Jon;

First of all let me preface this discussion with the remark, “Please do not come to Silicon Valley to look for employment in IT”! It can be a problem. You see, we have LOST 192,000 IT jobs (gone) since April 2001. My friends in IT (degrees in Computer Science and experienced) who lost his/her employment have had to take up other career fields to survive.

I think the advice from JVP is most sound and like the concept of goals vs. time.

Yours is an important question and deserves serious thought. I had to make such decisions when I changed careers from electronic engineering to programming, and while programming. The software tools changed as did my employers requirements so I have had to learn thirteen different languages over the years. You do what you must to survive. I am 61 and still attempting to survive. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Always be alert to the market and changes in technology, in that order! You could forecast where the market will be in say one year but that can be risky. Risk has good and bad points.

SQL Server is a tool that has some demand and is a good means to either be a dba or will help you with programming, as it is another backend that is in use. This can be a good choice. I like using SQL Server with VFP and ASP. I am learning .NET. Having knowledge in networking is not a bad idea. Security and anti virus experience can be a plus.

Do not try to take on too much but do make a decision what is best for you.

Evaluate your market and attempt to make a choice of what direction to take. Personally, I think that programming, as we have known it for the last 10 years will continue to change. Remember the concepts of “automated programming”? Who needs people! Well, there is always India. In ten years programming as we know it today will be very different.

My advice to anyone in the software development world is to be ready for change. It may be the technology, language or you may have to make a career change. By the way the advice I have given you is that which I have lived by and have been stating for many years.

Tom



>Hi guys,
>
>I realise this is not what you guys are here for but I need to make some importent decisions over the next few months and any advice suggestions would be greatly recieved.
>
>Background - I have almost 4 years of Fox 2.6 and VFP6 experience, I've been with my current company for 3 years. They have just been bought out and it seems the product I work on is going to be redevloped overseas in VB.NET. This is good for the company because they will be able to produce a product at a very low cost..but I dont think its so good for me. The new company seem not to want to involve the UK based team in any of the new product development and Im concerned because this puts me in a very weak position.
>
>Basically I want to make sure I'm in a strong position when they decide they dont need any of the developers based in the UK, probably in the next 12 months or so.
>
>I think I need to retrain as although I love foxpro there arent to many jobs about for it (espcially in the area I want). My main concern is that it seems the the role of the programmer especially in the UK is not that clear, it makes perfect sense for companies to out source their development overseas as it save a significant amount of money, but I think that means that the programmers lifetime is coming to an end.
>
>I was looking to get my MCP in VFP6, however I dont think this will really benefit me as I think if a VFP job came up I could get it with or without the MCP.
>
>I have almost 12 months experience in SQL 2000, I am seriously considering funding myself through a "boot camp" style course to gain certification on SQL 2000, hopefully this will open up some more doors for me. My idea behind this is that I would leave open the opportunity of moving into a DBA role if I gained a couple more MCP's and I feel this role may have a longer lifetime than that of a programmer. My other choice is to do some training on .net technology however I dont have any commercial experience in this so Im not so sure and it also means Im slightly more tied to the programmer role.
>
>I know I could self study for these exams, but in a cost benefit sort of way I dont know if I can wait (have) that much time before Im going to really need to move jobs. The cost of the investment (and I would see it as an investment) in the short term would hopefully be repaid in the long term by a better job and salary.
>
>At the end of the day its really my own fault that im in this position as I have sat back and not thought about the future (that along with my company not re-investing in me).
>
>Wow this is a long message if you get this far im impressed.
>
>What im interested to know..
>
>Do any of my theries make sense. I don not want to pay out lots of money for a course that may not improve my chances of finding new workk.
>
>Do "boot camps" work. Im looking to do it with "thetrainingcamp" has anybody used them or can they reccomend anybody else.
>
>Apologies for the extremely long message.