I am unsure whether to accept this job offer

[Ben Kenobi]

Is that how you do it too, -Jrabbit? I have to admit, the process seems pretty intimidating. Guess I'm a wuss.

I believe JR is a freelancer, but he'd have to answer that.

What I did, and do, is I have an agent who farms me out. Agent sets me up with client, I write for client. Of course that doesn't stop me from building up a portfolio, and finding work myself.

If you're going to write, I encourage you to build up a portfolio first. Just write about things that interest you. I try to anticipate future desires, and it's been a long time since I've had to write on deadline. Most of the contracts that I get are for work I'd written years ago, and it's just a matter of dusting it off, sprucing it up, and away it goes.

[Aeson]

I have to admit, the process seems pretty intimidating. Guess I'm a wuss.

For me it's less intimidating than finding a job that you know is going to schedule away the next 30-40 years of my life somewhere I wouldn't choose to live.

If you don't like doing keyword research, just write about topics that interest you. It doesn't have to be anything special. Just get it up on the internet whether it's on your own site or some third party that has ad revenue sharing (the ones I mentioned before). 10k posts suggest you can do it.

The benefits are you can work however much you want to, whenever you want to, wherever you want to (as long as you can get online), and the ceiling is just about limitless.

[rah]

Ben, can you provide links for any articles you've had published under your name?

[MRT144]

Ben, can you provide links for any articles you've had published under your name?

Rah is so cold.

[OzzyKP]

For me it's less intimidating than finding a job that you know is going to schedule away the next 30-40 years of my life somewhere I wouldn't choose to live.

If you don't like doing keyword research, just write about topics that interest you. It doesn't have to be anything special. Just get it up on the internet whether it's on your own site or some third party that has ad revenue sharing (the ones I mentioned before). 10k posts suggest you can do it.

The benefits are you can work however much you want to, whenever you want to, wherever you want to (as long as you can get online), and the ceiling is just about limitless.

So basically you just write a blog and collect money from ads? That pays well enough to live off of?

[Elok]

Learn Java, the IDE is free (use Eclipse) and there are plenty of entry-level positions out there. These are the official tutorials, but there are sure to be many others available for free, and you can probably get a Java book from your library. C# is extremely similar, so once you learn Java you can easily transition to C#.

The official tutorials seem written for people who know more about programming in general than I do, so I'm trying some site called javabeginner.com that's a little more dumbed-down--but not as dumbed-down as I'd like:

Abstraction denotes the essential characteristics of an object that distinguish it from all other kinds of objects and thus provide crisply defined conceptual boundaries, relative to the perspective of the viewer.

Encapsulation is the process of compartmentalizing the elements of an abstraction that constitute its structure and behavior ; encapsulation serves to separate the contractual interface of an abstraction and its implementation.

Uh, okay.

[Al B. Sure!]

So basically you just write a blog and collect money from ads? That pays well enough to live off of?

Don't forget he lives in the Philippines. And I think he has a farm.

[Fake Boris]

Abstraction denotes the essential characteristics of an object that distinguish it from all other kinds of objects and thus provide crisply defined conceptual boundaries, relative to the perspective of the viewer.

Encapsulation is the process of compartmentalizing the elements of an abstraction that constitute its structure and behavior ; encapsulation serves to separate the contractual interface of an abstraction and its implementation.

Filosofy

[Elok]

Boy, where I'm from you don't communicate that poorly except on purpose, like when you want to say you think Melville's writing was all about his discomfort with uncircumcised penises and not get laughed at. THEN you write something really vague using unnecessary jargon; it's called "Lit Crit."

Filosofy

[Al B. Sure!]

They're really making reference to Platonic forms in that java tutorial? Maybe I really had no idea what programming is.

[OzzyKP]

Don't forget he lives in the Philippines. And I think he has a farm.

Ah, that sounds nice. I should run a farm in some global backwater.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, can you provide links for any articles you've had published under your name?

I already have. Why you think my clients are national newspapers eludes me. It's the only one anyone posting here would have had any chance of coming across.

Uh, let's see. Most recent project was a comprehensive guide on hospital billing codes and the systems under which they are organized for 10 different jurisdictions. Want to know what the billing code for appendectomy is in Manitoba? My guide finds that for you. Enter the surgical procedure, and it should list all of them correctly.

[DaShi]

The official tutorials seem written for people who know more about programming in general than I do, so I'm trying some site called javabeginner.com that's a little more dumbed-down--but not as dumbed-down as I'd like:



Uh, okay.

Looks like you found something to write about.

[DriXnaK]

Seriously, I would recommend you go with C# before Java. Java just plain sucks. Find this book: The Object-Oriented Thought Process 3ed this is a good book for object oriented programming in general. For C# I recommend: CSharp 2010 and the dotNET 4 Platform 5th Edition. Just google these for ebooks and grab VS 2010 through other means as well.

[loinburger]

Boy, where I'm from you don't communicate that poorly except on purpose, like when you want to say you think Melville's writing was all about his discomfort with uncircumcised penises and not get laughed at. THEN you write something really vague using unnecessary jargon; it's called "Lit Crit."

A major problem with beginning object-oriented programming is that most of the tutorials want you to jump straight into objects and classes - when I started programming I did nothing but loops and arrays and if-statements for the first umpteen months. Maybe try starting out with Small Basic tutorial or something like that - if you go with Small Basic then there's a bit of a syntax change when you switch to Java or C#, but nothing too problematic. One thing: it looks as though Small Basic supports the "goto" statement, which you shouldn't use (it's "considered harmful") - you can do everything you need with while loops.

By the way, my attempt at a translation of the javabeginner atrocity you quoted is: if you want "squares" and "circles" then you can abstract the common properties, e.g. perimeter and area, into a common "shape" class; the squares and circles encapsulate their individual methods for calculating the perimeter and area, so a programmer can be given a random shape and query its perimeter/area without having to know what kind of shape it is.

On second thought, maybe I've been programming too long to de-jargonize.