Where To Next?

By Alan Baylis

Do you remember the days when knowing how to hand code HTML was the mark of a web guru? If you knew how to make a waving flag using a sine function then you were an elite programmer. Everyone was fascinated by spinning cubes with pictures of their family or pets on each face. But times have moved on. To give you an example of how much things have changed I have posted a list of some of the languages, APIs and tools that I have used.

Languages Used:

6510 microprocessor (C64) asm

BASIC (C64)

GWBASIC (Amstrad)

QBASIC

x86 asm

HTML

Visual Basic

C++

STL

Flash

CSS

PHP

Regular Expressions

MySQL

APIs Used:

Allegro

OpenGL

Win32

ODE Physics Library

Tools Used:

a86 assembler

Getback (joystick operated C64 assembler written by me)

Define (x86 assembler/disassembler written by me)

DJGPP

TClite

MIRC

Borland C++ Builder

Dev-Cpp

VB IDE

Frontpage

Photoshop

Macromedia Flash & Dreamweaver

FreeWorld Editor (world editor written by me)

Competently used hundreds of other applications

General Computer Skills Used:

FTP Programs

MIRC/Scripting

Console/Amiga Emulators

CD/DVD Data Backups

Building Computers

Computer Maintenance

Computer Administration

Computer Networking

Website Development

Installed & Configured 100s of games, patches and mods

Completed 100s of games (recovering gameaholic)

Graphics Designer

Object Orientated Programming

Experience:

Writing Tutorials

Program Design & Implementation

Website Design

Search Engine Optimization

Website Administrator (5 years personal, 9 months contracted)

And for all this effort I have made a grand total of $25 as a programmer.

I'll just repeat that. I have earned exactly $25 (US) from programming. This excludes working as a freelance web developer and the occasional computer repairs, which is something most programmers have to fall back on to make a living. Of course I could have just added some pay-per-click advertising on my website and hope that more than 5% of people click through but this isn't practical with such a specialist subject like programming tutorials. Not to mention that I do not want to subject my visitors to the combined data gathering capabilities of GoogleAds, Amazon, eBay, PayPal and the like.

To compound matters, I have a high school education and have no formal education in programming. This of course is seen as a negative, but I beg to differ. I began programming late and I was self motivated enough to try for something better than manual laboring, and, for all intents and purposes, achieved a very high level of skill. If we were to compare how far I have come with that of a typical student then I feel that I have put in a supreme effort. And to this day I have received no recognition from any educational institution and don't expect to any time soon; though a couple of schools have asked to use my tutorials in their classes and a few more have done so without asking.

The IT job section at my local employment agency is grayed out and unavailable. There are simply no IT jobs to list. In order to even be considered for a programming related job (ideally long distance) I will now have to pay over $16,000 dollars and invest four years of my time to get a piece of paper that confirms to some recruiting personnel that I do indeed know what I know.

I know I'm not alone in this situation, most IT resumes read like a small book these days and there are some incredibly gifted people in the field of computer programming that also can't find employment, but I'm no crack addict either. What really annoys me is that if I was to run a hundred meters in under ten seconds or could consistently put a ball through some sort of goal then I would be a household name in Australia and worth a fortune.

At least I can say that I was there at the beginning :)

See you after I get edjamacated.

Alan Baylis