Oh cool, I just moved to Denver to pursue a Masters in CS at UC Denver. When you say "tech," is that software? I need to get involved in the software community. Working for an out-of-state company remotely, I don't get much chance to interact with devs in Denver. I'm hoping to stay after I graduate, so I feel like I need to make some contacts in the software world. I'm also not a very outgoing person. Any advice? Or software orgs you'd recommend getting involved in?
Don't forget eightbitsamurai. He's in Denver. I had a mini-hubski-meetup last month when I was in Vancouver. I happened to be at the university where forwardslash was. I dunno, but I think when you've hung around the site for a while, you will probably have a few things to say to other hubskiers, or perhaps a zen-like smiling silence.
Honestly, part of the contact issue is time. Full-time work and school, I just don't have time for anything else. I think maybe I just need to wait until I graduate, and then look into local dev groups when I have a little free time.We need to have a Denver Hubski meet-up.
I'd be up for that.
Well, I mostly do Application-level development now, in languages like C++. I'm focusing on Parallel Processing in grad school. I've been thinking either that, or Embedded programming. I think I'd really like Embedded systems, but I have no idea how hard it is to break into that sub-field. I fully intend to get some books on the subject and start tinkering, as soon as I have any free time (again, probably not until I graduate in 2 years).
I work in embedded systems. A cheap and easy way to see if you like it, would be to get some arduino parts and just start tinkering - play around with sensors and LCD displays, and move up to simple robots or whatever. dx.com is a good source for cheap bits and pieces (but their shipping, although free, is not fast).
Thanks! I'll do that. I have a couple questions, if you have the time. My background is pure Computer Science (emphasis on Software Engineering), not Computer Engineering. How much will that hurt me, trying to break into embedded systems? I'm afraid I don't know what I don't know, from CE. Also, how important is DSP to your job? DSP worries me. I know nothing about it, but what I see looks really hard. I actually like applied math, but it doesn't come easy for me.
There's a lot of embedded DSP work, so it's probably a good thing to learn. That said, I know almost nothing about it, so I can tell you it's not required for most work. What IS required is to know C, inside and out - that's what you'll use, 99% of the time; often very little or no OS support. Try to unlearn what you know about C++ and C#.