TW to Development...

[Charles E Vermette <cvermette -at- juno -dot- com>]

I want to move from TW to development.

My development background at present?

- Took one year of structured programming courses in PASCAL and COBOL in
the early 80s (I'm surprised how much of this still applies. I'm also
surprised at how much of it helps me to figure out an IDE.
- wrote a materials tracking program for a printing company in the mid 80
using command line BASIC
- I've customized Excel and Word docs using VBA.
- Worked with M$ "Learning Visual Basic" Edition.
- Have a tendency to catch Programming errors in apps I'm documenting
(for example, flagging type checking errors, pointing out wrong
accumulators, etc.)

Obviously, a good amount of a** to chair work is needed. (i.e., no one
has to tell me that.)

Besides that, any ideas on breaking in? Here are some I've kicked around:

- take a  (relatively small) flat free project. Have some I can farm out
the project if I get seriously in over my head.
- take a perm job at a low rate to get the experience
- take a perm job as a writer and/or tester and "get techie" with the
developers (I've done this on contract gigs; the majority of developers
love it...)

Here's what I *don't* want to do:

- spend a lot of money and time on a training program that won't get me
in the front door.
- get a certification that means nothing
- get a skill or get into a field that is on the wane

I'm especially interested in:
-hearing from people who have made the jump. 

I'm not particularly interested in:
-inspirational speaker missives (please try to avoid the phrase "comfort
zone" if possible...)

I am welcome to getting lambasted if:
-all or part of this is a bad idea:)

Chuck 

Charles E. Vermette
85 Washington Park Drive, Norwell MA 02061
781-659-1836
e-mail: cvermette -at- juno -dot- com
web: http://www.charlesvermette.com


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