when i was doing this a year or two ago, i found nothing good for hand vs range or range v range, and i ended up just saying **** it and writing my own, which i figured would faster (for me, anyway) than deciphering someone else's crappy C code. not familar with the library you mentioned though, so hopefully that's better....

So FireFox ESR is not a browser? What does it do, it sounds like something to push FF out to your organization?

I'm not a professional so I don't have the confidence to build on a live server?

I downloaded CentOS on a VM?

I can't build this thing on a Windows server and expect it to work on a Linux server?

I'm truly mystified by your comments here.

Sorry, our servers run cent-os and I'm not used to a server having a GUI.

I see, so you build on distro A and deploy to CentOS. I just downloaded CentOS onto a VM to make life easier for the poor schmuck who has to create the server and deploy to it.

Glad I did that too.

You don't need a GUI to deploy/build a server. Developing on a CentOS VM rather than your Windows machine is unusual.

The program that I am working with has a Windows version and a Linux version. They are significantly different from each other, so even if I built on Windows to deploy to Linux, it would not work at all.

Why, given the choice, would any sane person prefer to develop on Windows over Linux? This is even more insane when one will deploy to Linux anyways.

I guess the confusion is that everyone thinks I am working on a server. I'm not, I'm simply setting up the program, There is no server.

Whee, learning an organization's workflows, and catching up on what's being worked on and where everything is hiding. Makes me feel so dang helpless, after spending two days just working up a development environment...

I agree. It hasn't always been like that but is now.

I have a career question: I've been at my first entry-level development job for 4 months now. It's in C#/.NET. It's an absolutely great company to work for. My coworkers are all amazing and already like family, bosses are extremely laid back, etc. It's a smaller company which is great because I am getting my hands in a lot of different things as well (already am being allowed to do the builds). The amount that I've learned in the last 4 months is absolutely incredible and I recognize that my development would not be so rapid at other companies.

However, the pay is good but definitely not great and a bit below average for an entry-level developer in my area. Also, although I've greatly moved passed that immature stigma of "lol C#/.NET" sucks, it's still not an area I want to spend my whole career in. And our main product is certainly not the most interesting thing to be working on.

So of course I'm torn between starting to look for a new job now, recognizing that *it's only been 4 months* and waiting a bit longer, or recognizing that although my current place has some negatives to it, the work environment is sooo important and outweighs a lot of the other stuff. (I mean I literally wake up everyday feeling as if I am just going to hang out with friends/family)

I'm soon to be 25 fwiw, and live about an hour away from NYC. The idea of moving to NYC or somewhere way far like Seattle, San Fran, Pheonix, Texas is very appealing too.

There are way more growing disciplines looking to hire CS majors than physics majors. If a comfortable lifestyle with lots of competition for your labor is your goal CS is the choice.

Average day on the job is work from my home office from 6:30am-3pm, get involved in solving various interesting problems for the business, and get very well compensated for my work.

Also, why are your cross posting.

^^ internet worlds colliding.

derada, in general I'd give it for more than four months - since it sounds like you are in a good situation. My guess is you've learned how to make things work, and are having fun doing it – which is great. But you haven't learned anything yet about how to write maintainable code, or keep your stuff organized as it grows. Also you probably don't want to make a habit of bouncing from job to job that fast – especially when you're starting out.

Having said that – it can't hurt to look for jobs in the places you want to live and just see if you get any nibbles.

My first real web programming job lasted about three months – but the place was a nightmare and my boss was a psychopath.

There is a pokersource Java API that allows you to do this, might be worth checking out if the pbots library doesn't work out:

http://www.codingthewheel.com/archiv...kersource_saie

For those of you who work some odd job in the day and study at night, or those who program all day and go home and do it more, how do you guys do this without burning out?

This last project has taken everything from me, and I've gotten to the point that I can no longer open up my VM. I've been getting sick constantly lately. Almost the entire month of November and December, I was getting sick on a nearly weekly basis but still grinding my head through. Started getting better, then got sick for a few weeks in January, then I get sick yet again at the beginning of February. Not sure how I can continue this anymore.

Drugs & alcohol, ldo

Only semi-kidding. So I'm one that codes all day at a job I'm 'meh' about but pays well, then I go home and after the kids go to bed I code late into the night on software I'm pumped about but pays squat. The only time I really start to feel burnt out is when I'm spending all 70-80 hrs per week solely on the day job. I can work the same amount of hours, but if I get a 50/20 ish split then I'm good.

So if you are coding after hours then I guess try to make it something you love working on, preferably your own company where you can still get excited by the thought of becoming the next big startup. Also make a clean break when you aren't working. When you are fixing the sink, playing with the kids, whatever you're doing be present in that moment and don't let your mind wander back to work. Don't cheat your free time.

I try to learn things that are related to programming but have a different perspective on the topic. Like the devops stuff with chef. It's a much different type of coding that takes place vs putting together a rails app.

