At 7/9/13 04:12 PM, Luis wrote: My general gut is if you've applied to two thousand places and have gotten little bite, then maybe its worth looking into tweaking your system?

Never said it wasn't my fault, i'm pretty sure it is :P
Might be that my resume is completely empty. Though that does raise the issue that to get a fuller resume i'd actually have to work somewhere.
Volunteer work always looks good. I did semi-voluntary sales for a company once and managed to sell a product to about 90% of the people at whatever convention-thing we were at. They gave me a job offer, but I was at JC at the time, so I couldn't take it :(

I find that you might be able to get in to places via internship.

Oh, I completely forgot internships exist. Not a whole lot of them out here; at least not advertised well. I'll have to check again.

I created this thread so im always getting notifications in my feed of new replies, so feel free to discuss whatever you want. This thread is more about the one little private community than it is to discuss flash exclusively. I figure we would have run out of topics by now if thats all we did.

I don't really mind the occasional (or not-so-ocassional) off-topic stuff around here. I just enjoy conversations in general because I tend to learn a thing or two.

At 7/9/13 05:19 PM, egg82 wrote: Oh, I completely forgot internships exist. Not a whole lot of them out here; at least not advertised well. I'll have to check again.

I usually keep a pulse on this site: http://www.authenticjobs.com/

They sometimes have pretty cool freelance projects and jobs all over the world. They tend to be 'designer' heavy but there might something in there that might catch your interest.

Also dont be shy about using self projects in your resume/portfolio. Particularly if you are new to the professional world. Most places welcome and appreciate it, as they more or less have to judge whether you are worth while purely on what they see. Most (good) places are after people who are good thinkers and genuinely interested in growing. I remember alot of people here in this lounge having all sorts of experiments and explorations. Game Jam's could also work. I still use some of my collaborative stuff I've done here in my portfolio, not necessarily stuff I was doing on the clock. Its mostly stuff I'm proud of and represents my interests and passions and stuff.

I need to find me an internship for next summer, sitting around all day is boring. I'm taking an online class that's part of my CS minor, but it's more of an annoyance since it's just twice a week. I did some research this past spring, and the prof said that looks really good on resumes. I guess the other thing is that I should apply to more places, even if they aren't in the Texas through Georgia region which I'd prefer.

There's an internship/co-op fair in Septemberish, but you have to be a grad/masters/phd level for them to hire you on the spot. Hopefully I can get an interview this time around...

At 7/9/13 01:18 AM, egg82 wrote: what about HTML5 games? That's my main concern. As much as I really don't give a crap about HTML5, i'm still a tad worried about the devs there.

HTML5 games are just basic JavaScript being used to manipulate images in a canvas element. It will work fine. Even in IE.
You also should care about HTML5. It's going to take over Flash (and about fucking time Flash went away).

At 7/9/13 02:46 PM, Innermike wrote: I recently got turned down for a job at McDonalds so my self-esteem is at an all time low.

Keep in mind that if you make yourself seem too intelligent or qualified you are less likely to be hired for menial labour such as McDonald's because you wouldn't be expected to stick around as smart people tend to get good jobs faster than stupid people.

At 7/9/13 03:48 PM, egg82 wrote: That's the problem, really. You can't just say "I know this and this" because nobody believes you without some kind of cert.

That's why you should make a portfolio. It's how I've gotten programming jobs without any certification (I also wouldn't want to work somewhere that considers certification to be valuable).

At 7/9/13 08:09 PM, Innermike wrote: ALSO
I keep forgetting to ask but does anyone have the grey star image thing you can use to feign icon transparency? Like egg82's but just plain grey.

you're in luck, that's the one I actually have

At 7/9/13 08:09 PM, Innermike wrote: I started to realize that I probably would make terrible use of time and just end up wasting copious amounts of time and money, I suck at being in education.

Good on you for realising this before you applied. Pretty much everyone I knew from my college course started uni and dropped out before their final year exams.

