TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
I'll definitely look into that. Thanks.
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Which programming languages can earn you extra/more income?
- Thread starter TheOfficeMut
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I'll definitely look into that. Thanks.
Fragamemnon
Member
The entire issue with this thread is that experience is what will let you make more income, not knowledge of languages. I'd rather hire a PHP dev who has a couple of running sites shipped and behind them (and with stories about what went right/what went wrong) than someone who's book-smart on React and TypeScript and was cruising for a bruising on the first trip to the rodeo.
If you're just looking for local/small business work, PHP/SQL/Wordpress gets you real far. It's not glamorous but PHP is mature , great for prototyping and light-traffic work right out of the box. Wordpress is something businesses can own and run with after you've shipped.
If you're just looking for local/small business work, PHP/SQL/Wordpress gets you real far. It's not glamorous but PHP is mature , great for prototyping and light-traffic work right out of the box. Wordpress is something businesses can own and run with after you've shipped.
I see a lot of people saying R and Python. But how does one actually go out and get "side jobs" with these languages? A company or non-profit using these languages for data analysis likely has sufficient on-site staff. Unless I'm totally off base. Are there SMBs or individuals out there seeking programmers for the odd R/Python task?
The Albatross
Member
I don't think a lot of the responses are really reading the question. OPs not as focused on finding a new career in development, but finding side work in development. Going on about 10 years of doing freelance outside of my main career, I've very rarely seen clients looking for an R developer, or someone looking to outsource Assembly, MATLAB, or SQL for a single project. Being familiar with R, Python, and any number of functional programming languages is invaluable for your career, but it's not exactly valuable for being a freelancer.
I've been doing it for a long time so somewhere north of 95% of my clients are referrals from other clients, or, freelance work for an agency that repeatedly hires me for projects. While I have a contact form on my site for new clients, I very rarely get any contracts from that... Most of the inquiries come in and within a couple emails I throw them a ball park of what the development cost would be and then I never hear from them again. I don't really care though because it's my time and I don't want to work on a project that's not going to be good for me. 6 or 7 years ago I would be more willing to take on that sort of client, but less so these days, and I generally have fewer aggravations because of it (though still have some fucking annoying clients). My most lucrative clients are design agencies that do not have in-house developers, and prefer working with Americans or Western Europeans, even though the cost is higher than outsourcing the work to a development house in India, China, Poland, Russia, etc.
There are websites that specialize in matching freelancers with clients like Upwork, Elance, or Guru.com. Upwork is probably the most reputable and best one for both client and freelancer. I've taken some small Upwork jobs in the past when I had bandwidth and wanted to turn around a couple small jobs, but they're obviously not as good as having a steady stream of working with the same clients like a design agency. The problem with Upwork as a developer is that you're competing against a global pool and there's a race to the bottom on costs, because a development manager in India can undercut the costs of a single American freelancer and then spread the work amongst a bunch of very low paid entry-level developers. So, if you post an ad on Upwork or respond to projects on Upwork, I'd market that you're:
1) English speaking
2) From the States (presumably? Or Western Europe?)
3) Have project management experience
Of course, I'm just sort of assuming you have those skills which you might not. But if you charge, say, $40 or $50/hr, you can make a quality-driven argument to a potential client in that you'll have largely the same hours as them, you're available, you're the developer, you can speak English, understand their problems, being able to communicate with them, etc. The right client will be willing to pay more for those benefits because they'll know that maybe paying $25/hr and getting none of those will result in a shittier project.
Upwork clients, though, are much less likely to trust your projections than a steady freelance client of course. My clients that I work with now trust my estimates on jobs and they know that I'll flag issues with their design or app and not just build something that doesn't make sense. They also know that I'll lead development and bring up the questions that they hadn't considered at the design board.
But, to simply answer your question, I've been doing this for a while and have a steady stream of freelance clients. Never enough to quit my full time job (Developer for a software company), but enough that in any given month I've probably got a project lined up, completing a project, or in the midst of development. Freelance paid for my wedding, my basement renovation, my wife's enagement ring, down payment on a car, etc. It's been good, and I almost exclusively do WordPress development for freelance.
I've been doing it for a long time so somewhere north of 95% of my clients are referrals from other clients, or, freelance work for an agency that repeatedly hires me for projects. While I have a contact form on my site for new clients, I very rarely get any contracts from that... Most of the inquiries come in and within a couple emails I throw them a ball park of what the development cost would be and then I never hear from them again. I don't really care though because it's my time and I don't want to work on a project that's not going to be good for me. 6 or 7 years ago I would be more willing to take on that sort of client, but less so these days, and I generally have fewer aggravations because of it (though still have some fucking annoying clients). My most lucrative clients are design agencies that do not have in-house developers, and prefer working with Americans or Western Europeans, even though the cost is higher than outsourcing the work to a development house in India, China, Poland, Russia, etc.
