer on the list.....that might be
an indicator.....Danny

I would think twice before turning to work for Matrix, but perhaps
that's just me.

Post by Herouth Maoz

Post by Herouth Maoz

Post by Stanislav Malyshev

Post by Herouth Maoz
I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current
market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice
what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's
available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting
to me, given the time and money constraints.

If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP
anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX,
etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market.
Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined
with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not
everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux,
though :)

Thanks. I sort of regard Ajax as part of the territory these days.
Herouth

=================================================================

Post by Herouth Maoz
the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command

--
Danny Lieberman
Reduce risk with practical threat analysis- visit us at
www.ptatechnologies.com
"All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one."
Occam's razor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.software.co.il/blog - Israeli software, music and mountain biking
www.software.co.il/pta - Download a free copy of the PTA-Practical
threat analysis tool
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tel Aviv + 972 3 610-9750
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Cell + 972 54 447-1114

--
Cheers,
Maxim Veksler

"Free as in Freedom" - Do u GNU ?

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[Danny Lieberman]

Maxim
My comment was in an ironic-vein - I am hardly a fan of J2EE - it was
designed for a number of use cases that don't exist in real life which is
way PHP and ROR are so good.

Danny

Post by guy keren

Post by Herouth Maoz
Herouth
I see Matrix are looking for a J2EE programmer on the list.....that

might be

Post by Herouth Maoz
an indicator.....Danny

I would think twice before turning to work for Matrix, but perhaps
that's just me.

Post by Herouth Maoz

Post by Herouth Maoz

Post by Stanislav Malyshev

Post by Herouth Maoz
I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current
market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice
what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's
available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting
to me, given the time and money constraints.

If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP
anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX,
etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market.
Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined
with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not
everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux,
though :)

Thanks. I sort of regard Ajax as part of the territory these days.
Herouth

=================================================================

Post by Herouth Maoz
the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command

--
Danny Lieberman
Reduce risk with practical threat analysis- visit us at
www.ptatechnologies.com
"All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best

one."

Post by Herouth Maoz
Occam's razor

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Herouth Maoz
www.software.co.il/blog - Israeli software, music and mountain biking
www.software.co.il/pta - Download a free copy of the PTA-Practical
threat analysis tool

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Herouth Maoz
Tel Aviv + 972 3 610-9750
US + 1-301-841-7122
Cell + 972 54 447-1114

--
Cheers,
Maxim Veksler
"Free as in Freedom" - Do u GNU ?

--
Danny Lieberman
Reduce risk with practical threat analysis- visit us at
www.ptatechnologies.com
"All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best
one." Occam's razor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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www.software.co.il/pta - Download a free copy of the PTA-Practical
threat analysis tool
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Cell + 972 54 447-1114

[Daniel Refaeli]

ùìåí ìëåìí,

ãøåù àéù HTML úåúç – äúçìä îééãéú.

òáåãä áîùøä îìàä + àôùøåú ìòáåã áúåø òöîàé (Freelance).

àçìä îöéàä ìîúàéîéí!!!

ìôøèéí ðåñôéí:



danielre-***@public.gmane.org <mailto:danielre-***@public.gmane.org>

052-2739156

ãðéàì

[Lior Kaplan]

The last time you sent this kind of job offer you got an answer askin=
g
you to keep several rules. Please keep them and don't spam this list.

=20
=20
=D7=A9=D7=9C=D7=95=D7=9D =D7=9C=D7=9B=D7=95=D7=9C=D7=9D,
=20
=D7=93=D7=A8=D7=95=D7=A9 =D7=90=D7=99=D7=A9 HTML =D7=AA=D7=95=D7=

=AA=D7=97 =E2=80=93 =D7=94=D7=AA=D7=97=D7=9C=D7=94 =D7=9E=D7=99=D7=
=99=D7=93=D7=99=D7=AA.

=20
=D7=A2=D7=91=D7=95=D7=93=D7=94 =D7=91=D7=9E=D7=A9=D7=A8=D7=94 =D7=

=9E=D7=9C=D7=90=D7=94 + =D7=90=D7=A4=D7=A9=D7=A8=D7=95=D7=AA =D7=9C=
=D7=A2=D7=91=D7=95=D7=93 =D7=91=D7=AA=D7=95=D7=A8 =D7=A2=D7=A6=D7=
=9E=D7=90=D7=99 ( Freelance ).

=20
=D7=90=D7=97=D7=9C=D7=94 =D7=9E=D7=A6=D7=99=D7=90=D7=94 =D7=9C=D7=

=9E=D7=AA=D7=90=D7=99=D7=9E=D7=99=D7=9D!!!

