Hm... I guess just start with anything you're comfortable with. It really doesn't matter which programming language you choose since programming concepts are what you need to learn when starting out, not syntax. Say for example, web development, what do you need to know? Maybe how to manipulate web pages, how do you pass information around? How and where do you save it? How do you beautify the page without messing up the user experience (if you want front-end)? Etc. Etc. Once you know the concepts, it's easier to search "How to do xxx in yyy programming language using zzz framework?". I usually learn like that lol.

=====================
Background:
I program in Java for a living, it might not be used in the usual web development stuff around for small or hobby apps(specially since we have all these shiny Javascript frameworks around that are now usually easier to setup), but many companies still use java specially for apps where concurrency, heavy loads and security are critical. In my current company, we basically have a department (for Japan region clients only, I'm not sure about the headcounts in other department regions) consisting of 500+ developers who focus on java and a tiny sprinkle of any other skillsets on the sides. For instance I was required to know some stuff about python since I was supposed to create a Java API bridging a python and another Java app, then a good understanding of SQL queries and optimization for dashboard and report creations. Some other colleagues know a bit of React, or Angular, or Ruby, or anything else needed for their project. We might know different progamming languages/frameworks, but Java skills have always been required from us, everyone NEEDS to know Java here. Even for fresh graduates (from what they have told us) their bootcamps were all about Java (the programming language itself and the frameworks).

I've been in 3 companies so far that focus on using java technologies (1 is a startup then 2 are big companies with thousands of employees), and I see job posts looking for java developers everywhere. So no, java is not outdated. And many companies still use java for their existing applications and for creating new ones from scratch.

I honestly don't know what to feel having a review feedback after like 8 years lol (the thread says I've made it in year 2011), but thanks for all the pointers. I'll probably not edit the review anymore but I'll keep your comments in mind the next time if there'll be one.

So far I have now been working as an application developer for 2 years, my first one as a Junior Java web developer in a small company (more like a startup) for 1 year, then I resigned for an Intermediate Java dev position offer from a different company (a big one). So far it's a tie between the two if you'll factor in all the positives and negatives when comparing a small to a big company.

My first job was more flexible, I can suddenly decide to work from home for the day without saying anything beforehand and nobody would bat an eye, or if I arrive after lunch then it's no big deal as long as I complete the 8 working hours and I'm present during scheduled meetings, so basically a full flexible schedule. The problem is that I didn't see any possible career progression in there, I was just about to hit the 1 year mark and I already felt stagnant. We're using the same technology, we rarely do something different (I was assigned with creating and maintaining the small ecommerce apps, which means I usually create the same features again and again, sometimes I just copy paste a part of my old codes and just modify it a bit), and there's not much coding rules nor strict architecture to follow since delivering fast is TOP priority for a small company and it's hard to find time for refactoring existing modules when you still have tons of features to create. I'm not a fan of letting a messy codebase be but I really didn't have a choice.

So yeah, not liking the process + feeling stagnant = open for new opportunity. One of the biggest companies in Asia started building an office here and they're searching for pioneer developers, so I took the offer up for a change. What I like about it is that there is a clear career progression, there's a budget for training or education if ever I decided to get a masteral, and there are rules to follow when it comes to codes. I can also change teams if I'm starting to feel stagnant again or if it's just not a good fit personality-wise. What I dislike... well, this time there are lots of processes (which I think is normal considering their size), but it also makes it slower to get something done if you'd need to do stuff or ask for formal approval from bosses or different teams (Infrastructure team for example when it comes to server configs) to do something to the application. I was used to having access to pretty much everything so it took some time for me to get used to. Second, it's just 1 hour flexi, I can't easily work from home either, but I guess it's fine as long as I'm learning new things.

Lastly, I'm not sure if it's counted, but I also have a part time freelance job as a nodejs developer right now, basically a serverless API (using amazon web service) to be integrated to some mobile apps to be created using reactjs. I'm still learning it though since I'm a java dev in my day job. I joined a hackathon last year, made some new friends, and 1 of them have kept in touch with me and offered this freelance job. He said if I'm willing to learn nodejs then it's fine even if I don't have any background. So I thought "why not?" Then I joined in.

I don't mind sharing my LinkedIn profile, but preferably not somewhere so open like General Chat.

In an internal office setting, we're just using plain ol' google hangouts and google drive for communication and passing documents around. As for the codes, we're using SVN via SSH.

