Most discussion about web development, scripts, and Java?

A

aL Mac

Gawd
Joined
Jul 20, 2002
Messages
949
I browse these forums on occasion to look at what is being discussed and what programming questions are being asked. The majority of the questions are regarding web development. I know that web development is extremely important and popular, but I feel like I'm a bit of an outcast. I'll admit I'm not much of a web developer. I write software for embedded electronics and business applications mostly.

I'm always trying to expand what I know, but my focus is a little different than the web. Come next year, I'll also be graduating with a master's degree in computer science. I'm 27, and have at least 5 years experience writing software, but I've only had experience with a little web development in college. My wife, however, does web development in the same town as I work.

In one way, I feel that if I were looking for a job right now that it might be a huge weakness for me to not have real world web development experience. But, in another way, I feel that the experience I have is great and still needed and an advantage. I also feel that it is harder to outsource work for electronics and on-site business applications than it would be to outsource a webpage. Although, I'm not sure I would encourage either.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Do you think that it is bad that I do not have experience with web design? Or, do you think that it is only logical that I have specific experience in a particular area and that no one will master everything. Do you feel better or worse for having experience doing my kind of work or web development?
 
why do you need to know web development? it's definitely not necessary.
What languages do you already know, Java?
Java is extremely popular and you should be able to find a high paying job as a Java developer.

what you need to ask yourself is what do you want to program for the rest of your life, desktop programs, websites, backend server programs, etc?
 
I too have a Masters in Comp Science but ended up doing web development due to the current job market.

Not having experience with web development should not impede your ability to find work. Most organizations fill the web development jobs with people holding certificates specific to that. Any organization trying to hire a comp science grad for web development is wasting both your time and theirs(I don't count backend work as web development). You are much more valuable than someone who got a few certificates from a for profit college and once you see what they try to pay them, you'll realize those aren't the jobs you will want to pursue anyway.

In my case, I taught myself web development as a hobby and it became useful once a business opportunity came up while I was out of work. If you ever want to look into working for yourself, then learning web development could be worth learning. It could also make you an attractive candidate for project management in a corporate setting.

In short, not knowing it is not really a weakness. Learning it could open a few more doors down the road though.
 
The word web developer has become very vague. Some people think it's a kind of 'Webmaster' who does html and CSS - you know "making websites". I personally think it's more of a programmer.

More specific titles are: 'web applications developer' 'front-end web developer' etc.. In my work i touch everything from SQL, Ruby on Rails, Grails, PHP, CSS, Javascript, HTML....and heck even a little graphic design. Whatever skills you currently have, can be used in "web development". That's what's so great about it.

The lines between desktop apps and web apps are blurring. If you are a programmer of any sort, then you can code for web applications just as easily as you can for hardware electronics. Of course every field has it's quirks, but you can figure it out pretty quickly.
 
aL Mac said:
I browse these forums on occasion to look at what is being discussed and what programming questions are being asked. The majority of the questions are regarding web development. I know that web development is extremely important and popular, but I feel like I'm a bit of an outcast. I'll admit I'm not much of a web developer. I write software for embedded electronics and business applications mostly.

I'm always trying to expand what I know, but my focus is a little different than the web. Come next year, I'll also be graduating with a master's degree in computer science. I'm 27, and have at least 5 years experience writing software, but I've only had experience with a little web development in college. My wife, however, does web development in the same town as I work.

In one way, I feel that if I were looking for a job right now that it might be a huge weakness for me to not have real world web development experience. But, in another way, I feel that the experience I have is great and still needed and an advantage. I also feel that it is harder to outsource work for electronics and on-site business applications than it would be to outsource a webpage. Although, I'm not sure I would encourage either.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Do you think that it is bad that I do not have experience with web design? Or, do you think that it is only logical that I have specific experience in a particular area and that no one will master everything. Do you feel better or worse for having experience doing my kind of work or web development?
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Required? Bad? That's debatable, and needs to be weighed against your interests. A clearer definition of what you believe "web development" means would help. Also point out where you're more (and less) interested in.

I also get the impression you're looking for an idea that would interest you as you learn something new (such as web development). If so, then consider dumping data from an existing project to a file or database, then write a webpage (ASP.Net, PHP, etc.) to run some loops or queries against the dump and experiment with various aggregations and visual arrangements of the data within a webpage.
 
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No, I don't think it's an issue. To be a good developer I think it's important to have at least somewhat of a grasp of what's happening in the industry, even if you're not an expert in it.