I decided it would just make more sense to spend maybe a year or two (or more who knows) doing something that isn't too mentally straining and build up an actual portfolio of work in any free time I have then go from there. I know it's not much of a plan but ech.

Freelance work might be something to fill your time and give you a start to your portfolio. It's good because once you get your foot in the door, your client list only grows. But not web design freelance. God, don't do that.

At 7/9/13 05:52 PM, MSGhero wrote: I need to find me an internship for next summer, sitting around all day is boring.

I've always been wary of internships for some reason. I'd feel like I was being exploited even though I know I'd benefit a great deal from the experience.

At 7/9/13 08:32 PM, Sam wrote: I've always been wary of internships for some reason. I'd feel like I was being exploited even though I know I'd benefit a great deal from the experience.

One of my friends got one at VMWare, and they start interns at $40/hr or so. Of course, only silicon valley- and petroleum-based companies will offer that. Honestly, I'd be ok with pretty much anything for now just to see what areas I want to eventually work in.

They wouldn't let him on their starcraft 2 team cuz it could be viewed as paying him to play on their team.

Also Sam (and Glaiel if you're lurking), the video games forum brought up a ng dota 2 guild.

At 7/9/13 08:43 PM, MSGhero wrote: One of my friends got one at VMWare, and they start interns at $40/hr or so.

holy fuck!

At 7/9/13 11:33 PM, egg82 wrote:

At 7/9/13 08:43 PM, MSGhero wrote: One of my friends got one at VMWare, and they start interns at $40/hr or so.

holy fuck!

Didn't expect that would amaze you... They're bankrupt to this guy, considering that it's the "old ugly deprecated PHP"..

At 7/10/13 12:05 AM, TheNavigat wrote: Didn't expect that would amaze you... They're bankrupt to this guy, considering that it's the "old ugly deprecated PHP"..

so you're telling me that I can code better PHP than he can, and he's getting $170 an hour, and i'm jobless?
this just in: up is down, and backwards is really forwards. Hah, tricked you!

At 7/9/13 08:32 PM, Sam wrote:

At 7/9/13 08:09 PM, Innermike wrote: I started to realize that I probably would make terrible use of time and just end up wasting copious amounts of time and money, I suck at being in education.

Good on you for realising this before you applied. Pretty much everyone I knew from my college course started uni and dropped out before their final year exams.

hmm.. i dunno im kinda biased but i dunno if not going to college works for everyone. i HATED it but i found alot of good networking to come from it. I found college to be not as competitive as i thought. (i went to art school so maybe i was spoiled). i wouldnt necessarily recommend someone give up on college. Unless youre like a toast or some super smart mother fucker who has no need for human interaction then yea dont bother. But i think there's some value in going. Whether its enough value to warrant the price, well thats a personal decision really.

At 7/9/13 08:32 PM, Sam wrote: I've always been wary of internships for some reason. I'd feel like I was being exploited even though I know I'd benefit a great deal from the experience.

NEVER take an unpaid internship. If a company is fucking serious about providing a learning value. then they'd pay atleast minimum wage to help you. what the fuck do these places think. that you can just live for free because youre a noob. i mean come the fuck on.

At 7/10/13 12:09 AM, egg82 wrote:

At 7/10/13 12:05 AM, TheNavigat wrote: Didn't expect that would amaze you... They're bankrupt to this guy, considering that it's the "old ugly deprecated PHP"..

so you're telling me that I can code better PHP than he can, and he's getting $170 an hour, and i'm jobless?
this just in: up is down, and backwards is really forwards. Hah, tricked you!

Not really. I mean, you mentioned above that PHP is no longer widely supported, the truth is that it is. He's got 9 years of experience, at least that's what he says there, so I bet you can code better PHP than he can..

At 7/10/13 12:28 AM, Luis wrote:

At 7/9/13 08:32 PM, Sam wrote: I've always been wary of internships for some reason. I'd feel like I was being exploited even though I know I'd benefit a great deal from the experience.

