In Japan, they have technical books written in comic/manga styles.

If programming languages were countries, which country would each language represent?

Disclaimer: its just a joke

Java: USA -- optimistic, powerful, likes to gloss over inconveniences.

C++: UK -- strong and exacting, but not so good at actually finishing things and tends to get overtaken by Java.

Python: The Netherlands. "Hey no problem, let'sh do it guysh!"

Ruby: France. Powerful, stylish and convinced of its own correctness, but somewhat ignored by everyone else.

Assembly language: India. Massive, deep, vitally important but full of problems.

Cobol: Russia. Once very powerful and written with managers in mind; but has ended up losing out.

SQL and PL/SQL: Germany. A solid, reliable workhorse of a language.

Javascript: Italy. Massively influential and loved by everyone, but breaks down easily.

Scala: Hungary. Technically pure and correct, but suffers from an unworkable obsession with grammar that will limit its future success.

C: Norway. Tough and dynamic, but not very exciting.

PHP: Brazil. A lot of beauty springs from it and it flaunts itself a lot, but it's secretly very conservative.

LISP: Iceland. Incredibly clever and well-organised, but icy and remote.

Perl: China. Able to do apparently almost anything, but rather inscrutable.

Swift: Japan. One minute it's nowhere, the next it's everywhere and your mobile phone relies on it.

C#: Switzerland. Beautiful and well thought-out, but expect to pay a lot if you want to get seriously involved.

R: Liechtenstein. Probably really amazing, especially if you're into big numbers, but no-one knows what it actually does.

Awk: North Korea. Stubbornly resists change, and its users appear to be unnaturally fond of it for reasons we can only speculate on.

Alright. This is going to be long and incoherent, so buckle up. This is how I lost my motivation to program or to do anything really.

Japan is apparently experiencing a shortage of skilled IT workers. They are conducting standardized IT skill tests in 7 Asian countries including mine. Very few people apply and fewer actually pass the exam. There are exams of different levels that gives you better roles in the IT industry as you pass them. For example, the level 2 or IT Fundamental Engineering Exam makes you an IT worker, level 3 = capable of working on your own...so on.
I passed level 1 and came in 3rd in my country (there were only 78 examinees lol). Level 2 had 2 parts. The theoretical mcq type exam in the morning and the programming mcq in the afternoon. They questions describe a scenario/problem, gives you code that solves it with some parts blanked out.

I passed the morning exam and not the afternoon. As a programmer I thought I'd be good at the afternoon exam as it involves actual code. Anyway, they give you 2 more chances to pass the afternoon exam, failing that, you'll have to take both of them the next time. Someone who has passed 1 part is called a half-passer and I was one.

A local company funded by both JICA and my government does the selection and training for the Japanese companies. To get in you have to pass a written exam(write code/pseudocode on paper) and pass the final interview in which there are 2 parts - technical interview and general interview.

I went as far as the interview. Didn't do too good in the technical interview. They asked me how would I find the lightest ball from 8 identical balls using a balance only twice. You guys probably already know the solution. I don't have much theoritical knowledge. I know how to write code and solve problems but don't know formal name of the problem or the algorithm.

On to the next interview. I see 2 Japanese interviewers and immediately blurt out konichiwa! The find it funny. Asked me about my education. Say they are very impressed that self taught and working. The local HR guy is not impressed. Asks me why I left university and why never tried again. Goes on about how the dean is his friend and universites are cheap. foryou.jpg

The real part. So they tell me that Japanese companies pay 250000/month, I will have to pay 60% income tax, pay for my own accommodation, food, transportation cost etc. Hella sweet deal. Living in Japan! But I couldn't get in because the visa is only given to engineers. Btw I'm not looking to invade Japan spread my shitskin seed and white genocide the japs. Just wanted to live in another country for a while and learn stuff from them.

I'll admit I am a little salty and probably will remain salty forever. But this made me lose all interest in programming. It's like I don't belong. A dropout like me should be doing something lowly. Maybe I should sell drugs or be a pimp or something.

But sometimes I get this short lived urge to make something brilliant and show them that people like me are capable of doing good things. Fuck, do I have daddy issues?

Had a call with recruiter from Japan

Asks my age.
I replied why?

His response was, i need to know to identify you there are lot of people with same name.

I am blank

Replied : is there any age restrictions from Big Companies in Japan.

Says, oh no its only for internal purpose.

Fuck it, gonna decline my application.

Have worked in India, China and Singapore so far havent got anyone asked about the age.

!rant
God damnit, I'm 20 and already got a burn out due to work (fast food job) and school.

I go to school 5 days a week 8 hours a day and I work every weekend 8 hours a day only so I can afford my study better and to be able to afford my internship to Japan next year.

The worst thing is I'm in a endless loop because if I stop with school I need to work full time to pay off my school loan and if I stop my work I can't pay for part of my school and my internship.

If anyone has any tips for me what to do before this ends badly I will gladly hear them

The life of a normal person is like waking up every day with a zero on the scale of suffering. You did something good — here are -20 points to that scale. Something bad happened — well, here are +10 points. Being a bipolar person, my life is like beginning every day with +500 suffer points. Every day is a devastating uphill battle to just break even.

Why live then?

You can't win. If you have a healthy sleep schedule, do sports and eat healthy, it's still +500 every day. One mistake like fucking up your sleep schedule — boom, you now start at +700.

In Japan, a new breakthrough in psychiatry is happening as they were able to tie bipolar disorder to a HHV6 herpesvirus messing up the operation of Parkinje cells in human brain, unreachable to the immune system because of blood-brain barrier. A nasal spray treatment is proposed. If successful, bipolar disorder could be cured forever.

Until an actual nasal spray is released, I decided to wait because it's a huge bummer killing myself only some three years before this breakthrough.

But if their experiments will never come to fruition and my conventional therapy will not be successful, I will kill myself.

I don't want to live like this.

I'm planning a trip that involves hitting multiple cities in 2 countries.

Home -- Japan (maybe Kyoto or Tokyo, or some other place but only 1 City) -- China (multiple cities, ideally enter in one exit from another) -- Home

Is there a service to find the cheapest route?

My two best friends has been the most influential mentors I've ever had. One is a compiler engineer at a major computing company and the other one is a security engineer at a major company in Japan.

Both have sat down and taken the time to not only teach me different aspects of the computing environment, but empowered me to learn more on my own. One project I was working on ended up tapping into both of their teachings. I took a moment to think back on when they were teaching me and felt so grateful to have such patient teachers.

The moral here is that not everyone knows what you do. What makes a good teacher is someone who takes the time to teach and empower the individual. It really goes a long way.

Guys, is anyone here working in Japan? Any experiences to share? I've been wanting to move there for a while now, and in my experience it is pretty much impossible to find a job as a foreigner with only a few years of experience. Any tips would be appreciated 😬