There are websites that specialize in matching freelancers with clients like Upwork, Elance, or Guru.com. Upwork is probably the most reputable and best one for both client and freelancer. I've taken some small Upwork jobs in the past when I had bandwidth and wanted to turn around a couple small jobs, but they're obviously not as good as having a steady stream of working with the same clients like a design agency. The problem with Upwork as a developer is that you're competing against a global pool and there's a race to the bottom on costs, because a development manager in India can undercut the costs of a single American freelancer and then spread the work amongst a bunch of very low paid entry-level developers. So, if you post an ad on Upwork or respond to projects on Upwork, I'd market that you're:
1) English speaking
2) From the States (presumably? Or Western Europe?)
3) Have project management experience
Of course, I'm just sort of assuming you have those skills which you might not. But if you charge, say, $40 or $50/hr, you can make a quality-driven argument to a potential client in that you'll have largely the same hours as them, you're available, you're the developer, you can speak English, understand their problems, being able to communicate with them, etc. The right client will be willing to pay more for those benefits because they'll know that maybe paying $25/hr and getting none of those will result in a shittier project.
Upwork clients, though, are much less likely to trust your projections than a steady freelance client of course. My clients that I work with now trust my estimates on jobs and they know that I'll flag issues with their design or app and not just build something that doesn't make sense. They also know that I'll lead development and bring up the questions that they hadn't considered at the design board.
But, to simply answer your question, I've been doing this for a while and have a steady stream of freelance clients. Never enough to quit my full time job (Developer for a software company), but enough that in any given month I've probably got a project lined up, completing a project, or in the midst of development. Freelance paid for my wedding, my basement renovation, my wife's enagement ring, down payment on a car, etc. It's been good, and I almost exclusively do WordPress development for freelance.
Python can be used for far more than data analysis work. If you show you're knowledgeable with it, you can get a job anywhere that wants to use that sort of language.
R is the "new thing" right now, so folks are telling him to learn that for the sake of potential future jobs to have his foot in the door. I wouldn't know if that fits his goal of data specifically, but it is advice to consider if he wants to be on the next "bubble"/rocket ship of high-paying folks, I guess.
ClayKavalier
Banned
Depends where you want to work. In the Bay Area tech companies use R and Python but there's some huge employers like Kaiser that use SAS.
Yes, no doubt, but the OP wants to earn extra income right now. For his own education and career advancement, he should definitely pursue R, Python, etc.
But where are the Python side gigs?
Fragamemnon
Member
Yeah, this. Most freelance/moonlighting work in the data space is best done in Excel because once you hand the work off to them they can actually extend and work with it without needing your help. Same for PHP/Wordpress.
Simple tools that you can ship easily and hand off, this is the usual side job work.
Wherever Python is being used in open source, I'd wager. Not exactly a "paying" gig, but if he shows knowledge in that it's a better foot in the door for going past "side-gigs" than learning various things for his specific school.
As it is, since he has HTML, CSS, and JS knowledge he'd be better off doing the "fix beginner website" thing as a "side-gig."
TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
Thank you. This is what I was particularly looking for. It seems that most suggestions are Wordpress. I'm not sure how comfortable I need to be in HTML, CSS and JavaScript before I even delve into that.
some PHP and MySQL skills will also help when working with Wordpress.
TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
So many suggestions of what programs to start with.
At least I'm doing this web development bootcamp for now.R is the language I plan to tackle next. There's nothing wrong with learning how to manage big data since we generate so much of it now.
This could work too. There's far more COBOL and Fortran code out there than most people think, and the people who created and managed the systems that use it aren't getting any younger. Of course, niche knowledge is niche knowledge, so you'd always want to make sure you stay proficient with at least one generally-used language.
eclipze
Member
My current employer begs to differ. Our home brew purchasing and logistics platform is primarily stored procedure driven (normalization? What's that?) with mostly classic ASP with a sprinkle of .NET for the front end. I can tell you that even though SQL is technically a nonprocedural language, it can be bastardized into just about any type of application you want to if you have the patience for 30k line stored procs that contain all layers of your traditional n-tier design outside of presentation. Cursors with nested stored proc calls nested with more cursors calling DB2 RPG procs via linked servers. So yea, SQL can emulate a programming language, if you hate anyone who would ever have to look at or refactor your code.
TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
I'll do that, thanks.
Oh, there's a cost for this?
Ooooo yea, $299 a year is steep for me.
So many suggestions of what programs to start with.
SQL is super easy imo and MySQL is even easier
The Albatross
Member
So many suggestions of what programs to start with.
Virtually all client/freelance-based WordPress development will be theme and plugin development, mostly theme development. To develop themes and plugins in WP, you need to be proficient in:
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript / jQuery. Almost all theme development in WP will be simple dom manipulation using jQuery, nothing complex.
- Some PHP experience. PHP is the programming language that powers WordPress, but most of the PHP you'll work with will be functions, hooks, and filters that are either built into WordPress already, developed by someone else, or some very simple functional PHP development... But even without any real PHP knowledge or experience you can get by.
I developed my first WordPress themes and websites (~10 years ago or so) for clients and I had virtually no real PHP experience, limited grasp on JavaScript programming (JavaScript was a very unfashionable language then), and a basic understanding of the environment that WordPress needs (Apache, MySQL, PHP enabled webserver).
Beyond those basics, you'll end up just googling built in WordPress functions, hooks, and filters, and the basic WP template hierarchy. This will enable you to do like... 85-90% of most things that most potential clients would need you to do. I've been doing more advanced WP Development over the last 2 or 3 years because I've made this into a specialty of mine, so I can tackle more difficult WP-related tasks from clients, but still the majority of my WP development utilizes those 4 proficiencies up in that list.
If you don't want to spring for a subscription look on Udemy for courses. Don't buy them at full price... Like once a month they seemingly have a $10/course sale, marking down courses 80-90%. YMMV with some courses but most that have good reviews are good courses. Also CodeSchool.com is very good for HTML/CSS/JavaScript... It's $30/mo, though they also routinely run deals at $15/mo, and so you could sign up for 2 months and get alot of out of those courses and then cancel/suspend. Your membership stays active so if you want to pick up a course you started a year later you can, but you won't have to pay for any months that you suspend your membership for. Its worked for me with learning JavaScript and some JS frameworks (Ember, Angular) in the past where I might only have a month or so to learn something new... then have to suspend it for 4 or 5 months if I'm busy, and then eventually pick it back up again.
TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
Thank you very much. I don't know if I'd feel very comfortable even beginning a project and charging for it if I'm not really adept at every one of those things, including PHP. Do people normally tell you what they're looking for or do they describe the type of site they'd like for you to make, or are you asked to just come up with something visually appealing and functional? Has your work ever been returned?
Yep. Its much more about having the skills and thought process rather than the degree itself
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I think it is extremely irresponsible to accept pay for work if you cannot guarantee you can deliver it at professional quality. Security vulnerabilities, performance concerns, and issues with maintenance are three of the main ways in which doing a bad job will cause pain for your client years in the future. A little knowledge is a severely dangerous thing here. Freelance work is substantially more dangerous than working for an employer, because there are fewer precautions to stop bad work from persisting in the system. Moreover, freelance clients are bullies -- they want the product delivered immediately, for as little money as possible, and they don't give a fuck about long-term considerations. It takes maturity as a programmer and as a freelancer to learn when to push back.
TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
Yea, this was what I was thinking, especially from a liability POV. I guess I'll just learn these things for now and become extremely comfortable in due time and then try it out with my friends, should they require any web development, before moving onto freelance work over the internet.
This is kinda the rut I'm stuck in. I like learning about frameworks and different programming patterns and paradigms, but without a lot of experience in getting software made and doing just what I need, I'm just less productive than other developers and have nothing to point to for prospective employers.
The Albatross
Member
I'm not a visual designer, so if I'm working with a client they've usually had something designed or they're a design agency that is hiring me as a developer. With existing clients who already have a website and they want to build a new feature, they'll tell me what they want and we'll go through this development process of "gathering requirements" and then I'll design a solution for them. In this case when I say "design" I mean come up with the functional behavior of the solution... Usually it'll be a workflow like "When you the user to Y do this, the website should do X."
For new clients, I'm usually not involved with those initial content, design, scope, and discovery sessions. I've been fortunate enough to get out of those. Back when I started doing development, I tried to do too much and got mixed up with projects that had clients that weren't really invested in their projects, or they had no conception of what they really wanted, and no ability to scope a project. Now a days, I'd turn them down or give them such an astronomical estimate that they'd turn me down (and I'm fine with that).