Hmm... do you have any additional details regarding the website? I'm currently a Java Software/ Web Developer, so if you need help with the codes and the front-end design, I'd be able to extend a hand.

As for the samples of my work in web development as a professional, as per company contract, I'm not allowed to disclose them to the public. However, I'm open to sharing them in private (preferably email) if you want me to send some screenshots. I currently have two ongoing projects, one which is a standard promotional website with Contact Us page, blog feature and an online support chat. The contents can be edited using our company's proprietary CMS. The other one (which is a lot bigger since the manager assigned two developers and one designer for this) is a CMS development from scratch. Apparently, the client doesn't want our standard CMS and would like us to develop a different one from scratch based on their specific requirements and wanted database structure. Aside from that, they also want their 3 websites redesigned and connected to their CMS (We haven't done that part yet, heck, we're not yet even finished with the CMS).

Depending on the budget and website structure/design, I can also drag my other workmates into this project since they're also open to freelancing. We've decided to form a group just a few days ago and start freelancing but we haven't found a client yet. Currently we are a group of 6:

1 Business Analyst - can also function as a project manager
1 Support/QA
2 Front-End Developers / Designers
2 Back-End Developers

^ Those are based on their actual title and job in the company. However, that doesn't mean that they're limited to their corresponding roles. For instance, our front-end developer were former back-end developers in their past companies while the two back-end developers (me included) usually help with the designer's job and work closely with them during development. Our support guy also used to be a developer but found the Support/QA role a better fit for him. Our business analyst can also be a technical analyst and she can easily help with coding if needed.

Thank you for all the advice, I've asked to meet the dev manager first before signing the contract since I have technical questions about the work or business processes as a whole and they were happy to comply. Apparently, that time when I was supposed to be interviewed, a client asked for a meeting concerning additional features to the product and they also asked for the dev manager to come along. He was not informed right away so he scheduled our first interview on that day.

As for the hiring decision, they've already decided to give me the job offer during their deliberation (apparently right after I went out the office). They checked my exam answers and resume, and when they decided the results were satisfactory, they evaluated my character and culture fit. One of the devs who offered me food in the conference room was actually their senior Java dev (I'm not sure if she's the only senior Java dev though, but apparently they have a total of 4 senior devs in the whole company) and she said I seemed to be a good fit during their deliberation.

It might have been a weird a experience and I'm not quite sure about their HR's competency, but at least the devs seem to be pleasant and dependable, and I can see myself working with them as I grow and learn. I won't be working with the HR in a team after all so I won't take their unprofessionalism as a complete negative. However, if I have been applying for an administrative job where I'd need to interact with the HR regularly and multiple times a day, I'd basically rescind my application right after waiting for 2 hours for the exam.

I accepted the job offer and I'll be starting this Monday. *crosses fingers* But of course I'll keep my eyes open for other opportunities. I checked the JO document and they don't have any form of bonds for entry level positions, so I can easily quit if needed.

mastergame : I took a peak at the files and applications in the laptop (I shouldn't be doing that but I can't help it, lol) and it just seems to be barebones for me. It seems like it's only being used for exams and presentations. I've seen my terminal and they'll be issuing me a desktop with 2 monitors in my cubicle. Same set up with everybody. As for the employees who talked to me during lunch, they haven't told me any sensitive information. They just casually said that the exam was different compared to the problems they got when they were applying, but yes, It's kind of weird having people talk to you while taking an exam.

thing1 : Yes. Definitely weird... but thankfully you got the job despite that test the interviewer pulled off.

Hello everyone I've graduated last December 2016 and I'm currently searching for a software developer job. I've applied to around 10 companies, 4 invited me for exams and interviews, and then 2 ended up giving me a job offer so far. I'd be declining the first offer since I don't like where my career would end up if I take the job (their job post is quite misleading. It seems like they want a database admin and not a software developer the way the hiring manager talks about the job. Still, I went through the whole hiring process in case I don't get any other offers.)


Now here comes the weird part: The second company who gave me the job offer invited me for a programming exam (Java). It's a smallish company with around 50 employees. I waited for the HR for around 2 HOURS before she arrived in the office (the exam was scheduled at 8am, I arrived at 7:30am and she arrived at around 9:30am), and then another 30 minutes for her to set up the laptop I'd be using for the exam. They gave me 10 problems to solve with 2 bonus problems, and I was basically sitting in their conference room the whole day.


