State of .Net Market

[oliverson]

The annoying thing is that you get an offer like the one I have but there are several levels of management approval that have to be given. 5 days now I've been waiting for the manager at the top of the pyramid to authorise it and it's driving me crazy. I'll know this week for sure apparently. However I may not actually be around to take it as something closer to home, but equally lucrative, has popped up and it's very promising. He who laughs last eh? (alternatively I could end up with **** all!)

[qska]

It's only immediately this week, and I started looking at 1st Feb - hence many dead ends (we want someone to start next week etc.)

5+ years .Net experience, 12 years total web dev experience, not willing to go to London

Anyway, a nice 6-monther starts on Monday

The 6 monther turned out to be at a company which had ZERO good devs, coding standards completely appaling, and all code in VB.Net - although they were up for mixing C# and VB.Net code. Which would make things worse

I bailed after a few days, but the market is reeeeeallly quiet. However - there are a few 1 month opportunities around, and some London interviews this week.

[eek]

The 6 monther turned out to be at a company which had ZERO good devs, coding standards completely appaling, and all code in VB.Net - although they were up for mixing C# and VB.Net code. Which would make things worse

I bailed after a few days, but the market is reeeeeallly quiet. However - there are a few 1 month opportunities around, and some London interviews this week.

The clue there was vb.net . Its a simple rule vb.net == clueless.

[escapeUK]

The clue there was vb.net . Its a simple rule vb.net == clueless.

How does that follow? A bad programmer will reveal himself no matter what language they mash code in.

I bailed after a few days, but the market is reeeeeallly quiet. However - there are a few 1 month opportunities around, and some London interviews this week.

I would have seen that as a challenge.

[qska]

How does that follow? A bad programmer will reveal himself no matter what language they mash code in.

I would have seen that as a challenge.

True, it was my first BAD VB.Net code I saw (no design patterns, or "tiers" at all!)

The alternative was to improve their business processes and working practices, all the while delivering new functionality on a crap codebase, against tight deadlines.

If the rate was 1.5x what it was I'd have a think.... Otherwise bench time

Most available offers recently are somewhat blighted by "weird" requirements, short terms, low rates, locations more than 1hr drive, or very slow process of getting a person actually on board.

People I forgot about (applied for the contract 4-5 weeks ago) just called me up and asked for a date for a telephone interview. It's only 90 minutes drive from home, however for a very respectable outfit :-/

Even London doesn't seem to be "biting" my CV this time round, and if it does - clients are outside Zone 1 (too far, as I commute from Oxfordshire).

[eek]

How does that follow? A bad programmer will reveal himself no matter what language they mash code in.

vb.net means that the code is being developed by former vb6 developers who didn't want to learn. Everytime I see vb.net code I see a program structure which was valid in 1998 but could have been written far, far better if someone had paid attention to the ideas that have appeared over the past 15 years.

Although I do get concerned when I hear the phrase enterprise service buses and look at what they actually need to do.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

vb.net means that the code is being developed by former vb6 developers who didn't want to learn. Everytime I see vb.net code I see a program structure which was valid in 1998 but could have been written far, far better if someone had paid attention to the ideas that have appeared over the past 15 years.

Although I do get concerned when I hear the phrase enterprise service buses and look at what they actually need to do.

C# and java are both a lot cleaner than vb or vb.net but that doesn't mean applications can't be developed well in vb.net. I can switch between the two quite comfortably.

[eek]

C# and java are both a lot cleaner than vb or vb.net but that doesn't mean applications can't be developed well in vb.net. I can switch between the two quite comfortably.

I didn't say that vb.net is the problem just that senior and lead vb.net developers often have bad habits from years ago and unwillingness to listen to newer best practice.

[easyrider]

Yep I'd agree with that.
VB.NET code generally looks like this:
Too long methods
Too big classes
Poor OO concepts
Too great a reliance on CONSTANTS
Too many parameters in method signatures
In a nutshell : not SOLID code.

[Jaws]

Yep I'd agree with that.
VB.NET code generally looks like this:
Too long methods
Too big classes
Poor OO concepts
Too great a reliance on CONSTANTS
Too many parameters in method signatures
In a nutshell : not SOLID code.

I see all this in c# too. There are a lot of people out there who just don't give a damn about doing a good job, or assume that their style is good enough. Sometimes it's under the guise of agile's "simplest thing that could possibly work" which is fine if it is followed up with some refactoring when the simple things starts causing headaches.

I work mainly in finance though perhaps it's better elsewhere.