=20
=D7=9C=D7=A4=D7=A8=D7=98=D7=99=D7=9D =D7=A0=D7=95=D7=A1=D7=A4=D7=
=20
=20
=20
=20
052-2739156
=20
=D7=93=D7=A0=D7=99=D7=90=D7=9C
=20

--=20
Lior Kaplan
kaplanlior-***@public.gmane.org


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[Lior Kesos]

Hi Herouth,
What I don't understand is the whole LAMP grudge your carrying around...
From my experience (as someone that lives off LAMP related
training,projects, products) there is a big difference in the
development experience between wielding zope, doing home grown cgi-
perl development, custom php development, python coding etc...
I have focused on drupal a magnificant LAMP based cms and development
framework and although I hate php - I totally adore the framework I
develop in (drupal) and I can realize my cutstomers vision which is
quite satisfying.

So what is it you hate so much about LAMP?
I think the way you wield the might acronym is a bit too wide and as
Gilad stated a framework like django, zope or drupal might be fun.

To second Stanislav if I had one language to bet my horses on I'd
vote for javascript (hence ajax and stuff) and it's associated
frameworks. (jquery, scriptaculas, moo etc..)
Good luck,
Lior

Post by Stanislav Malyshev

Post by Herouth Maoz
I want to do something new. That's why I asked what the current
market demands are. I have an opportunity to change. The choice
what to change to depends on what's available, and out of what's
available I'm hoping to select what will seem the most interesting
to me, given the time and money constraints.

If you want to stay in web arena, but not deal much with LAMP
anymore, you may try to go client-side - rich applications, AJAX,
etc. These days I think it is becoming a real programming market.
Not sure if there's easy to find such job without it being combined
with design (which are two entirely different jobs, but not
everybody understands it). It doesn't have to do much with Linux,
though :)
=================================================================
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[Herouth Maoz]

Post by Oleg Goldshmidt
Hi Herouth,
What I don't understand is the whole LAMP grudge your carrying
around...
From my experience (as someone that lives off LAMP related
training,projects, products) there is a big difference in the
development experience between wielding zope, doing home grown cgi-
perl development, custom php development, python coding etc...
I have focused on drupal a magnificant LAMP based cms and
development framework and although I hate php - I totally adore the
framework I develop in (drupal) and I can realize my cutstomers
vision which is quite satisfying.

It's all a matter of taste, of course. I'm sick-sick-sick and tired
of writing yet-another-page that displays data from a database. It
really doesn't matter if the language is PHP, Perl or Python (they
are just alternatives for the "P" in LAMP). I have no particular
preference for a language. It's the sort of applications that you can
build using the HTTP protocol that I'm sick of - web services, forms,
buttons, integrity checks. Oh, and Javascript is, in fact, my least
favourite platform. I find it unreliable, with compatibility problems
between platforms, and it's generally being used in order to force
HTML to do things it is not supposed to do. Eventually you may have
nice interfaces, but they are interfaces into nothing. If there is
anything interesting to be done on the backend, it's usually done by
a different class of programmers, and they provide the web
programmers with an easy API into their system, and so, all you have
to do on the server side is access the API, and do something with the
resulting data.

The truth is that all web applications are just sugar coated
information systems, and nowadays, with Ajax, they are really no
different than the client-server applications people used to write
back in the late '80s and early '90s.

All this is boring me to tears. I'm not at all sure airline pilots
have it harder. :-S

Basically, I think anything one has done for 11 years straight tends
to become boring, but really, there is no challenge in LAMP other
than trying to overcome the limitations of the browsers and the HTTP
protocol.

Herouth

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[Ilya Konstantinov]

Post by Herouth Maoz
I'm sick-sick-sick and tired
of writing yet-another-page that displays data from a database.

..

Post by Herouth Maoz
The truth is that all web applications are just sugar coated
information systems, and nowadays, with Ajax, they are really no
different than the client-server applications people used to write
back in the late '80s and early '90s.
... but really, there is no challenge in LAMP other
than trying to overcome the limitations of the browsers and the HTTP
protocol.

Herouth, I feel your pain. It seems that even Web 2.0 and Flash didn't
change the essentials of web apps being information systems -- transient
throw-away ones.

On the other hand, I also remember sitting with Lior few years ago, him
showing me what he does for his clients with Drupal, all excited about it.
But Lior likes the business side too: that's why he does his Drupal jobs on
a freelance basis and that's why he's excited about things like realizing a
customer's vision.

I guess you're pretty sick of clients who always seem ungrateful, don't have
a clear idea of what they want (so it becomes part of your job to define it,
sometimes having to guess) - and eventually can't tell a quality app from a
sloppy one. I think Lior sees those clients as a challenge. Lior thinks it
his job to help a clueless client make up his mind about what he wants; not
less of a job than the technical one. He has what it takes to enjoy LAMP:
great people skills and not being a perfectionist. This way you can churn
out dozens of e-commerce sites, while enjoying the business problems and
interaction with the clients.

