[patio11]

We are privileged to work in, quite possibly, the best industry in the world to have a short blank space in one's resume. No place where you would want to work will ding you for "I wanted a new challenge so I took a sabbatical after leaving my old job and spent some time experimenting with new technologies. Want to talk about what I learned?"

[bitsweet]

I agree that for most companies, it should only make you a more attractive candidate. On the other hand I have found that learning new tech void of solving a real-world problem can only get you so far. My suggestion is to focus on a real problem and use new technologies to solve it to gain the exposure your looking for.

Once you've learned what you want to learn, contact me, we are always looking to hire people that truly love programming.

[kjackson]

Thanks, for the reply!

Working on real problems is definitely my intent. I have background in developing shrinkwrap enterprise applications, which I believe is a dead industry going forward. I need to get experience in the way business is done these days, which is web-scale backends dropped right on the internet, and iphone/web front ends. My current job won't get me that experience, so I figured that now is the best time to strike it on my own, and build the entire infrastructure on my own and/or with my other programming friends. I'm treating this as a real project, not just a hobby, and my milestones involve releasing working, quality products, so I agree that solving a real world problem will get me the best experience.

Thanks again for your reply!

[keeptrying]

If you ship and it works then I think you'll be fine.

Also if your burnt out you need a few weeks to just recuperate from crappy job. So take a few weeks off first. It's very difficult to follow this advice because I didn't do it either.but what ended up happening I just sat there doing nothing at hone. So go ahead and take those 2 weeks off.

Also goto a Coworking Soave to work. Don't try to work at home. Again I know now by experience :) ... It'll run you 300 in NYC.

Also choose your problem while you have your day job. Talk to customers. Again this was something I didn't do. It's very time consuming because people flake a lot. And doing this not as easy as it sounds.

If you do these 4 things you will be well on your way and those 4 things should save you about 1,5 months of learning.

Best of luck. My email is in my profile. If your interested in travel apps or the publishing industry we should talk.