** UnhandledExceptionEventHandler :: OFFICIAL LC / CHATTER THREAD **

[Neil S]

Zurvan: Have you ever used another Smalltalk-derived language, like Objective C?

[Zurvan]

Nope

Although, CakePHP is inspired by Rails, so I think I should understand the concept of it

[Neil S]

Originally Posted by Zurvan

Nope

Although, CakePHP is inspired by Rails, so I think I should understand the concept of it

OK so you're probably better off on the library side, so focus your study on the language side.

[kyleb]

Go on. Test it.

[clowntable]

Haha, awesome.

[jukofyork]

Originally Posted by 00Snitch

Random question:

Does anyone entirely support themselves by trolling places like elance for jobs?

I thought about attempting it a couple of years ago (obv so I can work on the beach in Thailand ), but I don't know if I have the ability to compete with a billion Indian/Pakistani programmers... Also appeared that there was a fair few companies (for lack of better word) that were bidding on projects with the intention of further subcontracting them... Seemed pretty cut-throat. Maybe I'm just being precious.

fwiw, I'm 27, no family, no physical assets, no debts... Although I do have a very cushy, well paid job.

Originally Posted by clowntable

Never tried, never will. Why would you want to work in an environment where programmers are treated like commodties?

Originally Posted by wellju

Why get in an endless line with thousands others that don't stand out.

Make good code and publish it. A well running project on sourceforge will likely get your inbox to reach it's physical limits with job offers.

Originally Posted by Zurvan

I've had some luck with Odesk, to make some extra money.

The trick is to find a small job, and do it cheap, so you get a rating and hours in the system. Then jack up your price to whatever level is acceptable to you, and apply for jobs at that price. Depending on your skill set, you can top out about $60/hr on ODesk. There's some skill involved in finding the people who are looking for quality, not just price.

Originally Posted by 00Snitch

Well the answer to "why" is obviously the ability to be able to work anywhere in the world at anytime that suits you. Everything is a commodity yours/my skills included.

But as wellju (and myself earlier) suggested, I thin the biggest problem is competing with a billion 3rd world programmers.

As for getting something solid up on sorceforge, I'm not original enough to make something that stands out.

Originally Posted by 00Snitch

Bolded reflects my initial thoughts...

dunno, I'll probably never do it. Just wondering if anyone has had any success.

Originally Posted by Zurvan

If you try to compete with the $3/hr guys, you will always lose

You need to find the jobs posted by people who care about quality over price. They are out there, and they're also often looking for long term help. I've had one client on ODesk for 2 years, and I hear from her every few months when she needs something tweaked on her site.

Should we move this discussion into a new thread? It could easy get swallowed up in here and I think it'd be quite interesting to hear future posters' experiences on this.

Juk

[jukofyork]

Originally Posted by jukofyork

Should we move this discussion into a new thread? It could easy get swallowed up in here and I think it'd be quite interesting to hear future posters' experiences on this.

Done.

Please continue discussion about this in the new thread: here.

Juk

[Shoe Lace]

I started reading 'CouchDB: The Definitive Guide' (it's free) and it's pretty amazing. I know basically nothing about nosql dbs and it does a really good job at explaining itself. I'm only 4 chapters deep but I feel like I made light years of progress already.

I need to start reading more books I guess. Usually I just Google or roam around SO but after just a few chapters of this book I'm starting to see how much that fails.

Can anyone recommend top notch free books related to javascript?

[Ankimo]

Originally Posted by greg nice

is it worth starting a TDD thread?

can anyone provide me with some good links/examples of implementing this? my program (StackAndTile) was born from ahk scripts, and my code and the language is sloppy. i would like to get some testing in so that i can be a bit more ambitious (read: wreckless) when fixing bugs and adding features, with the safety knowing that i can just click one button and if all the tests pass, then i can be sure my code works.

how does one add these tests on top of original code? i have started doing some refactoring of splitting large functions into smaller ones that i can test. however, the bulk of the program deals with moving poker tables around the screen, inside a big timer loop. this seems harder to test than simply passing a few parameters to a function. do i mock up fake poker tables and all that mess?

You're in a tough spot here. Most TDD requires that you start with the tests first, then write the code to satisfy those tests. Read www.railstutorials.org it's a great example of the TDD process. With your bundle of "sloppy code", the functions won't be designed well enough to determine which ones need to be tested.

As to testing AHK GUI stuff, maybe you can rig up some WindowSpy type program to check for existence of windows in the proper sport.

[wellju]

Originally Posted by Shoe Lace

I started reading 'CouchDB: The Definitive Guide' (it's free) and it's pretty amazing. I know basically nothing about nosql dbs and it does a really good job at explaining itself. I'm only 4 chapters deep but I feel like I made light years of progress already.

I need to start reading more books I guess. Usually I just Google or roam around SO but after just a few chapters of this book I'm starting to see how much that fails.

Can anyone recommend top notch free books related to javascript?

Top notch and free doesn't really compute imo.

If you follow this link, you'll find a variation of more than 50 awesome js books.

[Zurvan]

The best JS book I've ever read is Javascript The Good Parts

It's not free, but it is cheap. A quick read, but full of great information

[clowntable]

Top notch and free doesn't really compute imo.

Disagreed in many areas. I'm struggling ot find a top notch pay-per-search engine for example

If you're only talking about documentation for many things there's top notch stuff to be found (and if it's on the web, more up to date than non ebooks).

[well named]

Today I get to debug a java applet inside a web browser control inside a .NET application where an access violation exception is being thrown sporadically. I thought it was related to NXCOMPAT but apparently it's not.

What could be better than a .NET control that's really just an activeX host interacting with a java applet?

*shakes fist*

[Gullanian]

I can see why people would like books, but I haven't read anything for years. I'm pretty convinced any information (especially computer related, as the web was built by computer people) is out there somewhere if you know where to look. If you know where to look as well, there is loads of incredibly high quality resources out there, and as clown pointed out it's always going to be more up to date than print.

[TheIrishThug]

Originally Posted by well named

Today I get to debug a java applet inside a web browser control inside a .NET application where an access violation exception is being thrown sporadically. I thought it was related to NXCOMPAT but apparently it's not.

What could be better than a .NET control that's really just an activeX host interacting with a java applet?

*shakes fist*

Another one for the WTF thread. God speed.

Originally Posted by Gullanian

I can see why people would like books, but I haven't read anything for years. I'm pretty convinced any information (especially computer related, as the web was built by computer people) is out there somewhere if you know where to look. If you know where to look as well, there is loads of incredibly high quality resources out there, and as clown pointed out it's always going to be more up to date than print.

This. Programming books don't work for me. I need get down and dirty and work on a project to understand how things work. When I get stuck, it's to the internet.