Fun or work?

[SpamBurger]

I just wanted to ask some of the progammers here a little question. My question is, do you program for money or for just the fun? My answer is I mostly like to program for fun, but I have and are making quite a bit of cash off it as well. So, I guess I do it for both :). But, I am nowhere near professional, I'm just a freelancer.

[DFox]

Well I do both.

I do all the PHP systems for OFG, and it's a lot of fun. But it does bring in a nice amount of money.

I'm also working on a fun real estate site where I get to use PHP to search the MLS database, which is like 40,000 records. It's really good for my skills. That also is paying a nice amount of money but it's mostly for fun because I've never worked with such a large database.

So even if you make money off what you're doing and you're having fun, I say it's for fun.

[WoogieNoogie]

I don't do any for money. I would be able to do some back-end programming for something...but I'd rather just leave it as a hobby, I think.

[harryjarry]

Right now I only program/code for fun (except if you count money from google ads =P) but I don't get payed to code or anything.

It would be a nice job to code different sites for money but I don't think I am good enough for that yet ;).

After I finish my site I will see what all I can really do, I have learned a whole lot just messing with stuff around my site.

For me coding seems like a hassle to start, but once I start messing around for a bit it gets pretty addicting. Then kind of aggrevating if you can't get something to work the way you want it to =P.

[seel]

I do for both, my company want to make some money, so we learnt programing games and now were on it. The good thing is that we get paid and its fun, we also do 3D modelling wich kicks ass to.

I say bill gates for president!

[Taylor]

I wouldn't consider it "programming", so to speak, but I work with computers for a nice little profit.

And no, I'm not talking about hosting.

[Ziaja]

I would refer to it as work but it's also alot of fun.
Both.

[Zendra]

I never saw programming as my future career. No, I see it as a hobby. I enjoy doing it.
If there's any profit, it's nice taken. :)

[viewtyjoe]

Well, since I don't make any money doing it yet, I guess I have to program for fun.

[Craige]

I do it for fun, bit it is always nice to gain a little cash if you can. The thing about me though is that when I have a deadline, I get stressed and dont code as well, which is mainly why I do this fo fun. That, and it is hard to find good freelance jobs where you actually get paid what your code is worth.

[elbekko]

Well, I mostly code for fun, as I'm quite active in the open-source world, but if I can earn some money with it, that's always a nice bonus ^^
I know far from enough to be a professional though :(

[Einsidler]

Most of the stuff I do in conventional programming is just fun little apps for me and my friends like simple encryption, a love calculator, and a dreidel simulator.

However with web programming, right at the moment I am mostly working on my website trying to finish off stuff like a forum. Soon I'm actually going to be commisioned by a government department to produce a web site, that sounds a lot fancier than "making a website for my Dad's school for money" which is what it really is, lol.

So overall, fun but if there is money there I'll go for that and have fun along the way.

[SpamBurger]

At 7/17/06 11:49 PM, Craige wrote: That, and it is hard to find good freelance jobs where you actually get paid what your code is worth.

Tell me about it....

[Craige]

At 7/18/06 10:48 AM, SpamBurger wrote:

At 7/17/06 11:49 PM, Craige wrote: That, and it is hard to find good freelance jobs where you actually get paid what your code is worth.

Tell me about it....

Yep. Everybody thinks that code is so cheap.

[WadeBlock]

I program for fun mostly.
But, nothing wrong with making a little cash on the side (not that I have...hah).
I pretty much suppoty open source.

[Pilot-Doofy]

Both. I love programming so much that nearly everytime I'm at the computer I'm doing it directly or indirectly. Whether it's helping people acheive certain tasks or writing code for my own uses, I love writing code one way or another.

However, I also love the money invovled in the freelance world. I can easily make upwards of $50 an hour for work nearly anytime I'm willing. I've done plenty of paid projects over the past few years and accumulated well over $5,000 from those projects. Last month I worked off and on (maybe an hour or two a day) and got paid $1,000 for the work.

If I had to give advice to those wanting to make money in programming, though. I would have to say that accepting smaller jobs allows more room for a higher pay rate. On a small job (under $500) I could make about $50 an hour. On a large job (over $500) it's harder to make that much and you come out at about $20 an hour, which is still good pay.

[SpamBurger]

I charge very little, so thats why I hardly make any money :(
Like, I charged $10 for this.

But, Im more in for the fun, and Im only 13 so I don't really need the cash as of right now :p

[DFox]

At 7/18/06 01:02 PM, SpamBurger wrote: I charge very little, so thats why I hardly make any money :(
Like, I charged $10 for this.