I can remember two projects that both went variably bad. After one project dragged on for over a year, it was when I decided I'm never doing visual design again (and I really haven't). About 8 years ago, they wanted their website redesigned, they wanted to leave their old e-commerce suite and use one using WordPress, they wanted to re-do all of their pages. I was naive, stupid, and didn't know how much money could be made so I quoted them something like $1600, which to me seemed like a lot of money at the time. It's not. This included design, development, transitioning content, rewriting content, and a ton of shit. I asked for 20% up front and got started and we had this laughably ridiculous (in retrospect) estimate of 3 months to launch. This is ridiculous, but I was too stupid to know. This sort of job should have been a $10,000 - $15,000 total project, which I could manage today from a project management point of view, but they would have needed a designer, we should have spent at least a month on discovery, I should have offloaded way more work to them. I was totally ignorant, young, and didn't know what truly went into a real commercial project. A year after the project started, I ended up shipping them a website that worked and looked fine and technically covered their requirements, but it was a complete piece of shit and as time went on, I knew it was. I ended up getting paid about $800 for the job, for literally months of work in the end, because the product I sold them was a piece of shit. I learned a lot from this job and basically learned what projects not to take on, and that if a project makes me nervous either to bump up the estimate to very high levels or back out.
The nice thing about that last lesson... Bumping up to a very high estimate, is that if someone bites and takes your very high estimate and you ultimately deliver value on the project, then you've locked in a very high paying client for some time. This happened to me about 3 years ago, I was swamped, and had a new potential client for a significant WP project... 200+ pages, custom spotlights driven by user behavior, lots of different custom components, integrating with a proprietary backend, and it was a major company (a microsite for a major national health care organization). I gave them an estimate that was by far my biggest estimate, at least 3x more than any estimate I had ever given... I was expecting them to say "thanks but no thanks." Instead they said, "Sounds good, let us know when you want the down payment and we can begin." I got that and basically said "well... shit... guess I got to take this." Since then they've become my best client... High paying, really professional, good partnership, and we've produced 5 major projects over the last 2 years for big time companies/organizations, household names like Verizon, the Obama Administration, the State of New York, and others.
But I would have never had that positive relationship without the absolute dog shit client that I did a horrible job with 8 years ago. That client was a personal friendship too, though a guy who I never liked, and after much bull shit several years later, he actually threatened to sue me for the $800 on that project. That gave me another good lesson of legal indemnity, where I went from a solo freelancer on extra income to file an actual corporation and get some legal protection. His case was complete bull shit and it never amounted to anything, it was motivated by his personal pettiness over something else entirely, but it was a good lesson. If I ever don't feel good about a project, estimate to the moon or turn them down politely.
Only one other project was ever a real failure... about 6ish years ago. I started a project for a company and had done significant work on it, but then it stalled for 6 months. I stopped getting communique from the person I had been working with, couldn't get a hold of her, and then finally I just went ahead and finished it, shipped her all the work I had done in static files, and then billed her company. After a month with nothing, I sent a follow up invoice and CC'ed two emails of co-workers/managers at her company that I found on linked in... Just for somebody to reply. Turns out that employee had basically hired me without really getting permission from her company, thinking I would produce something for them and then she'd say that she produced it. At some point during the project she had committed to leaving the company and going back to school, and she realized she was in hot water for what was going on. I had a contract that she signed committing us both to the work, but the company didn't want to pay me for the work that I had done because they said they didn't approve it and had never been consulted on the contract. SHe had eventually left or been fired during this dispute, had a new manager. Eventually, the company settled with me and paid me about half of what the original contract was for because in the contract I had specified I'd launch the project, train them on how to run it, and some other line items, which technically I did not do because the company stopped working on the project. I cut my losses and took the money even though it wasn't the full amount. A very surprising addendum to this is that years later, about 6 months ago, they emailed me looking to hire me to work on a project for them... Which I turned down, not with malice or anything, but kindly told the person that I didn't have the bandwidth.
But about your question re: to something visually appealing... I don't do design anymore and really won't ever again. If a client needs design work, I usually encourage them to hire a designer (who I'd recommend) or if they dont' have the budget, I help them pick out a pre-designed theme and say we'll fit their project into this theme. I'm sure I could make more money if I did design but I'm not interested in it.
UnemployedVillain
Member
But the beauty is that, when it comes to web dev, there's almost no barrier of entry needed to create and deploy a site nowadays and doing that by yourself (learning the different frameworks, the ins and outs of AWS and server design) is stuff you can do yourself for almost no cost
Purple Cheeto
Member
Learn Cobol, Fortran and Matlab and earn a fortune fixing old government computers.
TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
Great stories. Thank you for sharing them.
I really do appreciate everyone's input. I'm taking away a lot. Thank you.
Also, for WordPress, is it recommended that I started with WordPress.com or WordPress.org. It seems to me, from what I understand, that WordPress.org is where I can write HTML, CSS and JavaScript myself to make it. Can I still write all of that using WordPress.com?
TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
Sorry to bump. Really want to know about this WordPress difference.
jimmypython
Member
Yeah I guess in the field of data science, knowing the math is far more important.
A lot of people think learning program language is hard and are scared by the codes. However, it's not that bad once you get started, especially when it comes to R and Python.
But, learning the math IS harder if not genuinely hard. You are right. Some simple tasks can be done by on-site staff who know a thing or two about R or Python. But, you will become a god to them as soon as you start throwing out equations and math terms.
I am a molecular biologist/biochemist who uses R/Python and machine learning frequently for high throughput data (not sure if it's big data, but definitely a large amount) bioinformatics. There is so much you can do if you know the math in my field. But I don't get paid that well as I am still trying get a faculty job in academia.... I do get so many side projects requests tho once I showed collaborators what I can accomplish.
///PATRIOT
Banned
Hari Seldon
Member
I can't believe people are recommending Data Science in this thread. Maybe I'm confused, but what exactly does a Data Science Developer do? Because if it is machine learning, lol, absolutely no one is going to hire someone without a MS in STEM for that lol.
Further more, unless you had a heavy math background in a prior life I'm not sure how far you could possibly get trying to learn this on your own. I took the Andrew Ng course on coursera and it was fine for me, but I had multidimensional calculus and was very familiar with doing vector math in Matlab. Someone taking this as a complete STEM beginner with zero math background good lord lol.
Further more, unless you had a heavy math background in a prior life I'm not sure how far you could possibly get trying to learn this on your own. I took the Andrew Ng course on coursera and it was fine for me, but I had multidimensional calculus and was very familiar with doing vector math in Matlab. Someone taking this as a complete STEM beginner with zero math background good lord lol.
SciencePilot
Member
Fair enough. Personally, I wouldn't use python for anything remotely complicated, but that's just me. I understand people use it for more things.
Come to think of it, it's definitely great as a Matlab replacement. I would definitely use it for that sort of stuff.
Hari Seldon
Member
I have tried to make the case to switch to Python for our Matlab needs but in the real world, if you are using Matlab, it is highly likely that you are in a situation where 100% of the people know Matlab and 1 person is a Python evangelist, so you never end up switching lol.
JeTmAn81
Member
I'm not a strong math guy and I didn't have any trouble with the Ng course. It only requires basic linear algebra and gives you a math refresher at the beginning. But I'm not sure about hiring prospects for machine learning jobs if you don't have that formal education.
OP, have you looked at the 2016 stack overflow survey?
http://stackoverflow.com/insights/survey/2016
I've been looking at them recently and I find they're quite helpful.
I would recommend learning SQL if you want to earn some extra money.
http://stackoverflow.com/insights/survey/2016
I've been looking at them recently and I find they're quite helpful.
I would recommend learning SQL if you want to earn some extra money.
The Albatross
Member
For a commercial company that can afford it, MATLAB is usually a better option. Take this with a grain of salt though because I'm biased
(I'm a developer for the company that makes MATLAB...)
Hari Seldon
Member
It has been a lot of years since I took it, but from what I remember he does kind of gloss over the details of the math so you are probably right. But I don't know, if you are doing machine learning in the real world you are probably hiring a PhD to do it lol. Just knowing the high level ideas and how to implement some pre-canned routines in Octave is not what a real world implementation is going to involve. I might be wrong about this which is why I asked.
The Albatross
Member
Answered this in a PM, but figured I'd cross-post it in case anybody else is wondering the same.
If you're doing WordPress development, you want to only use WordPress.org.
Wordpress is effectively two things:
If you're doing WordPress development for clients, you're going to use the open source, self-hosted WordPress.org product. Automattic, the company that stewards the WordPress project, makes money by selling the hosted WordPress.com solution, consulting, and other services... But WordPress.com is how they keep the lights on and pay developers to continually contributing to WordPress professionally.
A good site if you're just starting out with WP is a site called WPBeginner.com. They've got a bunch of ads on their site, but the tutorials are pretty good... It doesn't go into a lot of technical topics, but they cover some of these initial basics.
