@Collins, for one, I don't think economics professors can teach you how to make money! I think making money from your skills is just something one has to learn the hard way. By trying, making mistakes, trying again, reading widely, meeting people, developing social and marketing skills. For most of us, there is nothing like easy money. As someone said, there are no best writing authors, just best *selling* authors. That's why Bill Gates is a rich man, and no economics professor taught him that... The truth is, most people that try their hands in business don't make it. C'est la vie..... The Ngamita article is interesting. However, the classifications may cover many, but not all developers. Which leads to the question, he says most devs in Africa are PHP and Java. I think it's PHP and .Net, and I think I've met many... I find many guys say they are Java devs but they're more like guys that want to be Java devs. Just my 2 cents.. On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 9:55 AM, Collins Areba <arebacollins@gmail.com>wrote:
@aki i would summarize your ranting as follows:
You are complaining the lack of entrepreneurial ability of the "programmers" because somehow they cant figure a creative way to make money and blaming those that are creative enough to make money out of their skills (the "not programmers").
Me thinks the first lot should stop complaining and demand for a refund from their economics professors.
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 9:34 AM, aki <aki275@gmail.com> wrote:
@Dennis, thanks for the link. Great to read insider views of the industry.
For the record and since my posting is awaiting moderation on the link below, I'm pasting my posting here too.
"Hallo Richard, I like your bluntness and that finally someone had the guts to bring out the issues. I’ve brought these up on ocassions and would like to add this to your posting.
You missed out that most of the Open Source programmers are really entrepreneurs, nothing more. They seek to make a living/create business of existing platforms because it costs them nothing in terms on asset investments and time. Free Software, as I like to call Open Source, is the long term destruction of any hopes for developers in Africa to do something about creating more localised versions of platforms etc. It will never happen as long as those in developed countries continue to push agendas for free software and its uptake.
How well one knows unix commands and can write scripts to create a more stable OS enviroment makes no difference to the developer world. I hope there will be a time when the world economic climate will put the free-software industry out of business and African developers will see the urgency to self develop and keep away from dependencies.
In the meantime, we are stuck with entrepreneurs who cannot be labelled as programmers. We must differentiate the skills and the business. The skills rarely exist because most of the code is on a silver plate and thats the unfortunate reality.
A few words from a .Net part time hobbyist dev "
On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Dennis Kioko <dmbuvi@gmail.com> wrote:
The 3 types of developers you will find in Africa <http://thiswas.codedinafrica.org/2011/01/01/the-3-types-of-developers-you-will-find-africa/>
http://thiswas.codedinafrica.org/2011/01/01/the-3-types-of-developers-you-wi...
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