[Stanislav Malyshev]

you can build using the HTTP protocol that I'm sick of - web
services, forms, buttons, integrity checks. Oh, and Javascript is, in
fact, my least favourite platform. I find it unreliable, with
compatibility problems between platforms, and it's generally being
used in order to force HTML to do things it is not supposed to do.
Eventually you may have nice interfaces, but they are interfaces into
nothing. If there is anything interesting to be done on the backend, it's

I would disagree here. I think what is happening in this area is the
return of HTML to what it meant to be, only better. The applications are
moving towards the old MVC paradigm, where HTML moves back towards the
Model (though you can use other model data source, like JSON or XML
sources), CSS takes over much of the View and Javascript makes
Controller. There's still some uncleanness (especially that data and GUI
are still mixed) and some growing pains but I think it's where the
things are heading to, and it's a healthy direction. As a result,
nowdays HTMLs become more clean - as CSS/JS begin to allow to do what
they were meant to do from the start - provide presentation layer over
the independent content layer.

The truth is that all web applications are just sugar coated
information systems, and nowadays, with Ajax, they are really no
different than the client-server applications people used to write
back in the late '80s and early '90s.

Yes and no. Yes because it's not that there's new computer science being
born or something :), no - because things are being done that weren't
done before, because now it's easier for people to do them. As an
example, let's look at one of the tons of google maps mashups - which
*are* very useful if google maps covers the area you are interested in -
too bad Israel isn't covered :( - and see how something like that was
done in 80s. The answer is - it wasn't done. Such applications just
didn't exist.

Of course, there's a ton of boring stuff and needless bells and whistles
there too - can't be helped, that's Sturgeon's Second Law at work. But
there's some cool stuff too.
But then again, if you don't feel interested in it - definitely don't do
it. There's always a ton of other things to do :)



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[Herouth Maoz]

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Post by Stanislav Malyshev
Yes and no. Yes because it's not that there's new computer science
being born or something :), no - because things are being done that
weren't done before, because now it's easier for people to do them.
As an example, let's look at one of the tons of google maps mashups
- which *are* very useful if google maps covers the area you are
interested in - too bad Israel isn't covered :( - and see how
something like that was done in 80s. The answer is - it wasn't
done. Such applications just didn't exist.

Map applications are an excellent example for this topic. First, they
may not have existed in the '80, but they certainly did exist in the
early '90s. Only then you couldn't do them without a serious client,
way over the capabilities of the PCs of the day. You needed a unix
workstation in order to present a photographic backdrop, and have
good capabilities for zoom and pan. Even screen resolution is PCs and
macintoshes of the day weren't good enough.

I know that, you see, because I did GIS (Geographical Information
Systems) in the military.

All the tricks you can do with maps - mash them with photos, overlay
them with gas stations and hotels, find all the gas stations that are
within 1 km of a particular road, find geographic location by
address, do the travelling salesman problem (not optimally, of
course), get travel directions and so on - have been solved problems
by 1992 or so. It was just a matter of being able to work the
interface in a user's environment (when the user didn't have $10,000
to spend on a workstation), and improve storage capabilities of
clients, and speed of communications with the client (which is
necessary for GPS devices, because the data in them is dynamic).

To the point of our discussion, though, there are basically three
elements in an application such as ynet maps (the best browser map
system currently in Israel, I believe, given that it actually works
on Firefox). You have a server side which contains all the air
photos, the roads, the addresses, and all the fine algorithms for
finding things. You have a client side which allows for zoom, pan,
view switches, etc. - a flash or java application - and you have the
web envelope around all of them - fields on the side where you enter
the address, and a button which then transfers it to the server. And
maybe on the web server side - a web application that interacts with
the GIS engine and returns results using HTTP.

Neither the server nor the flash client are done by web programmers.
They are left only with the integration - maybe have some HTML
buttons that interact with the flash. Maybe an Ajax that talks to the
server. All of the interesting stuff is done in the server. Some semi-
interesting things are done in the flash client (things HTML is
incapable of - zoom, pan, vector graphics, texts drawn in angles or
following a path...)

Herouth
--Apple-Mail-1-123579580
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/html;
charset=US-ASCII