NEVER take an unpaid internship. If a company is fucking serious about providing a learning value. then they'd pay atleast minimum wage to help you. what the fuck do these places think. that you can just live for free because youre a noob. i mean come the fuck on.

I've been into few, and I've watched startups rise in front of my eyes, so I'll have to argue a bit.

It depends, actually. If the company's big, your point is valid. Millions of income, and they don't want to spare few bucks on an intern? Greed!

On the other hand.. Joining a startup, opposite to joining an enterprise, would provide at least 2X more experience. More work of course, but you're not anymore gaining experience and leaving, you're becoming a part of it. You're not contributing a few lines or a new feature, you're creating it with the other guys, and in some cases, the interns are those whose simple touches flip the whole project. Step by step, they're not anymore "employees" nor "interns", they're co-founders, not formally of course but they've added the same as the other guys, so money (in this case) doesn't matter a bit.

At 7/10/13 12:40 AM, TheNavigat wrote:

At 7/10/13 12:28 AM, Luis wrote:

At 7/9/13 08:32 PM, Sam wrote: I've always been wary of internships for some reason. I'd feel like I was being exploited even though I know I'd benefit a great deal from the experience.

NEVER take an unpaid internship. If a company is fucking serious about providing a learning value. then they'd pay atleast minimum wage to help you. what the fuck do these places think. that you can just live for free because youre a noob. i mean come the fuck on.

I've been into few, and I've watched startups rise in front of my eyes, so I'll have to argue a bit.

It depends, actually. If the company's big, your point is valid. Millions of income, and they don't want to spare few bucks on an intern? Greed!

On the other hand.. Joining a startup, opposite to joining an enterprise, would provide at least 2X more experience. More work of course, but you're not anymore gaining experience and leaving, you're becoming a part of it. You're not contributing a few lines or a new feature, you're creating it with the other guys, and in some cases, the interns are those whose simple touches flip the whole project. Step by step, they're not anymore "employees" nor "interns", they're co-founders, not formally of course but they've added the same as the other guys, so money (in this case) doesn't matter a bit.

I dunno. if the start-up is making money, it should invest in people. I'm not even talking about like give them enough to retire with. I mean SOMETHING. Even as an intern, living in my parents basement and what have you. you still need SOME money to survive. I mean youre probably 20 something years old. you arent fucking 7 yrs old where everything is taken care of you. You probably have car payments, credit card, whatever. Its absurd for any company to assume you have such a lush life that you have NO NEED for ANY money whatsoever. Gimme a fucking break.

Unless i was close friends with the owner and it was a true leap of faith id be ok with it. But living in the real world where experience is nice but you are doing an internship taking up your time for no money whatsoever and still having to come up with time to take up a part time job to pay your very real bills is bullshit IMO.

At 7/10/13 01:03 AM, Luis wrote: I dunno. if the start-up is making money, it should invest in people. I'm not even talking about like give them enough to retire with. I mean SOMETHING. Even as an intern, living in my parents basement and what have you. you still need SOME money to survive. I mean youre probably 20 something years old. you arent fucking 7 yrs old where everything is taken care of you. You probably have car payments, credit card, whatever. Its absurd for any company to assume you have such a lush life that you have NO NEED for ANY money whatsoever. Gimme a fucking break.

I'll have to agree with that. Of course they should pay an amount of money so you can have a breakfast, but not a 40$ per hour, they're a startup company, they're probably striving..

At 7/10/13 12:25 AM, Luis wrote: Whether its enough value to warrant the price, well thats a personal decision really.

For in-state students who mostly all get 90% paid for by the local govt, yes. For out-of-state students who aren't in dire financial need...I mean $10k more cmon. Even the online course I'm taking now cost about $2000 more for out-of-state. I did snag one of those scholarships even though I'm not in-state, so I can't complain too much compared to some of the others.

