Hobbyist transitioning to earn money on paid work?
- by Chelonian
I got into hobbyist Python programming some years ago on a whim, having never programmed before other than BASIC way back when, and little by little have cobbled together a, in my opinion, nice little desktop application that I might try to get out there in some fashion someday. It's roughly 15,000 logical lines of code, and includes use of Python, wxPython, SQLite, and a number of other libraries, works on Win and Linux (maybe Mac, untested) and I've gotten some good feedback about the application's virtues from non-programmer friends. I've also done a small application for data collection for animal behavior experiments, and an ad hoc tool to help generate a web page...and I've authored some tutorials. I consider my Python skills to be appreciably limited, my SQL skills to be very limited, but I'm not totally out to sea, either (e.g. I did FizzBuzz in a few minutes, did a "Monty Hall Dilemma" simulator in some minutes, etc.). I also put a strong premium on quality user experience; that is, the look and feel matters much to me and the software looks quite good, I feel. I know no other programming languages yet.
I also know the basics of HTML/CSS (not considering them programming languages) and have created an artist's web page (that was described by a friend as "incredibly slick"...it's really not, though), and have a scientific background.
I'm curious: Aside from directly selling my software, what's roughly possible--if anything--in terms of earning either side money on gigs, or actually getting hired at some level in the software industry, for someone with this general skill set?
