madiathomas

That's why I learnt F#. Just to see how functional programming is going to help me deliver solutions faster to my penny-pinching clients. It was an eye-opener but I will still stick to functional programming until FP catches on. If it happens.

At age 37, I feel young and really wish that I will still be able to program at age of 50 and beyond.

I noticed when I was learning F# that it is leaning more and more towards Functional Programming.

This can be a huge success in South Africa. Backrooms are very popular in big townships and provide residence to more than half of townships' population. The good thing is that the laws already allow such kind of dwellings and you won't have to deal with NIMBYs. Best of luck.

First learn design, then learn the tools(CSS). Preferably using a book that has nothing to do with web design. Problem with most developers is that we only learn the tool and forget to learn design. To understand how to properly mix colours, you need to study colour theory. To understand how to use the right fonts, spacing etc, you need to study typography. Also learn about image types. I don't understand why most web design books want to dive straight into CSS before design.

After that, you need hours and hours of practice in order to be good at it. We learn by doing.

We also have the same system here in South Africa. It is called NSFAS(National Student Financial Aid System). It is government loan. If you pass all modules you registered, the whole loan used to be converted into a bursary as an incentive. Starting from 2018, education is now free for people who earn below a threshold of R350,000(~USD25,000) household income.

There is also a contingency plan for students who come from families with a household income of R600,000(USD 43,000) per annum.

I dropped out in 2004 to start a job as a Programmer. I was broke and needed some cash. I was left with 4 subjects to complete Computer Systems Engineering qualification. Which is 60% IT and 40% Electrical Engineering. I decided to enroll for an IT qualification in 2015 at the age of 33. Best decision I have ever taken.

I graduated last year September at the age of 36 and I am no longer considered an IT dropout or self-taught Programmer. Reason I decided to go back to school was because I was always considered a self-taught Programmer, even though I was taught programming in a formal qualification which I didn't finish. The fact that I finished all programming related modules and was only left with 3-4 Electrical Engineering related modules, didn't help.

Studying when you are older is easier because you are doing it with a purpose. Plus when you are older, you spend more time at home and party less. Freeing more time for studying. The course I did, was heavy in programming, mobile app development and web design. Something I have been doing for over 10 years before I decided to go back to studying.

This is the technique I used and the reasoning was the same. I can safely switch off my phone and leave it at home in the morning and focus on working out because no-one is going to call me at 5am. Also, no-one is going to arrange a meeting with me at that time of the day.

After having some success in the gym using this technique, I decided to try it for my studies. I enrolled for a 3-year IT qualification and managed to finish it in record time while working a full-time job and running a profitable side project.

I was doing 5 modules every semester. Every weekday when I wake up, first thing I did, was taking a shower and study for an hour, then go to work. I was studying just one module per day.

This year, I am planning to study further using same technique. I always recommend this technique for people who think they don't have time to do X. The best time to do X is always first thing in the morning when there are no distractions.

Same boat as you. I used to boast about learning 2-3 languages a year. Now I aim to improve on what I already know instead of learning new technologies just to tick a box.

1. Xamarin Android because I wanted to develop a native Android app and I prefer Visual Studio

2. Xamarin Forms because my new job requires it

3. UX Design because I want to improve usability of my systems

4. Software Project Management because I want to move to management

These days I try to avoid learning new technologies. I focus mostly on improving what I already know. I only learn a technology when I want to use it and there will be a benefit for using it compared to what I am already know.

...or simply stop "Windows Updates" service. Problem with your solution is that whenever you connect to a new WiFi connection, you need to mark it as a metered connection. Otherwise it won't be treated as a metered connection.

- Complete my IT Diploma with Cum Laude. 5 Subjects left out of 30 - Lose 10kg - Grow my side project which is currently making $1,000, to make at least $10,000.

Focus on learning the fundamentals of Computer Science, the rest of the decisions, you will make them later when you have enough data. Learn to program. Don't learn a specific programming language. Learning a new programming language is easy when you know the fundamentals of programming. Focus on learning the concepts, not the implementations. Don't focus on the tools. New ones always come and go, but fundamentals rarely changes.

While writing this comment, I was reminded of a verse in the bible that tells Chrstians to 'seek the kingdom of God first and the rest will follow'.

True. I spent around $1000 for my iPhone few months back. This was for the 32GB one and it was on special.Prices for the 128GB were just ridiculous. I was a bit surprised when I saw headline of this article because we have been paying over $1000 for ages now.

> Just get something done

This is the strategy that I prefer. I aim to deliver version 1 of my side projects within 3-4 weeks. After working on it for too long without delivering, I lose interest. I fix the time and budget of the version, not the scope. Unfinished features are cut out of the version 1. I focus on the core features. There will always be time to add extra features in the future.

Most people are afraid of launching because they don't want to be judged. That's why they delay the launch. I prefer giving my software to a handful of real users as soon as possible. So that they can test and give me feedback. There will always be bugs in software. Show me a popular software product and I will give you a list of over 10,000 bugs which were reported in its lifetime. What matters is the speed in which you fix them. If you created version 1 of the product, you wouldn't waste more than a day fixing all bugs reported on first day.

'Great artists ship' - Steve Jobs.