It's the idea of being a T-shaped employee, in the sense that you have a breadth of knowledge across several disciplines and a specialization in a few. Your specialities seems to be embedded devices (that's not going anywhere) and business applications (transitioning towards web-based).
 
ripken204 said:
what you need to ask yourself is what do you want to program for the rest of your life, desktop programs, websites, backend server programs, etc?
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"The rest of your life" implies that a developer can pick only one. That's just not true.
noobman said:
Your specialities seems to be embedded devices (that's not going anywhere)
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It isn't?
 
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mikeblas said:
"The rest of your life" implies that a developer can pick only one. That's just not true.It isn't?
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So is it not right for me to ask what he wants to do with his life?
I am saying that there is no need to go into the web dev field if he is doing it because he thinks the market wants him to and not because he actually wants to.
Absolutely, he will change/evolve what he is currently doing, but it's pretty hard to predict that right now.
 
ripken204 said:
So is it not right for me to ask what he wants to do with his life?
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Since we know he won't focus on one thing, no, I don't think it gives any relevant information or incites any productive reflection. A developer is a developer -- picking up language and techniques is easy. Gaining experience with them takes time, but very successful developers aren't one-trick-ponies and don't do the same thing through a whole week, not to mention their whole careers.
 
mikeblas said:
It isn't?
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I haven't seen anything indicating that it is. It may perhaps be declining in demand, but I don't see it disappearing. If there's something you've read/heard/written that says otherwise I'd be more than happy to take a look.
 
I do C++ server side development, C# desktop programs, and java web applets in my current job, no reason to be stuck in just one discipline.
 
noobman said:
I haven't seen anything indicating that it is. It may perhaps be declining in demand, but I don't see it disappearing. If there's something you've read/heard/written that says otherwise I'd be more than happy to take a look.
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It's your assertion, you do the research. You'll quickly find that embedded systems outsell PCs 100:1 or more, and are the largest part of the computer industry.
 
mikeblas said:
It's your assertion, you do the research. You'll quickly find that embedded systems outsell PCs 100:1 or more, and are the largest part of the computer industry.
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i think he is saying that they aren't going to die any time soon
 
Could be, I guess. "not going anywhere" might mean "stable", or it might mean "not productive and not beneficial for investment".
 
The embedded market is going great I am in a embedded degree program and the guys from here are getting higher paying jobs than our dual majors in software/hardware. I think the web development gets more attention here just because this isn't a hardcore programming forums.
 
Does initial salary tell you more about the candidate or the degree program?
 
I think the degree program as they come out more specialized and in my opinion marketable. The duals seem to cover almost to much to really focus on one area. I do agree that it has some what to do with the candidates as well since the embedded program is a lot smaller. They get a lot more hands on time with the teachers. I know the embedded sensor class is limited to 10 people per term.
 
It's only a weakness if you apply for a job somewhere where it's needed... But web development can be interesting too, and even if you prefer to work server side you could very likely end up being at least occasionally required to understand how MVC works.

If you have no interest in it then don't bother, if you do then have a look at something like "Play Framework" (1.x if you don't have interest in learning Scala). You can take a free CSS template like Twitters Bootstrap so you don't have to bother with what will generally be a designers work. Once you get a grasp around it then codeacademy has a very easy to grasp course with javascript, a day or two should be enough so you understand it enough to use ready libraries and have a grasp of what's going on...
 
mikeblas said:
It's your assertion, you do the research. You'll quickly find that embedded systems outsell PCs 100:1 or more, and are the largest part of the computer industry.
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I'll have to remember not to second guess myself the next time one of the industry's top performers questions me with a vague two-word response.

I'm replying to a forum thread here, not writing a research paper. I've always been of the belief that information sharing and knowledge transfer were the fastest ways to help someone learn, but if you'd rather not share what you've found/learned then that's fine.

In any case, stating that embedded systems outsell PCs provides a snapshot of the current state of affairs without really saying where it's going. I'd guess that sales will increase as embedded software becomes more pervasive across things like household appliances.
 
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Still not sure why you have a chip on your shoulder, but I think my post was pretty clear -- I asked for clarification on your assertion that embedded devices aren't going anywhere.
 
mikeblas said:
I asked for clarification on your assertion that embedded devices aren't going anywhere.
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The problem is that "It isn't?" could imply a number of things in that situation:

1) Your statement is incorrect (IE "It isn't? Well, source x y z says otherwise")
2) I'm not sure what you mean, please elaborate (IE "It isn't? Do you mean it has no growth or that it is not going away")
3) Prove it (IE "It isn't? Fair enough, but explain why")

I don't understand why you expect me to take your statements at face value when you won't take mine at face value. If I'm to believe that "It isn't?" means just that and nothing more, then why would "it's not going anywhere" mean just that and nothing more. It isn't going anywhere.

