Oracle / .Net / Photography 1

[SpiderBear6]

A mate of mine recently asked me for some advice and I was just wondering if anyone out there had anything to add...

She is 35 and has many years (over 12 years or more) of Oracle Forms contracting experience, but recently had a baby (about 7 months ago). She has started to learn VB.Net but is finding it difficult to grasp some of the object-oriented concepts (she will get them in time). She would like to stay at home with her new son but due to her poor finanical situation, this is not really an option. She doesn't seem to think that there is much Oracle work about so I suggested that she start to learn .Net. She would like to learn Java because Oracle is starting to use Java code. She is getting very disallusioned with it all and is even considering changing careers altogether (maybe trying Photograph - which she has absolutely no experience in - except for family snaps).

I'm not sure what advice I should give her. Is Oracle work really as scarce as she thinks? She has no background in Desktop development so .Net is going to be a challenge for her.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

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"We are star-stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out."
-- Delenn in Babylon 5 - "A Distant Star"

 

[careemind2004]

for JAVA VS dotNET try these articles

http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/development/story/0,10801,71221,00.html

http://java.oreilly.com/news/farley_0800.html

if she is having to take care of the baby, I would say stick with what she knows best attempt to look for job there still before her other new marketable skill becomes mature.




careemind2004

 

[SpiderBear6]

Thanks for the advice careemind2004


--------------------------------------
"We are star-stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out."
-- Delenn in Babylon 5 - "A Distant Star"

 

[Granvillew]

Careermind has a very good point and I will only add that, from experience, photography can be very hard to crack.

Many years later I now realise I was never anywhere near as good as I thought I was when trying to make it as a photo-journalist. Like all artistic career paths you need the luxuary of time to become established given you have the skill set.

Hope this helps.

 

[SpiderBear6]

Thanks for replying Granvillew.

I agree about the photography... it would be very difficult to make money out of it.

Seeing my friend in this position has made me realise that you really do need to keep up with the market and you can't just stick to one part of the IT industry (eg the oracle). Basically people who resist change are shooting themselves in the foot. This is one of the reasons why I jumped to try and learn .Net as fast as I possibly could.

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"We are star-stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out."
-- Delenn in Babylon 5 - "A Distant Star"

 

[SQLSister]

Tell her to stick with Oracle or branch out to other databases. I would not hire a self-taught.Net programmer who only had professional experience in database programming, they are very differnt fields. But I might hire an Oracle programmer to be a SQL Server programmer becasue, the learning curve would not be as high.

 

[SpiderBear6]

Thanks for the advice SQLSister. I never really thought about SQL Server. I have only really used SQL Server as a back end. You can't really write an app in SQL Server like you can in Oracle can you? So really it would be a SQL Server database admin role rather than a development role. When you say database programming, what do you mean? Her previous Oracle work was using Oracle Forms etc.

--------------------------------------
"We are star-stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out."
-- Delenn in Babylon 5 - "A Distant Star"

 

[SQLSister]

Database programming to me is writing the stored procedures, queries, functions you need to extract or insert, update, delete the data you need. NO there is no user front end. But if she knows PL/SQL then she can easily transition to T-SQL. She might also consider learning Crystal Reports. Again, if you are familiar with data query concepts, it is relatively easy to get up to speed in Crystal Reports.

 

[SpiderBear6]

Excellent. I will have to pass that one.

A star for you!

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"We are star-stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out."
-- Delenn in Babylon 5 - "A Distant Star"

 

[RiverGuy]

SQL Server does not come with front end tools on the same CD. Because it is an MS product, most are accustomed to creating interfaces with other MS products that work hand in hand with SQL Server. For example: You can use Access scrictly as a front-end for SQL Server, and even manage stored procedures, views, triggers, etc. from within Access, as well as creating forms and reports. .Net and VB 6 to some extent make the job of creating interfaces very easy for SQL Server.

Java will more than likely be harder to grasp at the outset than .Net. They are both OO. Both can connect to either database. Although you would be more likely to see something coding in .Net for Oracle that coding in Java for MS SQL.