apaitch

Hello,

I'm a developer in Silicon Valley but I'm strongly considering moving back to the Waterloo area within the next half-year. Despite studying in Waterloo, I've done all my internships/work experience in the Valley so I have no idea about the Canadian tech scene. Does anyone here have experience with that kind of move? Obviously the number of startups and the number of big companies won't be the same, but what's been your experience regarding startup culture and opportunities? Was it much of a step down?

Hi all,

I've been trying to come up with some kind of personal project for myself to do but quite honestly I'm hitting a wall - kind of like writer's block. I'm a 3rd year CS student so I have some programming experience, but nothing of the "make something from start to finish" kind. I've made small games in 24/48-hour competitions, and small things like a Boggle-solver or Tic-Tac-Toe to get comfortable in a new language, but I'm trying to think of something that's not a game nor a tiny project and that's harder. I know it's a big gap in my education and I want to cover it (I'm excited at the thought of developing something bigger, just having trouble thinking of what).

So, how do you choose what you code on your free time? Do you come up with your own projects? Do you contribute to open-source? Do you just make lots of small things? Or do you not have time for that sort of thing because you're working 24/7? (=P)

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/01/ff_autonomouscars/all/1