But, Im more in for the fun, and Im only 13 so I don't really need the cash as of right now :p

DUDE! You can't charge that little for a Flash portal.

You must have worked hard on that and I'm sure it took you a long time.

I think you should have packaged it and sold it for lets say, $5 a copy. You could have probably got a ton of people who come to this forum and say "How can I make a Flash portal?" to purchase it.

[SpamBurger]

At 7/18/06 01:05 PM, GamesCool wrote:

At 7/18/06 01:02 PM, SpamBurger wrote: I charge very little, so thats why I hardly make any money :(
Like, I charged $10 for this.

But, Im more in for the fun, and Im only 13 so I don't really need the cash as of right now :p

DUDE! You can't charge that little for a Flash portal.

I feel bad when I charge high amounts :(. I also use to think $10 was too much XD
But I found out later that it wasn't :p

You must have worked hard on that and I'm sure it took you a long time.

I did

I think you should have packaged it and sold it for lets say, $5 a copy. You could have probably got a ton of people who come to this forum and say "How can I make a Flash portal?" to purchase it.

Good idea.

[Claxor]

At 7/16/06 07:59 PM, SpamBurger wrote: I just wanted to ask some of the progammers here a little question. My question is, do you program for money or for just the fun? My answer is I mostly like to program for fun, but I have and are making quite a bit of cash off it as well. So, I guess I do it for both :). But, I am nowhere near professional, I'm just a freelancer.

Jesus christ. You're 13 years old. You should be out with friends, partying, not "working". Sure, it's nice as a hobbie, but honestly

[SpamBurger]

At 7/19/06 12:09 PM, Claxor wrote: Jesus christ. You're 13 years old. You should be out with friends, partying, not "working". Sure, it's nice as a hobbie, but honestly

I only have 3 friends, and they live no where near me so I rather program :p

[Claxor]

At 7/19/06 12:11 PM, SpamBurger wrote: I only have 3 friends, and they live no where near me so I rather program :p

Get some new friends then. You'll ahve plenty of years when you're older to work, but you're only young once.

[WadeBlock]

At 7/19/06 12:30 PM, Claxor wrote:

At 7/19/06 12:11 PM, SpamBurger wrote: I only have 3 friends, and they live no where near me so I rather program :p

Get some new friends then. You'll ahve plenty of years when you're older to work, but you're only young once.

I'm a friend of SpamBurger's and also a programmer.
We have fun programming, we don't really consider it "work".

[SpamBurger]

At 7/19/06 12:33 PM, Mcconnellwade wrote: I'm a friend of SpamBurger's and also a programmer.
We have fun programming, we don't really consider it "work".

Yep, I rather hang out with you in school and find ways to exploit the school computers then go make new friends :D

[Claxor]

At 7/19/06 12:36 PM, SpamBurger wrote: Yep, I rather hang out with you in school and find ways to exploit the school computers then go make new friends :D

Are you proud of being a geek?

[SpamBurger]

At 7/20/06 12:21 PM, Claxor wrote:

At 7/19/06 12:36 PM, SpamBurger wrote: Yep, I rather hang out with you in school and find ways to exploit the school computers then go make new friends :D

Are you proud of being a geek?

Yes, of course!

[Bizarro]

I have yet to do any kind of programming for money, I feel that I'm not good enough at php to charge people, but I do feel I'm good enough at XHTML and CSS to charge people. The reason I dont charge people for XHTML and CSS is becuase I would just rather do it for free because coding websites is really fun to me.

[Pilot-Doofy]

At 7/19/06 04:11 AM, Plakat wrote:

At 7/18/06 12:57 PM, Pilot-Doofy wrote: $$$

When I dig up that interview I did on you for school I will post it here. Had some good numbers as to making money programming. And it will help out ALOT of people here. I hope.

Sure thing, I don't mind at all. I'd love to see some of the members of this community charging more for work because most of the programming world is widly underpaid.

I would like to see at least $30 an hour for all programmers who know their ass from a hole in the ground with code. People think that programmers all suck as bad as the outsourced employees who think the solution to everything is restarting the computer.

People take our work for granted because they pay low rates for people to do it instead of us, when in fact their hiring idiots! Computers are, without a doubt the largest and most progressive factor of the future. Why should we be paid so little when in fact we're crafting the future?

[SpamBurger]

I agree, but it is just hard to find people willing to pay that much. So I rather do something for $10 instead of getting no money if I were to charge $100 :p

[Pilot-Doofy]

At 7/21/06 10:40 AM, SpamBurger wrote: I agree, but it is just hard to find people willing to pay that much. So I rather do something for $10 instead of getting no money if I were to charge $100 :p

You can convince all sorts of people to pay proper rates, it's all about convincing.