I have a line on a job that involves porting some code that was originally written in R, then in Delphi, and now the researcher wants it re-written in C++, turned into multi-processor/multi-computer friendly (using MPI?), and turned into a plug-in for R. The program as it is now is pretty primitive – he apparently just puts a bunch of parameters into the actual Delphi code then recompiles and runs, and it outputs into a data file. Obviously the first step would be to have a wrapper program that gets the parameters from a data file, and later a wrapper that gets the parameters from however R passes them to plugins.
It’s been a while since I used C++, and the language has changed a lot since then. Name spaces, STL, Boost, auto_ptr, all this stuff is new to me. It’s going to take some frantic reading to get up to speed. Even worse, I have to read the existing code, which means learning a bit of Delphi/Pascal. And I’m going to have to find a decent IDE for C++ – although the consensus on StackOverflow seems to be to go back to the way I’ve always worked until I started using Eclipse last year: gvim, make, gdb, and a web browser open to the man pages.
Even better, the job would mean working from home. The dogs will be happy about that.
I did like Pascal, but never got around to learn Delphi. Company replaced me with someone 10+ years younger and cheaper.
> “Jobs that can be done more cheaply elsewhere have been migrating overseas for years, and that hasn’t stopped.” (Quote from http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/10/15/7-ways-to-survive-the-jobless-recovery )
So, why do you think anyone will create a job in the US?
I use Emacs rather than gvim, but I agree with the consensus about C++ tools. There’s Visual Studio on Windows, and there’s gcc/gdb/make/etc. everywhere else.
If you’re using a Mac, you might try Xcode, but I suspect you’ll find it limiting.