For those saying "they're all over the world", it's not clear from the article but there's literally wind flowing from inside the mountain and that's flowing all year around at ~10°C, even during summer when it's 35C outside. I live in a valley nearby, but in Italy, we have them too. I'm not aware of similar places elsewhere, at least not at the scale we have them here (every little town has their own place where they found the cool air flowing out). Built centuries ago, they're still used to store wine by the old people in town. Sometimes I go there to cool down in summer. Very different from a cellar.
It can run on any shared hosting, plus it does not even need a database, which makes managing a website super easy. Think making the site locally and updating it with a simple git push.
I don't think a simple website needs Heroku or another PAAS or even needs to run on Node.js, which introduces unneeded complexity.
I second this. "I think the real challenge is to stay here, not to run away abroad". It hurts me hearing those expats talking shit about our country. I can't imagine how they change perception of Italy to everyone they get in touch with.
To those of you, stop bashing and start being the first change you want to see.
I don't understand why people like to bash on their own country.
80%? Not certainly for everyone.
As a freelance I pay 5% until I reach an higher level of income and I'll be able to pay more taxes. On top of this there's 21% for retirement contributions.
Is there any other country where a lower amount of taxes is paid?
..because you'd have to pay 3x to get swiss to work for you, while italians might jump the border for a lot less than what they'd deserve.
Don't forget you need to pay 4x (or more) for rent of any office space (or housing space) in Switzerland compared to the other side of the border.
This explains why lots of businesses that migrated from italy to switzerland in search of an "el dorado" closed shop after a short timespan, realizing business is hard everywhere.
I know you're a proficient developer (to say the least) so maybe a clear perspective is a benefit: programming for a living is damn hard :) especially if you're almost starting from scratch suggesting node.js as a career path could be a sort of nightmare for a newcomer.
I'd suggest your friends to get their hands dirty with a popular open source project and getting involved in a software company doing technical support. E.g. apply at one of the many WordPress plugin/theme development companies (or any other popular open source consumer platform out there)
I suggest this in particular because such PHP projects are usually well manageable on the technical side once you get the grip.
This does not involve programming at the start, but could very well be a "first step" into the IT world, and as paid by the hour could also be a side project.
Then, as time goes on, if the passion kicks in they can learn all the inside out of the things they're doing support for, and start from there towards working on development itself, or going solo and try building their own software project on the side.
As a dev for various software projects I saw some other support staff members grow their knowledge over time and in the end contribute to the project as developers themselves, also as a consequence growing their income.
We just found some e-comm plugins hard to tweak for our needs and we decided to build our own.
Started as a proof of concept and to test-drive the WordPress plugin (free) marketplace.