It's familiar enough that I don't get totally lost but new enough that it's really interesting and it also solves a real problem. I also like to explore other languages even if I don't plan to stick with them. Sometimes just spending 20 hours a week watching presentations instead of coding helps a lot too.

I don't really feel like I get burnt out. Sometimes after watching presentations at night I have a hard time sleeping because I want to learn more or try something out so bad the next day. I still wake up sometimes at like 5am when I'm super motivated to do something.

For the record I do get burn out on other activities, especially video games. Sometimes I'll play a game pretty hardcore and then something will just click and I say fk it I'm done and then never touch the game again. It's probably about the time when the game starts to get boring or I talk myself into spending more time programming or doing programming related activities.

Barcalounger, I'm not sure how you can do all of that. You have kids too apparently? Wow.

The latest is sort of a startup-y thing going on, but honestly, the more I work on it, the more I realize how much has to be done. By definition, the project can't ever end since it piggy-backs on stuff that is presumably never-ending. The more I work on it, the more I decide to trim fat to reduce the work I have to do. Oh, right, then there is marketing to idea, testing the idea, and all that other stuff that has nothing to do with programming. You really can't do all this stuff yourself if you are working a full-time job, IMO.

Shoe Lace, you are quite the sicko, then. I can't think of a time I woke at 5am and felt good about it, nor can I understand why you'd enjoy devops. Just gross.

As for learning new languages. I'm fairly utilitarian. I really hate to learn new languages. C was okay for learning about that low-level stuff and that is fun. x86 is even more low-level and strange and I sort of enjoy it as well, but learning a new language isn't enough to make me wake up in the morning.

yeah i dont get burnt out. i might want to take a 1-3 day break sometimes, but for the most part i can do it indefinitely and enjoy it. if you are actually getting sick (as in a cold), it sounds like your environment, or your own attitude, is creating too much stress, or maybe you need to eat better or exercise more or just see a doctor. that's not normal or ok.

I suspect the sickness is coming from my job, tbh. They like to keep the A/C at ice-cold (everyone in my room wears winter clothes while working). The damn thing drips some crap sometimes. Everyone at my work is sick constantly and it passes around pretty fast. To add more to it, we all have to use finger-print scanners, so I guess I am shaking hands with everyone multiple times a day, no matter if they wash their hands after wiping their ass or not. I have a bottle of hand-sanitizer.

I just suspect I work in a "sick building."

I won't say I hate my job, but it really does drive me to work harder at night, through sickness or through health.

Some of dhh's talks got me so motivated that I was upset because I only have 2 hands and 24 hours in a day. I wanted to just code on 50 keyboards at once for an infinite amount of time and absorb information at an impossible rate.

I also remember waking up early on multiple occasions when I knew a new week's of content was put up for cs50x the night before.

I wish I had something to work on like my own startup or saas. I would be the most productive person to have ever lived.

Dave, your work environment seems kind of bad. I don't think I have enough experience working at other places but isn't what your describing out of line?

I would tell my boss everything you just wrote and ask him to make some changes. Being forced to be in a situation that makes you sick seems insane to me. It's so beyond unreasonable.

Heh. I just opened the VM and wrote in a few LOC.

It seems really easy when you first start. You give yourself a fairly impossible deadline and you actually hit it, and that feels good and encouraging. At some point, you realize you created a ton of work for yourself and then you realize that you have to pare back to manage it all. This works in your favor though: stripping away the excess helps you focus on the real problem and makes the project better. I guess it is a combo of YAGNI, pre-optimization, and removing feature creep. Then I look at others in the space and see they have a team of 10 people and I realize I built something that is better and faster (but my stuff is plain ugly). That should be rewarding but it isn't for some odd reason.

Setting up the server really took a lot out of me though. Now that I've done it once, I can do it again, but still.

I told them, but they don't care.

Its one of those things where no one else is willing to open their mouths, so you get pegged as a complainer. They did install a hand sanitizer at the finger check thing after we all cornered them on it. .

Isn't one of the perks of being in this industry that you don't have to put up with terrible work conditions?

I'd just find a job where I wasn't being run into the ground.

Impossible deadlines can be painful. For a while I over thought things to the point where it would paralyze me. Now I just write code and treat every single line of code I write as temporary code and I fully expect it to change.

YAGNI syndrome is deadly because even if you strip away your features you still try to over engineer the code you do end up writing to do things you might want in the future but that's such a huge mistake because there's no possible way to determine what you'll need later.

Now I simply don't care about design patterns or anything. I just write code and when it feels ugly or I see patterns I change them to fix the problem right now. The end result is much more simple code that gets written much faster.

As for the front end design. Have you thought about just buying a $10-50 template or out sourcing it to someone for a custom custom?

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As for your boss I think you need to make it really clear that the environment he's imposing on you is unsanitary and it's affecting your physical health.

I wouldn't care about being labeled as a complainer or anything. It's your health. It's the most important thing you have. It's easy to sit here and say I would quit over the situation you're in but I really would tell him that if he can't provide reasonable working conditions I'm done.