2023/01/04 01:26 - in progress. I'm posting it only because I'm rsync'ing
In terms of medieval apprenticeships, I am a master craftsman software dev (developer / engineer / programmer). I seek apprentices.
My job is to give you a direction in terms of how to learn software, answer questions, and keep you from getting too frustrated. I recently applied to a job as a "learning assistant," which is a great term. No one ever teaches anyone anything. The student must learn from his or her self. All I can do is assist.
Below are qualifications, first steps, and what's in it for me.
It is not absolutely necessary, but it helps a lot if you are sometimes available during some portion of time between roughly 6pm - 8pm US Eastern Time. During some portion of of 8pm - 1am is almost as good. From 1am - 5am is potentially doable. If you're far enough east or west of me, you don't have to be a night owl. I am a serious night owl. Several months ago I kept responding to someone who always wrote between 8am - 4pm. If he was responding during my window, we probably would have worked it out, but his responses were both mildly irritating and during banker's hours. I address that interaction below, too.
I don't care where you are. You have to have a laptop or desktop, or be very skilled with a Raspberry Pi or some such. I'd imagine some people develop software on a phone / tablet, but it's too far off the path even for me. The only computer skills you need are something to the effect of
You need to be relatively comfortable communicating in writing. Writing software is writing software. If you can't communicate in English with a human who can (hopefully) sort through ambiguity, you're going to discover that computers can't handle any ambiguity whatsoever.
Otherwise put, expect to exchange a few emails before I move to other media. On the other hand, there is no need to write very much the first time. I am sick and tired of pouring heart and soul into cover letters and getting no response. I'm nearly certain to respond to you, and if email doesn't work after about 24 hours, feel free to try other means (my phone number and contact form are linked from my resume). But there is no need to believe I'll answer you.
Also, you can use SMS-speak. I can read it well enough. No need to proofread. I almost certainly will answer you and keep answering you. Again, as above, no need to spend time until you think it's worthwhile.
With that said, I should point you towards first steps. Sometimes I'm around to give initial guidance and sometimes not as much. It's possible you'll have to take the initiative for a while. Again, you're welcome to make sure I'm real and at least mostly responsive. After that, if nothing else is said, my 2 paths page is my advice on how to get started. Running Linux is probably high overhead, but the client-side, web-based JavaScript path is easy to start in at least some senses of "easy." Hopefully you can start poking at it on your own. There must be a zillion and one tutorials out there, although some portion of them deal with server-side JavaScript / Node.js. You're welcome to start there, too, but that's more overhead.
Right now I'm not going to take the time to dig through tutorials. Try a few for at least a few minutes. After that, you're welcome to ask me what I think of them.
You're also welcome to ask why I point you in that direction, to whatever extent I didn't explain that.
I mention this because Mr. Bankers' Hours and I had the weirdest exchange. He had a specification on what he didn't want to do that, in hindsight, I should have rejected. Instead, he threw me off my usual course, so I tried to whittle down a way to meet his spec. Because I was busy asking him questions an whittling, he didn't feel like we were getting anywhere quickly enough. He got impatient and told me not to contact him again. So the above is my advice on what to do, so I dont' have to whittle.
On a similar point, I've had people who want to be immediately involved in my paid work because it's "real world." Hopefully you can see that there are a number of potential problems with that. I'm open to it, but that will take some time for me to "let you in."
So, if nothing else is said, try to do anything in client-side, web-based JavaScript. Make the button turn blue when you click on it. Make a counter that counts how many times you click the button. Anything. Eventually I'll help you figure out how specifically to do, but first show me that you can get one line of code working. I'll be happy to help, but you may need to take the first steps.
I need direct or indirect help with sales. When I say indirect, I mean that I'm not necessarily expecting you to be any better at it than I am. I am the introverted, sometimes socially awkward, typical (software) dev(eloper) personality, so I'm not expecting my apprentices to be any different. So, along these lines, there are several possibilities.
The minimum, most indirect way to help is to be online at the same time--perhaps a virtual study hall, if you will.