Hello, I'm an aspiring software developer, whose been confused for a while about what to learn, i am looking to change career's and make some money o support myself, honestly my main interests are gamedev, animation, etc, but its hard to make an income doing those things where i live, and its hard to pursue your passions when you are not in a good place mentally, so please i need some advice on what to learn in 2020 that gives me a chance to begin to earn a reasonable income, I'll rather work remotely or startup something, but i don't mind paid employment either.
Thanks.
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Top comments (11)
A bit of a disclaimer: there is no "fast track" to a good paying tech job! You're going to put in years of effort to get there, despite breathless articles online to the contrary.
You could go the web dev route, as two other commentors have suggested, but you are correct that the market is saturated. The majority of the decent jobs in that field require expertise that is head-and-shoulders above the crushing mob.
There are many other branches of software development which are overlooked because they're not as popular. It takes about the same amount of work to get into, say, professional game development or application UX design as it would to get into web development....although the job market isn't quite as saturated.
If you want to go the game dev route, learn C++, C#, Blender, and at least one of Unity, Unreal, or Steam. (MASSIVE bonus points if you learn SDL2 and/or DirectX!!)
Application UI/UX design can be exciting and rewarding, and there are many projects desperate for a dedicated user interface designer or five. C++ and Python are the two best languages to learn for this, although Java and Go are popular here too. Also learn two or more GUI libraries. Qt5, GTK, Xamarin, and JavaFX are four popular GUI libraries, so knowing those is a huge asset.
Whatever path you take, you need to start at the same place: learn any one programming language well! It doesn't really matter which one you start with; the underlying principles are largely universal.
Personally, I recommend starting with Python. it's a good jumping off point from which you can go in literally any direction: into web dev, game design, UI/UX, machine learning, data analysis, whatever you want.
Thanks for the advice, currently starting the automate the boring stuff udemy course, as well as learning to use maya, will move to c# and unity in the future, then learn ui/ux design with python. is this learning structure okay or can it be improved?, thanks so much for your time
That sounds excellent, actually. Automate the Boring Stuff is one of the best!
By the way, you may find a couple of my series helpful, too:
How To Become A Developer -- Part 1: Coding Skills
Jason C. McDonald ・ Aug 6 '19 ・ 7 min read
Introducing "Dead Simple Python"
Jason C. McDonald ・ Jan 13 '19 ・ 3 min read
thank you soo much, reading through the posts you referred me to, i came across a language called rust, i read about it and it seems like something i'll enjoy learning because i can basically do everything including create an os or web browser, something ive always wanted to do, please is it something i can learn as a first language or i should learn later?. thanks
Technically, you could learn any language first. While I would personally recommend starting with Python and then moving to Rust from there — and I'll be the first to admit there's plenty of my personal language preferences biasing that recommendation — there's nothing saying you can't start with Rust! The point is to pick a first language...any first language...and get decently good at it before moving on to the next.
You should start learning HTML, CSS & JavaScript. At least the basics. And then learn some WebGL frameworks like Babylon or THREE. I think you can have a lot of fun having some Web knowledge that can guarantee you a lot of work in this branch, plus keeping a foot in the graphics industries by making 3D enabled websites.
In my opinion, this can be your best shot. Web technologies are really not complicated, but there is a lot of things to learn in order to be efficient. Meaning you won't get bored!
What do you think?
Thanks a lot, was reading that web dev had become saturated so i thought i was better served learning niche technologies, but i have a question, how can i find work with the web gl stack, and is the demand high?
In the WebGL market, the demand is not that high. There are some websites that are in need like websites that offer customization of clothes.
And for the people who are complete monsters (very intelligent, not humans like me) that have a deep understanding of mathematics and geometry can have a pretty good paid job in the jewelry industry. For instance, writing ultra-slick shaders for materials like diamond, gold, platinum, etc... That renders truly to the eyes of the customer.
This is actually one of our huge problems. These things are very costly. We had pricing for a company that was developing such things. The shader only: $15k. The. Shader. But damn is that thing rendering like it was a real diamond to the application.
Also, the trend is increasing with motorcycle & car companies that want to provide their users with the most realistic experience while customizing their vehicles before buying.
This is based on my personal experience but if you don't always find clients for WebGL-based solutions, you can always find other opportunities in the classic Web market since you would have some experience (using WebGL means that you already have some Web knowledge as I said).
This may not be the top-paid job to do (unless you are hired by a big company, in that case, jackpot and congrats), but in the end, if you are searching for a tradeoff, this might be in my opinion one of the best.
I would see you may wanna look into web or mob development, so you can freelance faster :)
thanks, i currently read about flutter/dart, is that something i can start with.
of course, flutter now rocks cus of its possibilities to make one app that can run on iOS and Android at the same time :)