zappan

Use Hex, Luke!

You are right there, implying the use of ORMs as data mappers or active records, as that's a standard thing today. Doing raw database access is a thing most of devs would like to avoid these days as we have those better and proven patterns at hand. Still, I agree with your comment that it should be stated more clearly it's ORMs...

Own a business, starting up, or just want to convince your client, boss or the stakeholders why Node.js is the right way to go? Are you sure you are making the right choice, or need a supporting evidence? Lots has been written about Node.js, but people tell me they couldn't find it summarized in one place, so here it is - the good, the bad and the ugly of Node.js - if you fit in, just use it!

Yup, it mostly boils down to what you seek for. If you seek a complete freedom in your working hours, it might not be a fit for you, but if you seek a steady flow of work, being a member of client's team, with some regular communication involved - Toptal is an organized place to pick up some work without the bidding games happening in elance & odesk.

I'm also a member of the netwokr, picking some work there, some through my own direct contacts. Generally, 'rules of the game' are always agreed with the client, when such rules aren't a fit for both sides, no need to engage in such work, as you wouldn't in the case where you find your own clients. Some are more, some other are less flexible, just like in every other place.

Thanks for your thoughts... Still, positions are usually labeled like that. Personally I'm a full-stack dev, but I'm far more efficient in the application architecture role than the UI stuff, although I'm capable of doing it all.

The responsibility has less to do with titles, as a responsible developer can and will take several roles in the project if one's capable to do so...

I'm afraid you're missing it a bit - just making only javascript applications is the reason to make a different distinction - some people are better at doing MVC, and they do it in the browser now; while some people are great in making great looking UIs, but not really digging into application architecture. And, of course, there are people doing both, being full-stack devs, but still they're usually more efficient in some areas than the others - I am such an example, still I know UI devs that are way more efficient and know neat tricks on the UI, as well as some great UI libraries to do their work faster (and usually better, relying on the know-how built into the lib) because they specialize in that.

Thanks for your comment regarding labeling, though... I agree that sometimes it's inappropriate, still sometimes it's useful to figure out the kind of work being done under such a label

Croatia - $4.99 - still a bargain

Let me give my thoughts on this, being a .Net developer and running a company in Croatia. A bit of background on me first, to understand my thougts better - as Croatian economy is structurally in a really bad condition for IT, I've been trying to join some company/project on a telecommuting basis.

Now, this is where I'm having a problem - as most companies that would consider remote workers are startups unable to find enough local talent, I've noticed that there really aren't any/much startups running on .Net stack.

Which I find a bit unfair, as .Net ecosystem has a lot to offer, if you just look out of the walls of Microsoft a little bit. And with the raise of cloud platforms, the license price difference will be a less of an issue than before. For development tools, there are programs within MS where a development company gets all the tools for a negligible amount of money. Still, it seems it's not enough for most of the startups to adopt that technology.

On the other hand, I've gotten into Rails lately and I find it really interesting platform to work on, so I'm expanding my skills in that space trying to reach companies willing to have remote workers on that stack. I haven't fixed any deals yet, but I've had several contacts compared to literally none in the .Net ecosystem.

You've said you're into Python, if you look this month's "who's hiring" theme, you'll notice a bit of a rise for Python. So, if you're targeting startups, Ruby and Python may seem better opportunities than .Net. If you're targetting getting a job in some (stable) company outside of the lights of the startup scene, that's where you've said .Net is in demand. After all, it's mostly what are your goals.

Hope it helps...

.net has that problem of being stuck to what 'the company' provides and not looking around enough.

Luckily, there are some changes made recently with projects like the above mentioned, but also Simple.Data, Massive, Spark, as well as more comprehensive frameworks like S#arp Architecture, FubuMVC or MVC Turbine, or platforms like AppHarbor.

Let's hope of more of stuff like these, as well as some real world projects built on top of all that.