If you're doing WordPress development, you want to only use WordPress.org.
Wordpress is effectively two things:
- A stand-alone, open-source content management system that you (or anybody) use to make your own, self-hosted website. This product is maintained by a commercial company called Automattic but it's open source and distributed for free. [WordPress.org]
- A commercial, hosted website builder sold by Automattic. The CMS software is the same, but this is a commercially hosted service that you really don't have control over. This is more similar to like SquareSpace, Tumblr, Medium, etc.
If you're doing WordPress development for clients, you're going to use the open source, self-hosted WordPress.org product. Automattic, the company that stewards the WordPress project, makes money by selling the hosted WordPress.com solution, consulting, and other services... But WordPress.com is how they keep the lights on and pay developers to continually contributing to WordPress professionally.
A good site if you're just starting out with WP is a site called WPBeginner.com. They've got a bunch of ads on their site, but the tutorials are pretty good... It doesn't go into a lot of technical topics, but they cover some of these initial basics.
TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
Off topic but is your username from Game of Thrones?
Side-work tends to trend towards whatever is cheapest to host and run; learn full stack LAMP and/or MEAN and you'll find a lot of side-projects. The aforementioned WordPress is another route of course; used by small businesses who don't hire dedicated developers or pay for expensive consulting because it's cheap to host and maintain.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
I've been working help desk for over a year and SQL seems like the best place to start. I've got my CompTIA fundamentals and now working on A+. I would love to make more out of my career in IT. This thread is insightful.
A friend of mine learned SQL after getting his BS in mathematics. He is making good money. I just want to make the right choice and enjoy/make a good career out of it.
I love my job. It's just a help desk job. I learned all the A+ stuff in a few months or less. I'd like more of a challenge sometimes and more work.
There's a programming side to my job. I can do HTML and PowerShell if need be, but the larger projects are for our contractors. I also have to research for the stuff I do get to do.
A friend of mine learned SQL after getting his BS in mathematics. He is making good money. I just want to make the right choice and enjoy/make a good career out of it.
I love my job. It's just a help desk job. I learned all the A+ stuff in a few months or less. I'd like more of a challenge sometimes and more work.
There's a programming side to my job. I can do HTML and PowerShell if need be, but the larger projects are for our contractors. I also have to research for the stuff I do get to do.
SQL more and more is a supplemental skill not something you'll find a lot of dedicated jobs for; not that you can't, and not that it isn't a good area to learn, but if you are interested in application development you'll likely need to learn something else. A lot of app development is moving away from SQL and towards object or document based DBs.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
Interesting. I better keep climbing the ladder with my Certs and find something I'm good at. My job pays for my Certs, so I'm finding more and more information. It's a perk where I work.
This was news to me. Thanks
Most of that isn't pure SQL, which is what people generally mean when they say "SQL". PL/SQL, if using the Oracle as an example, is an extension upon SQL. As they say themselves "PL/SQL is a procedural language designed specifically to embrace SQL statements within its syntax."
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/features/plsql/index.html
Frankly, any programmer can learn the most important parts of SQL in an afternoon. Hell, a couple of hours. I've worked backend for ISPs, financial software and games and the SQL never gets that difficult, it is more obfuscation by multiple layers of nesting.
Thankfully I'm moved away from that now and am happily in the world of Unity, C# and client side games. SQL bores me to tears.
Yep. It is amusing when you meet people that think Java is dead as they only saw crappy applets. Half the internet's backend is on a Java based app server and on the Enterprise side there's still a lot of Java applets out there. Hell, I just checked a financial software company that I used to work for's website and yep, they are still running an applet (and hence yes, they still don't work with Chrome).
Bornstellar
Member
Working at a large software company, specializing in a single language is much less useful than understanding principles and being able to adapt to whatever language is needed for a given task.
On my current team, I have written in Java, C++, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, SQL, and Lisp.
On my current team, I have written in Java, C++, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, SQL, and Lisp.
https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/programming_language
Java is currently used by about 2.6% of the internet and falling.
And Java has another problem; it's use has dropped dramatically while still having a HUGE amount of people with Java knowledge since many schools continued to teach Java as one of the main languages well into it's decline of use.
It's not "dead" of course; but I don't know why you think it runs "half the internet."
There's still a lot fo Java used internally at companies that won't show up on internet usage stats; but that is and has been in decline for ages; and it's a tiny minority of "the internet."
I personally think you'd be better off learning SalesForce development than Java right now; and certainly better off learning .Net.
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