<HTML><BODY style=3D"word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; =
-khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On 04/09/2007, at =
05:18, Stanislav Malyshev wrote:</DIV><BR =
class=3D"Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type=3D"cite"><P =
style=3D"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face=3D"Arial" size=3D"3" =
style=3D"font: 12.0px Arial">Yes and no. Yes because it's not that =
there's new computer science being born or something :), no - because =
things are being done that weren't done before, because now it's easier =
for people to do them. As an example, let's look at one of the tons of =
google maps mashups - which *are* very useful if google maps covers the =
area you are interested in - too bad Israel isn't covered :( - and see =
how something like that was done in 80s. The answer is - it wasn't done. =
Such applications just didn't exist.</FONT></P> =
</BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV>Map applications are an excellent example =
for this topic. First, they may not have existed in the '80, but they =
certainly did exist in the early '90s. Only then you couldn't do them =
without a serious client, way over the capabilities of the PCs of the =
day. You needed a unix workstation in order to present a photographic =
backdrop, and have good capabilities for zoom and pan. Even screen =
resolution is PCs and macintoshes of the day weren't good =
enough.</DIV><DIV><BR class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I =
know that, you see, because I did GIS (Geographical Information Systems) =
in the military.</DIV><DIV><BR =
class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>All the tricks you can do =
with maps - mash them with photos, overlay them with gas stations and =
hotels, find all the gas stations that are within 1 km of a particular =
road, find geographic location by address, do the travelling salesman =
problem (not optimally, of course), get travel directions and so on - =
have been solved problems by 1992 or so. It was just a matter of being =
able to work the interface in a user's environment (when the user didn't =
have $10,000 to spend on a workstation), and improve storage =
capabilities of clients, and speed of communications with the client =
(which is necessary for GPS devices, because the data in them is =
dynamic).</DIV><DIV><BR class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>To =
the point of our discussion, though, there are basically three elements =
in an application such as ynet maps (the best browser map system =
currently in Israel, I believe, given that it actually works on =
Firefox). You have a server side which contains all the air photos, the =
roads, the addresses, and all the fine algorithms for finding things. =
You have a client side which allows for zoom, pan, view switches, etc. - =
a flash or java application - and you have the web envelope around all =
of them - fields on the side where you enter the address, and a button =
which then transfers it to the server. And maybe on the web server side =
- a web application that interacts with the GIS engine and returns =
results using HTTP.</DIV><DIV><BR =
class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Neither the server nor the =
flash client are done by web programmers. They are left only with the =
integration - maybe have some HTML buttons that interact with the flash. =
Maybe an Ajax that talks to the server. All of the interesting stuff is =
done in the server. Some semi-interesting things are done in the flash =
client (things HTML is incapable of - zoom, pan, vector graphics, texts =
drawn in angles or following a path...)</DIV><DIV><BR =
class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Herouth</DIV></BODY></HTML>=

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[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Post by Herouth Maoz
Map applications are an excellent example for this topic. First, they
may not have existed in the '80, but they certainly did exist in the
early '90s. Only then you couldn't do them without a serious client,
way over the capabilities of the PCs of the day. You needed a unix
workstation in order to present a photographic backdrop, and have
good capabilities for zoom and pan. Even screen resolution is PCs and
macintoshes of the day weren't good enough.

I think you are far off on that one. While most of it was developed in
the late 1970's, NASA was mapping things in the mid 1960's. Computerized
weather maps were around since the 1950's.

The trick, IMHO is not to do something new, but to come up with a new
way of doing old things.

Even UNIX/Linux is not a new idea, Single user operating systems, were
around since the 1940's (the UNI part of the name), and multiuser
operating systems since the 1960's. Harking back to the "what will read
my document in 30 years discussion", history is littered with dead
systems, long forgotten, for example, MULTICS, QuickTran, the SDS (later
XDS) 900 series (including the 940 timesharing system),

HP minicomputers (2110 series with BASIC, assembly language and Fortran)
HP 3000 (operating system written in Algol or PL/I I've forgotten),
Boroughs Algol multiuser systems, RCA (IBM 360 clones) etc.

That does not make working on the Linux Kernel "old hat" and boring.
There are still lots of things that can be done to improve old ideas.
Look at the movie 2001, there is nothing like HAL on the market, but it
was supposed to be available by 6 years ago.

Technology does move on. When I started to work on handheld gaming, I
had the technology but not the hardware. The only Linux based handheld I
could cannibalize was a PDA being sold on closeout from a defunct
company.

Now there are many devices which I could use or adapt to my technology
include a device from Korea, where they literally stole our business and
marketing plan, but still could not get it to do what we did.

Many embedded devices that were impossible to make 5 years ago, can
be built from off the shelf components with all of the custom work
being in software.

I think the big experimental hardware of the future will be recycled
iPods. :-) (and other MP3 players)

More germane to the topic is that IMHO, you won't find a steady, good paying
job on the leading edge of things. Too many startups fail (75% up) in the
first year and many of them find they don't have the talent to make what
they are supposed to do work (or simply can't with good people) and
keep going looking like they are doing something to attract investment.

I once discussed this with a professor at the top business school in the
U.K. who had specialized on investment in Israel. Many companies where
(and still are) propped up by investors who don't want to see their
investment fail. Most of it here is because of Zionism, or Jewish guilt
(I'll send my money to Israel, so I can feel good about not visiting or
moving there), or small investors who overextended themselves and can't
afford to loose their money.

To me those companies are like prison, if you can see what's happening,
you either keep your mouth shut, or try to change things and get fired.

You have to make choices in life. Do you want interesting work in
a dynamic company, or do you want the computer equivalent of "Metropolis"
or "Modern Times"?

In large companies you can't generalize, for example, Intel has
one of the largest mind numbing cubicle farms in the country, but
I'm sure there are plenty of people happily doing interesting things
there too.

Geoff.