Some site/mag said it's one of the best bangs for your buck once you hit the professional world, probably cuz of all the Google/FB/oil companies that look for hires.

At 7/10/13 01:37 AM, MSGhero wrote:

At 7/10/13 12:25 AM, Luis wrote: Whether its enough value to warrant the price, well thats a personal decision really.

For in-state students who mostly all get 90% paid for by the local govt, yes. For out-of-state students who aren't in dire financial need...I mean $10k more cmon. Even the online course I'm taking now cost about $2000 more for out-of-state. I did snag one of those scholarships even though I'm not in-state, so I can't complain too much compared to some of the others.

Some site/mag said it's one of the best bangs for your buck once you hit the professional world, probably cuz of all the Google/FB/oil companies that look for hires.

Oh well, got a friend, intern at Microsoft, they've got 1 Gbps internet connection there, so you can guess the salary.. Because he didn't mention it..

At 7/10/13 01:49 AM, TheNavigat wrote: Oh well, got a friend, intern at Microsoft, they've got 1 Gbps internet connection there, so you can guess the salary.. Because he didn't mention it..

My uni has that speed interweb. They don't pay me anything. I got up to 604Mbps via speedtest once at like 4am; in the commons I can't even get a signal.

At 7/10/13 02:07 AM, MSGhero wrote:

At 7/10/13 01:49 AM, TheNavigat wrote: Oh well, got a friend, intern at Microsoft, they've got 1 Gbps internet connection there, so you can guess the salary.. Because he didn't mention it..

My uni has that speed interweb. They don't pay me anything. I got up to 604Mbps via speedtest once at like 4am; in the commons I can't even get a signal.

I've got a 512 Kbps internet connection at home, Alexandria, Egypt.. Now you can imagine the pain..

There is a lot of text above and I haven't read it all yet, but my question for egg and mike is:

Have you actually tried applying anywhere yet?

Put together a nice portfolio of everything you've done up until now, write a nice CV about what you're capable of doing and what you're best at. (post it on here if you'd like me to have a look, or PM me if you're shy).

I started off by just checking out a job website and realizing that Flash development is actually something people will pay you for (oh how young and naive I was) and I was working as a junior developer for a new media company the next week! (Didn't show up to sixth form college anymore, seemed pointless).

A colleague and I were in charge of all hiring for the flash team last year (I'm moving on now though, long story), so I know what companies look for in developers. Designers I'm not so sure about but honestly if you've got talent then a lack of experience shouldn't stop you getting on the ladder.

Mike, I have one word for you: London. London has a billion jobs for digital designers. Personally I prefer to work outside because you get paid the same for much cheaper living, but to start out with it's a good place to start your career!

Let me know if you have any questions and I can try and help, I wish someone experienced was there to help me when I first started!

At 7/10/13 12:28 AM, Luis wrote: NEVER take an unpaid internship. If a company is fucking serious about providing a learning value. then they'd pay atleast minimum wage to help you. what the fuck do these places think. that you can just live for free because youre a noob. i mean come the fuck on.

Over here, if you're under 19 and you take an apprenticeship, you get paid like £2.50~ an hour which is complete bullshit. I suppose at that age most people don't have to rely on themselves to keep a roof above their heads but even so, at that rate I'd feel like I was being exploited.

At 7/10/13 04:24 AM, Rustygames wrote: Have you actually tried applying anywhere yet?

Short answer: I have, but i'm pretty sure my resume isn't up-to-scratch :P

Also, Nav, I thought you meant he was coding PHP using the deprecated PHP4-style. In which case I was about to flip a lid. Turns out, he's doing it right.

Also, this makes me very, very happy :D

Off-topic question: Why doesn't <script src="myscript.js"/> work? I just discovered that after I couldn't get the JS to work, and changed this to <script src="myscript.js"></script>, which worked.

