freelance C#

Hey guys,
Im trying to teach myself programming, my aim is software development, but im still a long way away from that goal
But...apart from that its going well...
I have currently read "Sams Tech yourself C# in 24 hours"(why they insist on such a stupid concept i dont know), and almost finished O'Rilleys "Learning C#2005", which im really liking. Not the most exiting book, but seems to give you a good grounding...Have just brought Programming C# and will get stuck into that soon...
So basically I have no real previous programming experience, but I am studying computer science and more importantly for the last 2 months been putting serious effort into learning it. How long does it take to get to a level where you can do freelance jobs? Just some kind of ballpark figure would be nice, like am i looking at 2 years of hard work before im of any use to another company or more or less? I am still young and want to go travelling before I get seriously into the business world, but travelling isnt cheap...
Thanks, appreciate the help!
Nick

It's not really a 'level' of knowledge you need to be freelance : it's a level of experience.

I'd be very surprised if you got a freelance job straight out of university. You'll have to work up quite a few years of commercial experience before someone will trust you enough to start paying you on a daily basis.

That's just my experience anyway.

Yours,

David.

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Originally Posted by darwen

It's not really a 'level' of knowledge you need to be freelance : it's a level of experience.....

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Exactly whats my opinion.
IMHO a good way to achieve a goal like you want is: study all that materials very hard and do a lot of examples. Never read or copy them only from CD Type them all manually yourself line by line and then debuc the program line by line looking whats going on. ( values in fields, objects.. result of methods, side effects... all that things ). When you really fully have finished and understood and this way completed one of this books you mentioned (MS Visual Studio 2005 step by step is my favorite ) then you should be able to do your own project. Start to program something, you think it could be used, sometimes friends are needing medium project applications where you could show your experience to yourself and maybe to some of your friends too. This way a) you will find out, where there are still leaks in your knowledge. Come and get the leaks closed.
b) you will find your experience grown after doing that.

If the application you have done is useful or if e.g a game .. is nice to play then your friends will like it and use it. This way look to get feedback on all problems of this applications.
Repair them and get experience this way indebugging and finding difficult ( hidden ) runtimeproblems.

Maybe if you like it, Use the gotten experience to help others here in forum. So if you are good, you will get known

Or maybe try to get part of a group like SourceForge.net or somethink like that.

Thats some ideas all only for getting experience. Having knowlwdge and experience you will have a lot of smaller or bigger products and you should be able to get a freelancer job, as you then can refer to your products.

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Thats some ideas all only for getting experience. Having knowlwdge and experience you will have a lot of smaller or bigger products and you should be able to get a freelancer job, as you then can refer to your products.

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Or just work full time employed in the industry for 10 years like myself........

Darwen.

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Originally Posted by darwen

Or just work full time employed in the industry for 10 years like myself........

Darwen.

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Yea, but isn't there the question who was first- egg or hen (chicken mom) Isn't it a minimum requirement fo getting a good job in industry, that You need a minimum of experience and knowledgde ? Especially if he is autodidactic reading books only so he cannot proof a diploma ( at minimumin Austria it is this way :D )

Hello frani444,

JohnnyPoet and David are correct. But this is not to scare you away. All depends upon how fast you learn. How quick you are able to understand and integrate things.

I'd suggest you give it a start by replying to the posts on this website. The more you reply, the more you learn. To be able to understand the exact problem is one of the key requirements of the programming as well.

So, you can help people by responding to their questions, and in return you would know how well you did by their Ratings.

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Originally Posted by jusstujoo

...I'd suggest you give it a start by replying to the posts on this website. The more you reply, the more you learn. To be able to understand the exact problem is one of the key requirements of the programming as well. ....

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Thats what I also suggested in post #3
This way you get trained in spotting very different problems. Beginning from simple typos up to very complex ones. This is also an additional proof for yourself 'where' you are with your studies on the way to an expierenced programmer.

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Originally Posted by JonnyPoet

Maybe if you like it, Use the gotten experience to help others here in forum. So if you are good, you will get known

Or maybe try to get part of a group like SourceForge.net or somethink like that.

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This all should not discourage you, if you want to learn it you will get through all that.