[Herouth Maoz]

Post by Geoffrey S. Mendelson

Post by Herouth Maoz
Map applications are an excellent example for this topic. First, they
may not have existed in the '80, but they certainly did exist in the
early '90s. Only then you couldn't do them without a serious client,
way over the capabilities of the PCs of the day. You needed a unix
workstation in order to present a photographic backdrop, and have
good capabilities for zoom and pan. Even screen resolution is PCs and
macintoshes of the day weren't good enough.

I think you are far off on that one. While most of it was developed in
the late 1970's, NASA was mapping things in the mid 1960's.
Computerized
weather maps were around since the 1950's.

What I meant was that in the early '90s you could get all these
algorithms in shrink-wrapped on-the-shelf software packages. Of
course, like Oracle, not every Joe could afford the software, nor the
hardware it required.

Post by Geoffrey S. Mendelson
The trick, IMHO is not to do something new, but to come up with a new
way of doing old things.

My point wasn't that if something existed in the old days, it's not
worth doing any more. My point was that the technology is nothing
new, and has really nothing to do with web development. Web
development is used merely to present the technology. Even so, the
web is not a good enough platform for this kind of application, and
it's no wonder google creates an old-fashioned front end for it.

What I was trying to get across is that although I find writing yet-
another-SQL-query mind-numbingly boring, it doesn't mean that RDBMS
technology is boring. If I worked in the development of the database
itself, implementing a novel algorithm for indexing or fail-proofing
or whatever, it would be much more interesting. In the same vein -
writing in Javascript is boring, but implementing Javascript in a
browser is interesting.

Of course that's my personal taste.

Herouth

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[Stanislav Malyshev]

Post by Herouth Maoz
course), get travel directions and so on - have been solved problems
by 1992 or so. It was just a matter of being able to work the

They were solved in theory. In practice, AFAIK there were next to no
applications - at least ones accessible to average user, don't know what
happened in the military or other government business - that did it.

Post by Herouth Maoz
Neither the server nor the flash client are done by web programmers.

I don't know how you define "web programmer" but client side was what I
talked about. Including Flash/Flex, AJAX, soon-to-be Silverlight and others.

Post by Herouth Maoz
server. All of the interesting stuff is done in the server. Some semi-
interesting things are done in the flash client (things HTML is
incapable of - zoom, pan, vector graphics, texts drawn in angles or
following a path...)

HTML is capable of many of that, BTW - with some help from
Javascript/CSS of course. And will be capable of more as future web
standards get developed and supported (canvas, SVG, whole HTML 5 business).


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[Jonathan Ben Avraham]

Hi Folks,
A word of caution here - HTML/AJAX/FLASH, etc. is a marketplace that is
clogged with people doing poor work and getting paid poorly for it. There
are a few talented individuals who are doing great work and are paid
handsomely. The problem here is distinguishing yourself from the crowd of
high-school students and the like who think that they know how to work
but in fact do not. You don't have that marketing problem with Linux
kernel programming.

- yba

Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2007 23:44:41 -0700
Subject: Re: Career advice needed

course), get travel directions and so on - have been solved problems by
1992 or so. It was just a matter of being able to work the

They were solved in theory. In practice, AFAIK there were next to no
applications - at least ones accessible to average user, don't know what
happened in the military or other government business - that did it.

Neither the server nor the flash client are done by web programmers.

I don't know how you define "web programmer" but client side was what I
talked about. Including Flash/Flex, AJAX, soon-to-be Silverlight and others.

server. All of the interesting stuff is done in the server. Some semi-
interesting things are done in the flash client (things HTML is incapable
of - zoom, pan, vector graphics, texts drawn in angles or following a
path...)

HTML is capable of many of that, BTW - with some help from Javascript/CSS of
course. And will be capable of more as future web standards get developed and
supported (canvas, SVG, whole HTML 5 business).
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[Muli Ben-Yehuda]

Post by Jonathan Ben Avraham
but in fact do not. You don't have that marketing problem with Linux
kernel programming.

I wouldn't be so sure, although there's probably a difference of
scale. You'd be surprised how many people call themselves kernel
programmers when in fact their output is accurately described by slide
29 of this presentation:
http://userweb.kernel.org/~arnd/papers/lce2007/slides.pdf

Cheers,
Muli

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[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Post by Muli Ben-Yehuda
I wouldn't be so sure, although there's probably a difference of
scale. You'd be surprised how many people call themselves kernel
programmers when in fact their output is accurately described by slide
http://userweb.kernel.org/~arnd/papers/lce2007/slides.pdf

Considering the fact my youngest son spends a lot of his online time at
a sight called "Moo Moo", I think that programmer has a good future in
LAMP and FLASH games.

Geoff.

