Re^2: Right tool for the job?

Thank you for the reply. Semi-off-topic: I agree about family and friends being priority, but work is sometimes a priority when it comes to feeding said family or being able to spend time with said friends. Work is a priority insofar as it enables a person to do what's really important.

I know enough shell to properly quote a Perl one-liner or mess with the environment or pipe things around, but Bash's loop syntax (for example) is beyond me. I'm glad to know I'm not missing much.

I'm not sure about management, but I'll keep it in mind. I'm blessed with a manager who says "I know nothing about computers. Do your own thing, just get your work done and I'll be happy". Seems like that isn't the norm. So I have the freedom to learn and use anything I want. Which may be part of my problem, this being my first programming job after college. At the same time I love it, of course.

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Re^3: Right tool for the job?
by Tanktalus (Canon) on Sep 25, 2005 at 02:42 UTC

Bash's loop syntax is the same as Bourne shell's loop syntax. But I don't think that's the point of your observation ;-)

To be completely honest, if this is your first programming job after college, I'll give you a piece of advice. Of course, you have to remember that it may be worth precisely what you're paying for it. The advice is this: it is often a good use of your time to get a job where there is a senior expert to learn from, at least at first. My first co-op job was in a department where the manager was like yours - didn't know much about programming or anything, just wanted me to do what I had to to complete the job. (Oddly, that was my ForTran to C job.) The only other software developers around were in another department which had a strained relationship with mine, and made it extremely difficult for me to learn anything about software development.

My second co-op job was in a software development company - they made money from selling software licenses. So I had a software development team lead, a former software developer as a manager, and a current-developer as a business unit manager. I had some really good influence from them, and learned a lot.

Then I graduated and started my current job (8 years ago already). And again with the being surrounded by software development. However, I think I now have the experience to go solo in another company if I wanted, and I'd feel comfortable that I was efficiently solving their software problems.

Best of luck :-)

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