I moved from Dublin to San Jose almost two years ago.
Apart from the many many cultural differences, I think overall "the valley" is a better place to live & work for people at this time - don't have time to go into detail, but the great weather, shear number of startups & startup events / support and community here is hard to beat, feels like everynight there is something going on relating to startups.
Also the ability to attend various meetups and hear directly from big name CTO's and lesser know but often equally smart developers offers a great learning experience.
The cost of living here is ridiculously low compared to Ireland.
When you get stressed Tahoe is only a 3 hour drive away :-)
You might get a better deal in other countries but 12.5% corporate tax is hard to beat. Also the fact that just about every silicon valley heavyweight has significant operations (dev, marketing & support) in Ireland is an indicator something is being done right over there.
Cheap, regular flights from Dublin to just about anywhere in Europe make those trips to London, Paris, Amsterdam and Germany into just day trips. I found it was a pretty good hub.
There are a lot of small, detailed things you probably need to know to become a "rounded" development professional and they are only really learned "in the trenches" so to speak.
Don't overly stress the "process" you are using, if you ask 10 people this question you will probably get 10 different answers, the best process is one that is repeatable and you feel works for you. The process can also change depending on the type of project you are working on, team size and location, tools being used....don't be afraid to try different things out & see what fits.
Down to brass tact's, unit testing I find to be most important when it comes to tests, write the test cases first, then write the features they are to test.
Learn git and setup a repo for every project you develop - even personal side projects. Use github.
Use a good project management, task management tool like pivotaltracker.com
Use to use frameworks e.g. zend and other MVC frameworks correctly, use industry conventions and existing libs, you do not need to reinvent the wheel for everything you need to do.
Learn search and sorting algorithms for a start, then start of popular design patterns - only way to really understand these is to use them.
Finally I would strongly recommend you try and get a junior development job or internship with a good dev shop, this was by far the best thing I did when I was learning how to program for a living. Nothing else will match it in terms of learning & giving you confidence.
I work for a well established classifieds company.
This market has very low barriers to entry & this has resulted in many people setting up classified apps, only to fail to gain traction. I've seen literally hundreds of people attempt this over the last 5 years and fail.
Advertisers won't place ads with you unless they see many listings on your website and / or have heard of you from some credible source, they will place ads where the most amount of people are likely to see them and these days that still means craigslist or ebay for most people.
What is going to be unique about your app?
Why would I place an ad with you vs craigslist? Esp when they are free and drive good response rates for most people.
Asking someone to actually pay for a classified ad is a big ask these days when there are so many free & popular options out there.
If this was me, I'd forget about running my own classifieds app and instead provide a platform that will allow other people to start & run their own classified apps - kind of like a shopify solution except for the classifieds space.
Apart from the many many cultural differences, I think overall "the valley" is a better place to live & work for people at this time - don't have time to go into detail, but the great weather, shear number of startups & startup events / support and community here is hard to beat, feels like everynight there is something going on relating to startups.
Also the ability to attend various meetups and hear directly from big name CTO's and lesser know but often equally smart developers offers a great learning experience.
The cost of living here is ridiculously low compared to Ireland.
When you get stressed Tahoe is only a 3 hour drive away :-)