[Kfir Lavi]

Hi,
I have worked back in 1998 at a computer game company.
One of the leading programmers was someone from big company in the Silicon
Valley, with about 10 years experience in graphic programming. Back then the
salary was bombastic, but as for production, he was ACE. Unfortunately the
company closed its doors.
He was then about 40 years old. I have met him in the university after some
years doing his Ph.d in computer graphic field. I remember talking with him
and asking how could he pass such a big salary, and he told me that everyone
in his place should go to the academy, because its very interesting, and let
you concentrate in the field you love.
Not a lot of people in the computer industry have a real Research and
Development jobs as you described. I think they are very few and most
of them are MA or Ph.d.
Consider going back to school and find the field you want to research. This
will give you the intellectual stimuli you need.
I have seen some Ph.d becoming entrepreneur, or leading the R&D in a new
company.
If you are Zionist as you said, wouldn't it be great to create more power to
Israel, by boosting its economy.
You also don't have to build yourself the company or be a manager, its just
to find the right people to build it with them.
As for quitting your job, I think the market now is not good as everybody
thinks. Go to some interview and see what I mean. You will have to wait to
the right job. I recommend searching for a job when you work, because it can
take a lot of time.

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Post by Kfir Lavi
If you are Zionist as you said, wouldn't it be great to create more power to
Israel, by boosting its economy.
You also don't have to build yourself the company or be a manager, its just
to find the right people to build it with them.

The question is, "what do you bring to the table"? Once you are sure you
can HONESTLY answer that, then the task becomes finding the rest of
the team. Finding a good CEO is the most difficult part, most of them
are just bull*** artists.

I also often see ads from prople who have no CEO experience and want you
to pay them CEO salaries and equity to learn on the job.

Geoff.

Post by Kfir Lavi
As for quitting your job, I think the market now is not good as everybody
thinks. Go to some interview and see what I mean. You will have to wait to
the right job. I recommend searching for a job when you work, because it can
take a lot of time.

It's was really good for people that want 5k NIS a month . I've seen adds
for LAMP programmers that wanted to pay 4k NIS for one year and 5k NIS
for the second (with a mandatory 2 year contract). They expected real
experience.

It's also great for top of the line Kernel programmers. In between it's
"soft". It's going to get worse before it gets better, the U.S. economy
is sliding down. Most people say it's a "small correction", a friend
if mine (and some people on Fox), say it's going to correct itself by
30%. (ouch).

Geoff.

[Herouth Maoz]

Post by Kfir Lavi
Consider going back to school and find the field you want to
research. This will give you the intellectual stimuli you need.

I thought about it. But then, I never could get a handle on the way
academic research works. It was always beyond me. Collecting papers
for background is as far as I got in my M.Sc. thesis. I'm afraid I'm
a development, not research person. At least not formal research.

Herouth

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[Nadav Har'El]

Post by Herouth Maoz
by 1992 or so. It was just a matter of being able to work the
interface in a user's environment (when the user didn't have $10,000
to spend on a workstation), and improve storage capabilities of
clients, and speed of communications with the client (which is
necessary for GPS devices, because the data in them is dynamic).

That's almost like saying that designing better cars is not interesting,
because in the 60s, we already flew to the moon, and already had nuclear
propulsion of submarines, so what if these technologies are too expensive
and haven't been used in cars - it's the same thing :-)

Or, it's like saying that the invention of the phonograph record didn't
change anything. After all, someone who wanted to hear music could also go
to a concert! So what if before an average person could afford to only go
to one concert a year, and now he can hear 3 records a day, it's the same
thing :-)

I remember in the late 80s, when I got access to a computerized list of all US
towns (of the kind you can easily get for free today on GNIS et al.) and was
absolutely amazed by the easiness in which I could find how many towns in the
US were called Bethleham, for example ;-) Nobody even imagined that cheaper
storage, cheaper memory, stronger CPUs and of the proliferation of free
software and free content would mean that in the 2000s, I would have easy and
free access not just to the names of towns, but detailed maps, photos of
individual houses, a long description of every town, and so on and so on.
The "theoretical" technology was already there - in the late 80s I had already
seen a color computer display, had already seen a whopping storage (which at
the time seemed almost infinite to me) of 3 GB, and I'm sure that NORAD or
whoever already had very good electronic maps. But these technologies were
not practical for common use, and therefore not commonly used.

Post by Herouth Maoz
Neither the server nor the flash client are done by web programmers.

Then why must you be a "web programmer"? What prevents you from getting
a job at one of these "flash programming" or "server programming" outfits?
Did someone lead you to believe that you don't have what it takes to do
"server programming"? How the f*** is "server programming" that much different
from Web programming?

Post by Herouth Maoz
server. All of the interesting stuff is done in the server. Some semi-

If this is what you think, then start looking for a job on the server side.
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[Oleg Goldshmidt]

Post by Herouth Maoz
I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of
programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in
an open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is
- what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate
a programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular
(other than the web)? Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no
golden cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire).

Hi Herouth,

I don't have a direct answer to these questions, and what I'll write
may or may not sound practical. Here is an "heretical" thought: maybe
the best investment of effort over the next few months will not be
acquiring specific marketable skills. (Before I continue: it cannot
hurt!)

