Re: 'green screen' not sellable --> WE(?) are the problem

And if you think Pete and I and Jim and ... have invested ONLY $50 a month in the stuff we play with you would be off by 'a significant margin' :-) :-)

I spend Waaaaay more than that per month just POWERING the stuff!

This is all above and beyond the stuff we use for our commercial ventures.


- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com
www.iInTheCloud.com

On 6/8/2015 3:39 PM, Pete Massiello - ML wrote:

There are many costs for every profession. You don't have to invest in yourself, you don't have to invest in your skills....if you eventual wish to be forced into retirement.

Let's say 15 years ago, you were the best S/36 RPG II programmer in the world, and you said "$50 a month, are you crazy. I am not going to invest that in my career". Guess what, you are probably STILL the best S36 RPG II programmer in the world, except now you are unemployed and out of a job. No one wants to hire someone with outdated skills. Secondly, do you know what is even worse? Being hired by someone who is looking for outdated skills.

Fast forward, 15 years to 2015. Don't learn Linux, don't learn Free form RPG, don't learn SQL (because DDS works fine), don't learn mobile development, don't learn web development, etc, etc, etc. Well, I hope you plan to retire by 2016, because it's the same pattern. As IT professionals, we have to constantly invest in ourselves, because the world is constantly moving. $600 a year is pretty small dollars to keep having a paycheck over the next 10 to 20 years. In addition, it's going to conferences like COMMON, local user groups, System i Developer, IBM, or being on this list that continue to expose you new ideas and concepts.

Yes, the examples may be extreme just to point out that investment in yourself is necessary.

Pete

Pete Massiello
iTech Solutions
http://www.itechsol.com
http://www.iInTheCloud.com

Office: 203-744-7854



-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark D
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2015 3:06 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: 'green screen' not sellable --> WE(?) are the problem

On 06/08/2015 02:55 PM, DrFranken wrote:

<vendor>
Stop whining, It's YOUR Career. For $50 a month you can have access.
For
$100 you can have your own private partition. Many of you spend more
than that on your Cable or Satellite service!
If your passion is:
Hiking you buy good shoes, yes?
Biking you buy good wheels, tires, and bikes, yes?
Cooking you buy good knives and pans, yes?
Fishing you buy good lures and poles and a BOAT, yes?
IBM i you get access to the new stuff, right?????
So shut up and invest in yourself already!! (Sorry I'm cranky today.)
</vendor>

Whiiiiile I'm inclined to agree with this, it's just one of many costs for an independent consultant. I have to deal with replacing my laptop every year or two because it either is too slow to run 6 vm's or can't handle being moved so much (though my current MSI GS70 is pretty much awesome except the screen), visual studio licenses, insurance and other bits.

Spending $50/mo for experimentation is where I draw the line. And I only spend $30/mo on satellite tv :-P

So where I'm at is that $50 well could be worth it... or not. But that
$700 visual studio license will *definitely* be worth it to me.

If I can tinker on a Linux/Windows VPS for for $8/mo... or do it on EC2 on demand for cents... to play with things I am 100% sure will pay off... Versus $50/mo for something that mayyyyybe will pay off if I encounter an i shop who forces me to work on the i rather than with the i.

Kind of puts you in a crappy position as a hoster who no doubt charges what you need to charge but that is the reality for the little guys. If I was a career RPG dev I'm sure the equation would be a LOT different.

Thanks,
Mark





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