My opinion would be "Go for it!". Your potential lack of knowledge will be outweighed by your enthusiasm. 😄 Last time I decided to overcome my anxiety and do a talk on Kotlin it landed me the best job I have ever had.

@amanda.hinchman-dominguez conference talks are a great idea. i think that this will help promote yourself for future jobs and other opportunities.

Im just angry at intellij atm

It keeps overriding the jre I want it to use

@amanda.hinchman-dominguez Happy you like it. As all software, it's far from perfect, but it sure helps when writing JavaFX apps 🙂

@amanda.hinchman-dominguez I think you can talk about Kotlin and TornadoFX no matter if you're an expert or not. Your angle on it might be different from others, so I'm sure it would be valuable to hear!

@amanda.hinchman-dominguez i would also start blogging and screencasting. i get all my jobs from clients around the world just from this activity. in a few months, you'd end up with a nice organic web presence. this can also help disabled communities. i've been involved with the deaf community and started putting up closed caption videos https://courses.bekwam.net/public_tutorials/bkcourse_notifapp_1_design.html

That's a very nice touch, Carl

yeah. not much more effort with Camtasia

I love this particularly because a couple of my close friends in computer science has disability. My perception of conferences and accessibility has grown significantly since my time of going to conferences with them. One had to sit outside of keynote speeches for GHC because of flashing lights and the lack of CC, and the other was anxious to network because her disability can be seen (until I met her and we networked together, that is how we became friends to this day). I am not disabled, but accessibility is a huge deal for me - not only for disability for also for inclusivity. I'm Hispanic, and for me, accessibility means breaking social barriers to allow kids to start their interest in computers early. When I was growing up, I installed recycled computers for immigrant Hispanic families, and now, I work with a group at Harris to encourage kids to get started with exploring coding through a sailboat simulation.

I greatly appreciate and value your inputs. They mean and lot and honestly, this community in this particular chat gave me insight to how a social environment OUGHT to be in computer science. Thank you all, I truly enjoy being active here! @carlw I will absolutely start with your suggestion to gain presence in the community

i think the future of our jobs is going to an online presence versus a traditional resume, so this is time well spent. the people who have found me have followed me for a number of months or even years. that's way more effective than glancing over what i've done in bullet-points since the early 90's

@carlw That is a completely valid point. I've only been coding for 5 years now ( this is my first year going on my own since college), but I find it interesting that resumes are not tale-tell of a true skill-set for a potential employee. I hear that only 50% of applicants can actually code, yet I find the process of white boarding for interviews somewhat archaic and set at too small a scope

My interest is generated by stackoverflow

^ exactly

That sends most of the traffic my way

@jkbbwr How do you use Stackoverflow? I love the community for its discussion, but I haven't had to chance to get into it

Sure, you can answer and ask questions, and in a way, I view it like Reddit where a discussion is set within a topic matter. Sometimes, I see users that are experts answering the same questions within the same language, but how can one reign the full features of a community?

While I was in uni, I camped stackoverflow for most of the day sniping answers. Once you hit about 15k it pays for itself

What happens once you "make it"? (if that question makes sense)

Hm?

*Can you expand on how 15k points pays for itself? I assume it means you reach an expert level, but I'm sure there's more to it

Lately in my city there popped up a bootcamp-style women-only project sponsored by one of the local companies. I wonder what the reaction would be if it was men-only. 🤔

The way stackoverflow works is that you gain more control over the site with more reputation. For example, if you have a GOLD badge in Kotlin, then you can close any question tagged with 'Kotlin' alone (Normally, 5 people needs to vote on a question to close it).

@poohbar I would not have an issue with men-only camps if there was a specific reason to do it

@amanda.hinchman-dominguez what reason would you find acceptable?

@poohbar the reason why there are women-only bootcamps, or black-only bootcamps, or Hispanic-only bootcamps is usually because the pipeline for diversity for women, blacks, and Hispanics are disproportionately small, and there are intersectional issues and social environments usually implies that not only the pipeline is the issue, but keeping them the field is a larger one

Hispanics make up 4% of the technical workforce, and 1% are women

30 years ago, 30% of the field were women, and today it's 16-17%

Around here, I've seen lots of coding "camps" targeting numerous demographics (based on gender, minority status, disability, age, etc.), but they usually don't block anyone else from coming unless they include all night stays or lodging constraints.