I switched from Android few months back. Tried Apple Maps and it was awful and lost me on several occassions. Maybe it is where I am located. I stay at Johannesburg, South Africa. Google Maps is always up to date where I stay and closed streets are updated. Google Maps always avoid roads which are under constructions. With Apple Maps, it is not the case. Decided to stick to Google Maps. I will try Apple Maps in 2-3 years.

This article sounds like a long version of Carl Jung's quote -> "what you resists, persists" to me. That's how I deal with pain. I don't try to resist it. I simply allow myself to go through the pain. Cry occasionally if I had to. Feeling bad about feeling bad doesn't make me feel better, it simply delays my healing.

China isn't a profitable country to the US. China fate is in their hands. That's why they are even able to kick out big US companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Uber.

South Africa is very a profitable country to the West, not the other way round. It was even more profitable during the dark days of apartheid. That's why USA was sponsoring apartheid government with intelligence and arms. Google about Mandela arrest and CIA's involvement. They even listed Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. Even when he was President, he was still listed as a terrorist. US only removed him from the terrorist list few years ago.

I live in South Africa.

Instability is profitable to rich countries. That's a well-known fact. Those bad conditions were artificially craeted by colonisers. Colonisers who still refuse to exit Africa because the only way they know how to make money is through exploiting African countries.

'The best time to buy is when there is blood on the streets' - Baron Rothschild.

They are probably the ones responsible. If those charity organisations can change the message to stop sponsoring wars in Africa, there won't be a need to donate to African kids in less than 5 years. Then again they won't have a job because majority of that money ends up in their pockets.

I love how you cherry-picked South America and ignore recent examples where US is directly involved in impoverishing people by destroying their country in the name of democracy. Democracy meaning installing their own puppets who will allow them to loot. Countries like Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait etc. All South American countries have been at war. All of them. Google them one by one. Leave China out of this equation because they have never started or sponsored war outside Asia. When a country isn't at war, know that it is ruled by puppets of the West.

The bigger problem isn't ignorance here. Lack of emphathy is the main problem. Parent comment, which people are down-voting, is basically suggesting that those African children which were saved are better off dead.

Because West is stealing gazillion times more from Africa in return. When you refuse, war and/or sanctions follow to cripple your country. Then they can loot in peace. You seriously think USA is just helping out of their good hearts?

We are growing our own food and exporting excess food to other countries. What do you think we are doing with our land? Just play on it? Only countries who are unable to grow their own food are those who are at war. War which is started by the very same West who pretend to be feeding us.

Ignorance on this comment is on another level. Please find some time and visit Africa. Stop learning about Africa from charity organisations who want to swindle you of your hard-earned cash. Obviously they will portray a bleak picture so that you can donate. We don't live in bushes. We have cities and some of us have a better quality of life than most people in the Western countries.

If I had enough clout to downvote, I was going to do so. I was going to do so because the comment is totally ignorant. I don't know who is feeding people around the world this misinformation that African people are all dying of hunger and waiting for food aid.

Please help me understand. Why would Africans need unhealthy, pesticide-infested food from America? Unless it is a country ravaged with wars, sponsored by the same, America? We can grow our own food.

Not sure if it is ignorance that is making you to utter such words about Africa. Do you seriously think all African people are dying of hunger and waiting for food aid from your governments? Have you ever been to any African country? Majority of countries with food and hunger problems are those who are at war. Rest of us, citizens pf this wonderful and arable continent, can feed ourselves and don't need any food aid.

The only aid we need is for Western countries who sponsor African wars to stay away from Africa. I have been living in Africa since birth(35 years old). I have never seen anyone dying of hunger.

Majority of people wouldn't mind making their sites accessible for the disabled if they had necessary skills to do so. Problem is that almost every Web Designer, know close to nothing about designing websites for accessibility. In fact, most Website Designers can't even make a website to be usable by people with no disability. Focus is on making websites to look fancy.

Another thing I have noticed is that a chapter about usability of websites is treated as an extra. Usually at the end of the book as additional reading. Maybe we need to regulate the industry and make it impossible for people to start practicing without proper training. There are codes of conduct that a lawyer, accountant or doctor has to abide to, but there is none for a Website Designer. No implications whatsoever for not making websites to be accessible. They end up blindly ignoring accessibility because they weren't trained to do it.

Fining companies won't help because 99% of the companies are headed by people who don't need to know if the website is accessible to the blind or not. They just trust the designer to do a good job. The only time they will know they are supposed to make their website to be accessible is when they are getting sued. Problem is that regulation will greatly reduce number of practitioners and greatly increase the cost of website development.

Not sure in other platforms, but in the .NET world, ORM(read Entity Framework) usage skyrocketed and improvements are made with each version of .NET released. I use Entity Framework. Both at work and when doing my home projects. Code First. I started with Database First and only recently moved to Code First. It feels so good modeling my database using C#.NET classes instead of doing it in SQL. Don't get me wrong. I do like SQL and I am very good with it, but I prefer C# better.

Speed of development greatly improved since I switched to EF. Speed of development is what matters most for me when building first version of an application.

I am currently a catfish programmer and not enjoying it. I now feel like a garbageman because I see lots of garbage and rarely given new code to write. I now spend more time reading garbage code and trying to figure out how it works in a matter of hours. It all started last year October when I took a contracting job.