QUESTION 1: Is it normal to have that kind of LONG exam for hiring purposes? She didn't give me a time limit but instead just asked me to write the time when I finished. I ended up solving 9/12 problems (1 bonus), and while I have ideas on how to solve the other 3, my brain is just screaming "THAT'S IT. THAT'S ENOUGH." and I'd just have to stop for my sanity's sake.


Now after 3 hours, she texted me that I passed the Java exam and they'd like to schedule an interview with me the next day. I thought that was an interview with the hiring manager, which was usually the case with my other interviews. When I arrived, I saw someone in the conference room (whom I've assumed is the manager or the owner given the company size). The HR went inside the conference room with my resume while I waited at the lobby and glanced at them once in awhile since the wall was made of glass. Their conference room wasn't exactly sound proof so I've been hearing some fragments of speeches, leading me to conclude that she might have been briefing the manager about my resume since I've been hearing words like "university", "live project", and "exam score". I've been reading my resume and preparing for a hiring manager interview mentally, then suddenly they both went out of the conference room. I thought the manager was supposed to greet me and offer me a handshake (and I was about to offer my hand) but suddenly he bolted out of the office straight to the corridor and pressed the elevator button. No eye contact, no handshake, no "hi", na-da. I think my jaw dropped down for a bit.


The HR then asked me to go inside the conference room. Little did I know that she was already going to discuss the job offer. I mean, really? I think it's been going too fast, I haven't even spoken with the manager yet, and the time they've used up talking to one another about my resume, I should have just talked with the manager about my credentials instead of her, but okayyy... I also had no qualms about her offer since I'm a fresh grad and more concerned about the job experience I'd get from them, but then she asked if I have other pending applications with other companies and if I have other JO's. I answered truthfully and said yes, but I don't have a formal JO copy yet since they're doing batch processing with other yearly fresh grad recruits (it's a pretty big company) and they're not done with the interviews yet. However, they've already asked me to keep my required documents ready for the contract signing.


Then the HR asked what is my preferred salary range. I told her a pretty smallish range and that the amount that they're willing to give me is within the bracket. Then she asked me how much was the offered salary from the other company, I said the real amount and that it was higher than their offer (which is I'm expecting anyway since they are just a small company. I don't think they'd be able to match the offer from a bigger company). After a few more minutes of talk, she told me she'll send me a copy of the JO through email by tomorrow. When I checked the email, the offer got bumped up to the same amount offered by the first company. Apparently, they decided to increase the amount. (But then again, I didn't counter offer, and I told her they were already within my desired range) but I guess they decided to bump it up anyway. They also included a non-taxable allowance so their offer is now actually a bit higher than the first company.


QUESTION 2: Is it normal for an entry level to not get interviewed by the manager?


QUESTION 3: Can fresh graduate normally counter-offer? I might have been thinking wrongly that I'm a fresh grad so I don't really have much of a reason and enough technical skills to counter. But then, while it didn't happen explicitly, I think they took it as me wanting to counter since I already have an offer with a higher price tag.


QUESTION 4: I'm seriously weirded out by the whole process, but I like the job role and the description, plus I've already seen how they work, the office vibe, and the people seem to be all nice. I've been able to chat with some of them for a little bit when 3 of them decided to eat their lunch in the conference room and I was there. They offered me some food and they said they were aware that I was already waiting for hours in the lobby before the HR came. They also asked me stuff like what position I'm applying to. It's a software services company which I think could give me the skills and experience I'm hoping for. The job range is also nice for the sake of experience (apparently, I'll also do tech analyst job, implementation support and QA from time to time) and I think I'd be able to grow both technically and personally. With that in mind as well as their weird hiring process, do you think I should accept the job?


QUESTION 5: I felt like the hiring process was weird, but maybe it's just because I'm still a fresh grad with limited interviewing experiences? For those of you who are already in the industry for years, is their hiring process weird, or does it really happen regularly?
If you've read up until this point, thank you soooo much for reading!

I've only made simple ones when I was a kid, like airplanes, boats, pacman(puppet), dice, flowers, and the original crane.

Local Moderator : The deal has already been completed, thanks.

Hello,
I've missed the chance to buy Papers Please last winter Steam sales and I found out humble bundle is still hosting its own game sale. Currently, it's 6 dollars (40% discount) and will stay discounted within 3 days. https://www.humblebundle.com/store/papers-please

If someone would be interested about buying it for me from humble bundle for its discounted price, I'm willing to pay 50k Viz. Thanks!

