Tec Tales

web software development used to be a lucrative area to get into (at least in my day, anyway). At the time, I was getting paid £27k and that was just with 6 months' experience. This was around 2000-2001. I wonder what the pays like now. You know how some careers tend to be recession proof? Well, I wonder if web development is one of them. Even if salary scales have dropped somewhat, I think it probably still pays well compared to other careers out there.

I wonder if a web designer generally gets paid more than a web developer or if they get paid roundabout the same? If there is a significant difference in pay between a web designer and a web developer, I wonder why. I mean, they're different in some ways, but I don't think either one requires any less dedication or brain power - you need to be quite creative for both.I knew from the minute I took my IT degree that I wanted to be a web developer, not a web designer. I fell in love with HTML and ColdFusion. Didn't really like JavaScript but I could live with it. What I really hated was databases, but I'm afraid if you're gonna be a web developer, you need to get to grips with it. I'd say 65% of my degree was about databases. If I'd known that, I would have thought twice about taking the degree. The web development modules made it bearable though. Was one of my favourite topics - that and learning Visual Basic. I like intuitive programming languages, not languages that are so difficult to learn, you're better off trying to read English back to front while standing on your head. I hated C++ with a passion, but we had to learn it unfortunately.

On the subject of the web, I've been having problems with my internet connection lately. When I'm on it for a couple of hours, it starts to drag its little digital feet a bit. My internet connection is courtesy of Tiscali. Thank Goddess the contract runs out soon. I need a reliably-fast internet connection, not one that slows down when it feels like it.

Even though I'm grovelling a bit, I am grateful that I have web access from the comfort of my home. I'll use an internet cafe if I have to, but I'm grateful that I don't need to go out for web access. I'm a night owl and it means I can hop on in the wee hours of the morning when the rest of London's asleep. If things went belly-up on my home computer and there was no web access for whatever reason, there's a 24hr internet cafe about 40mins away from me. Very handy.