No, if it's a hobby, it's supposed to be enjoyable. I do enjoy programming. I could enjoy iOS development as much as Android development or server development so why not combine that with making money?
Why didn't they just ADVERTISE the tuition as $12,000 (or maybe $15,000) rather than $36,000 if they were discounting the tuition for 67% of the students anyway. A lot of people probably didn't even bother to apply because of sticker shock.
Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions. I think the "niche" suggestions were the most helpful. I haven't had much feedback from Show HN. Just FYI, the project is a mathematical oriented drawing app for Android. It's here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.doodleback...
Both GM and Ford have been hiring a lot of software engineers in Detroit in the past few years. The problem is that they need NASA-style software engineers (crazy-anal nit-picky consider-every-possibility style engineers)--not engineers from the regular software industry. If your car crashes, you can't just reboot it.
I'd like to point out that microservices are not always as cheap as you may think. In the AWS/Lambda case, what will probably bite you is the API Gateway costs. Sure they give you 1,000,000 calls for free, but it's $3.50 per million after that. That can get very expensive, very quickly. See this hacker news post from a couple years ago. The author's complaint is still valid: "The API gateway seems quite expensive to me. I guess it has its use cases and mine doesn't fit into it. I run a free API www.macvendors.com that handles around 225 million requests per month. It's super simple and has no authentiction or anything, but I'm also able to run it on a $20/m VPS. Looks like API gateway would be $750+data. Bummer because the ecosystem around it looks great. You certainly pay for it though!"
How's the trackpad compared to the Mac's? I don't need force touch. Just smooth precise scrolling. The trackpad is actually one of my top considerations when buying a laptop because I rarely use a mouse any more.
I've been to Pittsburgh too, and I do think that a possibility. One advantage that Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill has over Pittsburgh is weather. Amazon is very fault-tolerant minded. There's not much chance they'd need to close the facility in Raleigh because of a blizzard (although it has happened a few rare times).
I agree. There's a huge tech workforce in RTP, very good universities, affordable costs of living (which I suppose translates to affordable business property). Another indication: Take a look at the size of the Triangle AWS Meetup group on Meetup.com. It has 879 members.
To everybody posting about not working on a side project because of children, I would ask you to reconsider that if you're truly passionate about something and want to develop it. I've been working on a side project for a few years now. I also have kids and spend a lot of time with them. I've discovered that it's actually very beneficial to spend an extended time working on a project, and by extended time, I don't mean hours every day. I mean stretching the project out over years. For one thing, it gives you the freedom to reconsider solutions and approaches. Work is usually focused on delivering as quickly as possible. It's very refreshing to have the time to consider a problem thoroughly and let it play in your subconscious freely. Also, your kids need time to themselves too so there's no need to feel guilty. But to answer the question, I spend probably 0-15 hours per week, usually working at night after the kids have gone to bed.
Another disappointing limitation is being restricted to Node.js. AWS Lambda lets you write your code in Node.js, Python, Java, or C#. This is particularly useful for tuning your Lambdas based on their expected usage. If you have a Lambda that is being constantly invoked, it might be better to write it in Java. It has a longer start up time but has better performance after the initial startup. However, if your Lambda is invoked infrequently (and thus is frequently shutdown from inactivity), it would better to write it in Node.js or Python to take advantage of the snappier start up time.