I'm currently saving up for an entry level gaming laptop. Nothing too fancy really, it's just that I don't have the space to build a desktop and that I'm usually out of town during weekends (either visiting the summer house or travelling somewhere else) and I'd love to still be able to play some games even if I'm not in my unit.

My goal is to finally play all my AAA backlogs on Steam. The last time I've been able to have some quality play time using pc was when I was still in highschool (16 yrs old. Senior high), and I'd like to catch up on everything I've missed now that I'm finally done with college and currently searching for my first real job.

I'll start saving for a laptop once I get a job. For now though, everything that I've saved up my whole life up until this point like my spare allowances, side projects etc. would go towards my life savings and would be kept untouched unless there's an emergency. After all, my parents usually remind me that they're purposely giving me more than enough allowance monthly so that I can start learning how to manage my finances, and it's not all for spending.

I got shoes and a watch from my family. Definitely one of the most surprising lists of gifts I got, since pretty much everyone knows it's a tricky business to give me something wearable because I highly prefer picking those stuff by myself and choose my own design and size. Despite that though, they've still bought those gifts instead of the safer bets like computer accessories and back packs, and I must say they did not dissapoint. I actually like everything they've picked and they also got the sizes right even for the wrist watch.

9:30pm? Pfft, that's still early. DO IT. DON'T CHEAT. Even if you have to pull an all-nighter. It feels great to attend the class knowing that you've managed to pass a project on time, with your own efforts. Plus you shouldn't be plagiarizing. It might be fine during lower grades (grade 1 etc.) but the higher you go (specially for college and masterals), the higher the consequences of plagiarizing. You can easily get kicked out from the university the moment someone filed plagiarizing against your work, whether it be the publisher of the original thesis, the creators themselves, or even the higher ups from your department like the Dean and College heads. The easiest way to avoid that mess is to not do it at all and stop yourself from "getting used to it" as early as possible.

I've been learning Japanese from Genki and other resources I've downloaded online. As for the problem with practicing conversational skills through chat, lexilogos is your friend. It has an online japanese keyboard where you type the romaji and gives you the Japanese counterpart, whether it be hiragana, katakana or Kanji.

Here's their page for hiragana: http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/hiragana.htm

Of course you can also just click the characters at the bottom of the typing area, but that's gonna take a long time. Might as well type in kanji and let lexilogos do the automatic conversion.

From here: https://github.com/TomokoTomoki/Blargboard

Download all the files (github ZIP's all the files and conveniently sets it up as one download) then go to install.php. And yeah, feel free to add me on your friends list.


Your layout looks fine and clean, I don't think there's anything wrong about it.

Sorry for the late reply, I somehow forgot to do so.

Hm... if you're willing to do the switch, I think BlargBoard does that pretty well. It has one table for permanent message located at the home page, and at the same time retains the newest threads created in one of the sub-forums. Say if you created a sub-forum called "Announcements", you can just create a thread in it every time you want to announce something and it would appear beside your permanent message.

Also, 000webhost doesn't do well the moment you use database stuff. I'd personally rather find a cheap host ($1/mo) than scratch my head for hours trying to make a free host's clunky system work.

HP laptop plus AMD? That's gonna be an instant oven. I don't know, I just don't trust HP as much as any other brands. Even Acer which is also known to overheat performs better than HP in general.

As for gaming, i5 is enough. You'd just need i7 if you're into video editing, intensive 3D modeling, or scientific and mathematical software development (you're gonna love MathLab, definitely the best for math stuff).

For the most part of the Computer Science curriculum (I'll be finishing this December), you don't need anything more than Intel Core 2 Duo. i5 is already overkill, let alone i7.

I'm not sure about the announcement add-on (I can't remember), but I know ABXD had a rate user function called karma.

Stuff like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Steampunk-Retro-Bronze-Design-Pocket-Watch-Quartz-Pendant-Necklace-Gift-/371322801097?var=&hash=item5674904bc9:m:mJI_K-kTY-a1WnPbCxs-VIw

Or this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Steampunk-Retro-Bronze-Pocket-Watch-Quartz-Pendant-Necklace-Chain-Gift-/400523333167?var=&hash=item5d410d0e2f:m:mOa9iIWa05fnEPbt0SO_KsA

Or this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Retro-Vintage-Antique-Steampunk-Black-Quartz-Necklace-Pendant-Pocket-Watch-Gift-/201222629629?hash=item2ed9cda8fd:g:i4oAAOSwjVVVzvBm

As long as it's round and it has a cover , it'd be awesome if you choose a design based on how you see me as a person. Thanks for including me!