It may or may not sound surprising, but what you will do in your next
job may not be the most important thing. At least 2 other things look
much more important to me: who the people you will be working
with are, and whether the work will be interesting to you.

With normal qualifications with regards to the general job market
situation (which does not seem too bad at the moment) and your
personal financial circumstances, going to work for a company that
puts much emphasis on specific, ready-to-wear skills may not be the
best option. A company that will be ready to let you learn new skills
as you go, will look at you as a long term employee with potential in
many areas, will view *you*, rather than your present day skills and
knowledge, as the most important asset, will be worth joining. A
company that is more interested in your PHP (or whatever) skills than
your potential will be likely to see you as a disposable resource and,
assuming they will pay you well, will be more likely to be a "golden
cage" in the "we'll get so many KLOC/month of PHP from any number of
others who we can hire instead of you" sense. By the way, employers
who think like this often do so to their own detriment...

Where do you want to work? Where you will have many opportunities to
do and to learn new things? Or where you will be reusing what you
already know how to do? Where your colleagues and your managers keep
looking at new things all the time and when asked what they do do not
reply, "We write Java/PHP/Python/C code" but rather explain what
problem they are trying to solve and why it is important? Or where
they give candidates interview questions to check whether they know
operator precedence tables by heart, and the interview summary reads,
"The candidate is really smart, nice, has extensive general knowledge,
and has done many cool things, but she does not have 3 years of
experience in <insert a specific programming language, DB type,
whatever here> and thus is not suitable"?

How many companies are there who are looking for *people* rather than
*resources*? The percentage is definitely non-zero, and in the end you
don't need many, you need one at a time. It does not depend on the
size (3, 300, or 300,000 employees) or status (startup, public,
private) of the company - only on the people who run it and who work
there. How to find them? Tricky. But remember that the interview
process is not a one-way street. It's not the just the employer
grilling the candidate - the prospective employee should interview the
employer as well. If you do that and sense, in the process, that the
company representatives don't like the idea of being interviewed it is
probably not a good place to work at.

Anyway, to wrap it up, maybe the most important thing you can do in
the next 6 months is invest the time and the effort in trying to
identify potential employers who will hire you not for what you
already know but for what you can do for them in the future, medium to
long term. And in developing ways to sell yourself not as a simple
special purpose "resource" ("so many years of PHP experience plus I
have implemented all the kernel drivers from LDD3 with some
enhancements") but as a highly flexible, adaptible asset whose
"general experience" (I am quoting you) and knowledge will be valuable
in many different, and as yet unforeseen, situations. And in figuring
out what you *would like* to do (as opposed to what you know how to
do).

It is not about PHP, Python, or kernel programming. I do believe it
begins and ends with people. This may sound less practical than
developing specific skills to some, but - IMHO - that's only when you
think short term.

Best of luck,

[Herouth Maoz]

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Post by Oleg Goldshmidt
It is not about PHP, Python, or kernel programming. I do believe it
begins and ends with people. This may sound less practical than
developing specific skills to some, but - IMHO - that's only when you
think short term.

I think it's a bit more complex than you represent. The two reasons I
haven't left my company long ago, despite the relatively low salary,
are the work hours (I leave at 6 - except when there's a production
problem or a very rare thing like database upgrade or other night
job), and my skills (problem solving, integration) are appreciated
enough to have relegated the mundane build-yet-another-page tasks to
other programmers.

Nevertheless, when we hire new people, we look for some basic skills.
We usually concern ourselves less with operator precedence (who
cares?) and more with awareness of security issues (Do they check
user input for single quotes? HTML?), error checking, concurrency
issues (reading, then modifying data), and instruction reading
(people sometimes fail to read the exact directions in the test). But
we do prefer people who already know PHP to people who don't know and
will have to spend several weeks learning the language (or go to a
course). Experience is important, it cannot be ignored. Of course,
when we had candidates that sounded smart and resourceful in the
interview, we were more lenient.

A business needs to continue its day-to-day work, and there is enough
to learn about the particular expertise of the company, without
adding additional weeks which may require disrupting someone else's
busy schedule to explain things to him, check his progress, and so
on. It's especially true when you don't know whether he'll turn out
to be a good programmer in the end, or a bad one who somehow writes
programs that work, but there is no code re-use, error checking,
comments, and consideration for end cases. When he turns out to be
bad, you have lost your investment.

A business needs to think both short and long term.

In addition to all that, there is the issue of getting your foot in
the door. If you're a smart, methodical programmer who can see the
"greater picture", and haven't written a line of C code since
university, and if you're the same, but wrote a patch to the kernel
that got accepted, which one will be called for an interview, based
on their CV? HR people and even technical people tend to get a lot of
CVs which are irrelevant, and people just send "because it wouldn't
hurt". The first sifting is done by removing all the ones that are
not even close, and I've yet to find a person who'd see my "Good
problem solving skills" in my CV and say "hey, that's one worth
keeping". These skills help you when you get hired by word of mouth.
I have at least one job offer based on someone knowing me personally,
who is willing to let me learn at the expense of his company -
because I basically taught him how to program and he knows my worth.
(Unfortunately, he happens to be my best friend, and mixing business
with friendship is a recipe for disaster, especially in our case - we
are both short tempered. Otherwise I'd have accepted that job offer
long ago).

Herouth
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<HTML><BODY style=3D"word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; =
-khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On 01/09/2007, at =
09:42, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:</DIV><BR =
class=3D"Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type=3D"cite"><P =
style=3D"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face=3D"Arial" size=3D"3" =
style=3D"font: 12.0px Arial">It is not about PHP, Python, or kernel =
programming. I do believe it</FONT></P> <P style=3D"margin: 0.0px 0.0px =
0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face=3D"Arial" size=3D"3" style=3D"font: 12.0px =
Arial">begins and ends with people. This may sound less practical =
than</FONT></P> <P style=3D"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT =
face=3D"Arial" size=3D"3" style=3D"font: 12.0px Arial">developing =
specific skills to some, but - IMHO - that's only when you</FONT></P> <P =
style=3D"margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face=3D"Arial" size=3D"3" =
style=3D"font: 12.0px Arial">think short term.</FONT></P> =
</BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV>I think it's a bit more complex than you =
represent. The two reasons I haven't left my company long ago, despite =
the relatively low salary, are the work hours (I leave at 6 - except =
when there's a production problem or a very rare thing like database =
upgrade or other night job), and my skills (problem solving, =
integration) are appreciated enough to have relegated the mundane =
build-yet-another-page tasks to other programmers.</DIV><DIV><BR =
class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Nevertheless, when we hire =
new people, we look for some basic skills. We usually concern ourselves =
less with operator precedence (who cares?) and more with awareness of =
security issues (Do they check user input for single quotes? HTML?), =
error checking, concurrency issues (reading, then modifying data), and =
instruction reading (people sometimes fail to read the exact directions =
in the test). But we do prefer people who already know PHP to people who =
don't know and will have to spend several weeks learning the language =
(or go to a course). Experience is important, it cannot be ignored. Of =
course, when we had candidates that sounded smart and resourceful in the =
interview, we were more lenient.</DIV><DIV><BR =
class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>A business needs to =
continue its day-to-day work, and there is enough to learn about the =
particular expertise of the company, without adding additional weeks =
which may require disrupting someone else's busy schedule to explain =
things to him, check his progress, and so on. It's especially true when =
you don't know whether he'll turn out to be a good programmer in the =
end, or a bad one who somehow writes programs that work, but there is no =
code re-use, error checking, comments, and consideration for end cases. =
When he turns out to be bad, you have lost your =
investment.</DIV><DIV><BR class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>A =
business needs to think both short and long term.</DIV><DIV><BR =
class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>In addition to all that, =
there is the issue of getting your foot in the door. If you're a smart, =
methodical programmer who can see the "greater picture", and haven't =
written a line of C code since university, and if you're the same, but =
wrote a patch to the kernel that got accepted, which one will be called =
for an interview, based on their CV? HR people and even technical people =
tend to get a lot of CVs which are irrelevant, and people just send =
"because it wouldn't hurt". The first sifting is done by removing all =
the ones that are not even close, and I've yet to find a person who'd =
see my "Good problem solving skills" in my CV and say "hey, that's one =
worth keeping". These skills help you when you get hired by word of =
mouth. I have at least one job offer based on someone knowing me =
personally, who is willing to let me learn at the expense of his company =
- because I basically taught him how to program and he knows my worth. =
(Unfortunately, he happens to be my best friend, and mixing business =
with friendship is a recipe for disaster, especially in our case - we =
are both short tempered. Otherwise I'd have accepted that job offer long =
ago).</DIV><DIV><BR =
class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Herouth</DIV></BODY></HTML>=

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[Dan Bar Dov]

Wow, what a thread have you started.

My only 2 cents - and maybe I'm wrong -

If you like the area of web-dev - stick with it.
If you worked for the salary, I would feel sorry for you. But if you enjoy
what you do, then stick to what you enjoy, the extra money is not important.

As to technologies, after many years of experience, I find the various
scripting languages much the same. Some I prefer better, some less, some I
detest, but only for the way the code looks [perl], not for capabilities. As
an experienced programmer the language makes little difference, or rather,
should make.

Frameworks are a bit harder to get a grasp on, but if the underlying
languages is not a problem, I'd dare say that any framework that takes more
than a week to grasp, is probably not worth knowing in the first place.

So Ruby on Rails, Django [and I have never heard of it, so I'll better do
that now], if I were you, I'd invest enough time to know each, at least to
get a grasp, and then neither should be a problem to use.

Dan