The Whiteboard

Pick one: Web Applications, Desktop Applications, Mobile Applications, Embedded Applications, Internal Business Applications (think timesheets and departmental integration; software that never gets publically used)

No, I mean it. Pick one. Which one would you like to do from that list?

Kapol

thank you for the input

ratchet freak

or freebie open source and live like a bum

Kapol

hard to pick, because I'd have to say I don't really know any...

user55340

8:18 PM

What are you doing in vba now?

Kapol

writing stuff in Excel that automates business analysis for accounting

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak surfing starbucks lobbies... That's just not a life I can encourage others into; it's one step shy of suggesting they not worry about working, and join a commune

user55340

That falls into the Internal Business Applications.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa You and your rigid ways

Kapol

well, I'm not sure that it's the kind of stuff that I'd like to do, really... I know I should pick one thing, but that would be basically picking blindly

user55340

8:21 PM

"Adopt an Open Source programmer... see this poor, helpless guy sitting at Starbucks? He needs a job. He doesn't know it, but he really does... He can be your programmer for only $200/day..."

Kapol

anyway, suppose I'd go with Internal Business Apps

Jimmy Hoffa

Sure everything's fine for a while when you do that, but before you know it the open source project leader has you hocking jams on street corners while trying to recruit passersby to grow a beard and follow your doctrine. When you're knee-deep in a group believing the world's going to end if you don't drink the koolaid and everyone around you is going to be murdered by bitcoin operatives while the ground swells up and swallows MS execs, I think you just need a job at that point.

Kapol

what technology then?

user55340

@JimmyHoffa cdn.dejanseo.com.au/research/The_role_of_facial_hair.pdf

user55340

@Kapol as bland as it sounds, internal business apps is probably the easiest step from VBA - and every company needs it in some way, shape or form.

Jimmy Hoffa

8:24 PM

@MichaelT I am so not reading anything that dense, though +1 for having something that detailed about beards on the ready...

ratchet freak

@JimmyHoffa just read the conclusion then that's what all journalists do

Jimmy Hoffa

@Kapol internal business apps often are VBA. It's not glamorous work but it's often times good and stable work that pays plenty well

user55340

@ratchetfreak They just read the Abstract...

Kapol

hmmmm...:)

user55340

The thing I'd try doing that would leverage your current experience - write a .NET app (C# I assume?) that creates an excel document with "Hello" at A1 and "World" at A2

Kapol

8:26 PM

yea, C#

user55340

The strength of the interview would be "I may be a newbie at C#, but I do know how to work with the existing integrations of internal applications from my previous experience - you're not going to need to teach me how to write an excel report because I already know how to do that."

Jimmy Hoffa

@Kapol If you want to work on internal business apps, a good space to start is learning about some of the internal business apps that are common used; often times a hand in sys-admin type work can go a long way for these folks because they tend to do a lot of integrating systems. They use things like automated batch software, and ETL tools are common

user55340

Learning the language is the easy part. You've already got a bit of the hard part done with your VBA experience.

Jimmy Hoffa

Go find some ETL tools and play around with those a bit, get your head around fiddling with SQL databases, and look at some of the more complex workflow-automation tools out there that do things like run batches with conditions in sequences etc etc

Kapol

now I am confused

Mike

8:29 PM

Extract, transform, load

In computing, extract, transform, and load (ETL) refers to a process in database usage and especially in data warehousing that: * Extracts data from outside sources * Transforms it to fit operational needs, which can include quality levels * Loads it into the end target (database, more specifically, operational data store, data mart, or data warehouse) ETL systems are commonly used to integrate data from multiple applications, typically developed and supported by different vendors or hosted on separate computer hardware. The disparate systems containing the original data are frequently ...

Jimmy Hoffa

Internal LOB app folk tend to find themselves being handed other people's software and asked to both host and extend/integrate it with other stuff

Kapol

OK, so just to be clear

Jimmy Hoffa

So they end up relying on process automation tools for integration work like ETL and batching systems, and they end up responsible for the administration of the hosting systems much of the time

Kapol

the best way for me would be to get a job as a NET programmer writing those kind of tool?

Jimmy Hoffa

I.E. "We just bought this new timesheet software, but we have this other local intranet software and we want people to be able to use our intranet to access and review their timesheets"

ratchet freak

8:31 PM

and more often than not seem to be putting about in massive excel tables

Kapol

OK, this seems like a good idea

Jimmy Hoffa

@ratchetfreak Yeah, like I initially said, much of internal LOB stuff is done in VBA

Kapol

so is there anything else important related to NET other than a language and SQL for this kind of programming?

should I focus on mastering these or is there anything else that is a must?

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