I can see why "it isn't going anywhere" could be ambiguously understood as either "it's dead in the water and has no growth" or "it's not going anywhere, it's here to stay", but perhaps you could have better explained what it was you didn't understand. "It isn't going anywhere" in the context given is not an uncommon phrase, from my knowledge. However, despite all of this back and forth you still haven't really made it clear as to which part of my statement you didn't understand.

mikeblas said:
I think my post was pretty clear
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You thought you were being clear in your statements, as did I. If you criticize my ambiguity be prepared for me criticize yours. Isn't two-way communication a beautiful thing? :D

mikeblas said:
Still not sure why you have a chip on your shoulder
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I don't have a chip on my shoulder at all... I'm just trying to be clear, and I'm quite happy that we've figured this one out. I'll try to be more clear next time, and I hope that you will do the same. After all, we'd be wasting our time if we weren't.
 
noobman said:
I don't have a chip on my shoulder at all...
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Then how do I reconcile your snarky comments about "one of the industry's top performers questions me with a vague two-word response"? Certainly, such an ad homenim attack must have roots deeper than a simple misunderstanding about your claim.

noobman said:
The problem is that "It isn't?" could imply a number of things in that situation:

1) Your statement is incorrect (IE "It isn't? Well, source x y z says otherwise")
2) I'm not sure what you mean, please elaborate (IE "It isn't? Do you mean it has no growth or that it is not going away")
3) Prove it (IE "It isn't? Fair enough, but explain why")
Click to expand...
Expanding on any one of those three points would've provided satisfying and productive discourse.

I read your statement as the embedded industry not going anywhere meant that it wasn't making progress. I don't think that could be further from the truth. Someone else pointed out that you might have meant that it's stable. That's true, but I don't strictly think the embedded industry is stable -- it's growing, especially if you consider mobile electronics (cell phones, tablets, wearable devices, and so on) as embedded systems both in their primary function and in the secondary soft radios that they often implement. The industry also isn't stable when we consider the advancement of its technology; denser parts, better industrial design, higher and faster electrical limits, and better production all contribute to that process.

Post #7 and Post #14 both indicate that I didn't understand "Your specialities seems to be embedded devices (that's not going anywhere)", and post #14 makes it abundantly clear that I don't know what you specifically meant by "not going anywhere".
 
mikeblas said:
Then how do I reconcile your snarky comments about "one of the industry's top performers questions me with a vague two-word response"? Certainly, such an ad homenim attack must have roots deeper than a simple misunderstanding about your claim.
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That wasn't me trying to be snarky at all, and I'm sorry if you saw it as such. That was me kicking myself for second-guessing my stance because I assumed you were implying that I was incorrect. That's why I asked if you had seen something that I may have missed.

Obviously you have more experience in the industry and I'm willing to bet that you read far more publications and do more research than I do, so the extent of your knowledge base far surpasses mine. I've been reading your posts for a long time and legitimately consider you somewhat of a role model who knows his stuff (arguably better than anyone else in this subforum), although if first impressions are anything to go by I'm starting to question your people skills... although I'm sure you're more than capable. Are you beginning to see why I might start to question myself?

For the record I did look up information and found something about the need for FPGA programming in C, but not much else. That's stuff I haven't worked on in about four years, and given that I'm relatively new to the industry and working as a C# developer I'm busy learning how to become a better developer with that language while buffing up my other skills to become a better full stack web developer.


You were none too happy with the prospect of sharing any information I may have missed when I asked. Hopefully based on what I've just said, you understand why I might have asked in the first place.

mikeblas said:
I read your statement as the embedded industry not going anywhere meant that it wasn't making progress. I don't think that could be further from the truth. Someone else pointed out that you might have meant that it's stable. That's true, but I don't strictly think the embedded industry is stable -- it's growing, especially if you consider mobile electronics (cell phones, tablets, wearable devices, and so on) as embedded systems both in their primary function and in the secondary soft radios that they often implement. The industry also isn't stable when we consider the advancement of its technology; denser parts, better industrial design, higher and faster electrical limits, and better production all contribute to that process.
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Fair enough.
 
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