At 7/10/13 12:23 PM, FlyingColours wrote: Off-topic question: Why doesn't <script src="myscript.js"/> work? I just discovered that after I couldn't get the JS to work, and changed this to <script src="myscript.js"></script>, which worked.

because <script> is a double-sided tag, "src" attribute or not.

At 7/10/13 12:27 PM, egg82 wrote:

At 7/10/13 12:23 PM, FlyingColours wrote: Off-topic question: Why doesn't <script src="myscript.js"/> work? I just discovered that after I couldn't get the JS to work, and changed this to <script src="myscript.js"></script>, which worked.

because <script> is a double-sided tag, "src" attribute or not.

Oh... of course, thanks!

Just finished coding the engine for my Robot Day entry (I'm *fast*, aren't I?). Now I'll write the content and finally add some pointless eye candy, then I'm done! :)

At 7/10/13 12:47 PM, FlyingColours wrote: Just finished coding the engine for my Robot Day entry (I'm *fast*, aren't I?). Now I'll write the content and finally add some pointless eye candy, then I'm done! :)

ah, i'm just trying to finish GameWork for C#. Working on all the networking stuff, including temporary firewall bypassing (hopefully) and UPnP for "automatic" port forwarding. ext up is the Steam API integration.
Then i'll see if I can make our game jam game in it to fill in any gaps.

programming jobs

In the industry there's always jobs that even crappy flash programmers could complete and the manager wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I guess some places have more of these jobs, and some have less. Earlier this year I found a gig doing english education games for kids. Typical stuff. Question comes up in text, sound, or image form, 3 answers show up, if they choose correct one, some success sequence plays on the "game" side of the screen, if they choose wrong failure sequence plays. (The API part was annoying though because they changed the way it works like 10 times along the project)

A personal note from me on this is I was amazed how much easier it is to make money working for some big company than by trying to produce your own projects. And it's really strange to work in an environment where no one has a clue of the difficulty or time requirement of the work you're doing, at best they could only ballpark it to a low multiple. If the funding is good enough, you could be spending 5 times the amount of time it should normally take you to do the work, and no one would be able to call the bluff. Then again, there is the opposite effect, where you're expected to do a completely unrealistic amount of work for a given funding / time allowance. The latter kinda happened to me, I was supposed to construct front-end UI for TV media software (yes, in flash ... loljapan) in about 2 weeks ... Turned out they barely had like 10% of the graphical assets complete during the time I was starting to work on it, so the project had the kaibosh put on it.

I think this story servers as a good lesson for beginner programmers to voice out their complaints to upper level / management when the conditions are just not right. The project I described was actually my first real professional work experience. I was both over-confident in my abilities and over-willing to do the project despite the visibly crazy time requirements, and I barely voiced out any complaints about other people not preparing things right, or project conditions being just unacceptable. We had a korean programmer come into our office as the project began, he was supposed to be here to assist with the workload. We had a tiny portion of assets available to us, and while I was trying to do as much work possible with the given assets, he pretty much recognized that the project was a ship about to sink, and he ditched out.

I think it's important to be firm with managers about bad conditions, and it also makes you look like a matured experienced programmer.

So according to a bunch of links containing supposedly leaked information, the Steam summer sales begin tomorrow.
Your wallets are not prepared.

On a happy side-note, I managed to finish this beast today.
Both client and server support TCP and UDP, and calling a util function before you open a client or server SHOULD (not fully tested, but it hasn't thrown any error yet) grant your program a firewall bypass until it shuts down

the commented line in the onServerRecieve function is for responding to TCP connections. Both should run on their own threads with minimal overhead.
Unfortunately once you put your params in either the client or the server's constructor, you're stuck with those params until you decide to use the "new" keyword. I doubt that'll change.

Anyway, on to the steam API. I have my JSON class, HTTP request class, and stream reader class already working, so it's really just a matter of actually learning the damn API.

Throughout the coding of this thing, i've realized I misspelled "receive" throughout all of my classes. Ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuu...