@All

Thank you all for all the useful comments and tips, I sure am going to use them, I really appreciate you guys a lot. Please still keep the comments coming.

worldbest:

A programming career is wonderful, its what I would recommend to anyone who is serious because at the end of the day it pays big time. So my friend, you have made a good choice.

For your questions,

1. I do not see anything wrong in your approach. I see you have been reading a lot of programming resources and trying to catch up. However, you need to focus on the language(s) that is suitable for the field you are interested in.

2. First of all you need to learn for while before talking about clients. Atleast learn the basics. You need to get money out of your mind until you are certain that you have the skills to satisfy a client. I do not know much about getting clients, maybe guys like dhtml,dualcore etc can help.

3. Yep, you can get clients from home. A lot of guys on NL work from home.

4. To be honest I do not know. But, I suggest you dump those languages and go with the one used by a lot of people - PHP and MySQL. It has massive support - you can get help when you don't know what to do.

5. A social Network? Good but hope its not your first project o. PHP and MySQL will do the work. Facebook was built with PHP at the begining. Building a SN is a tasking but exciting job, but if you rush it or think about all the cash you would make, you may end up not completing it.

I hope the above helps. I wish you all the best in this hammering venture. If you are determined, you will get to you destination.

@worldbest, thanks so much for your genuine advice, I appreciate it. The main reason I chose .Net is because I want to target enterprises like banks, insurance companies, pension companies etc and from my study, most of them use Microsoft products so I want develop apps that can seamlessly integrate with their existing platforms.

Hello NL Programmers

I am going through a transition at the moment; I recently switched careers from paid employment to becoming an entrepreneur as a result of the present financial/economic crisis. After much thinking, deliberation and soul searching on what next to do and what line of business to tow, I have decided to settle for and make a career in programming and application development. I have a background in programming, I read computer Science in my first degree and I was a programmer in my early career years, but later my job role shifted to a marketing role so I stopped programming and haven’t programmed much for some years now.

I intend to focus on web and mobile solutions. So lately I have been reading, learning and practicing a whole lot to catch up with lost grounds. I have been reading material in C#, Java, PHP, MS SQL server, MySQL etc. I have also delved into Joomla a bit just for the knowledge because I noticed it’s one of the most popular CMS, and a few other things.

Having brushed up on the above tools, I have decided to adopt C# and .Net frameworks for my future projects (I hope the projects come soon enough), that is not to say that I am not open to other technologies and will not use the other tools if need be.

I know there are a lot of experienced and successful programmers on Nairaland and there may also be Nairalanders who may be going through similar phase as myself. I am sharing this experience with you with the hope of getting your view on whether I have approached my new profession rightly or wrongly and get your opinion on the questions below:

1) Is there anything wrong in the method I have adopted above in learning some of the tools?

2) Being new in this field, how do I source for clients that need my services?

3) Presently I intend to work from home but hope to get a proper office space when I start getting clients and start making some money from the business. I don’t want to tie up the little capital I have on an office space (I have a wife and children). I hope I can get clients if I work from home?

4) What are the limitations of using C# and .Net frameworks over the other tools?

5) I intend to embark on a personal project, the project is going to be a Social Networking site (Not Facebook like) dedicates to a particular course and I expect it to draw a reasonable traffic when launched. However, I’m not too sure if C# .net and SQL server will be most appropriate because the site speed is my major concern because I expect traffic on the site to grow. I notice a lot of web application are developed using PHP and MySql, and I’m wondering if I must tow the same line.

I am not that young anymore, I’m in my late 30s but I believe with determination and dedication, I can still carve a niche in my chosen endeavor, I hope it is still possible for me.

I will also desire information regarding software design and analysis; I really want to approach any project I embark on professionally, not just writing codes. I will appreciate it if anyone can point me to useful tools/books and online materials to aid me. Also I have bought some programming book on Java, C# and MS SQL server, but would still need good books and pdfs on PHP and Mysql, most of the online books I have downloaded just treat basic stuff and I would need more advanced books.

I have followed a host of programmers here (Seun, Omo_to_dun, Fayimora etc) and I am really inspired.

Thank you in anticipation of your responses and willingness to help and bear with me for the lengthy post.