Ok, so you want to work as a freelancer! But you did not developed any strong skills so far and you are among those that like to scout an undiscovered area, before venturing further. This means that you will be interested in finding out which programming languages or which of the other skills are most sought by buyers, because you want to make money with your skills.

More projects involving a certain area of expertise simply mean more money on the market; money that you can get your share of and, if you play your cards nicely, quite a decent share.

I do not intent to elaborate on each and every area of expertise required by the projects launched everyday on freelancing sites. I would rather concentrate on an aspect that will clarify a thing or two for you.

I am speaking about a comparison between PHP projects and ASP projects. PHP and ASP are both web languages, that, more or less, deal with the same thing. Only that, today, if you only look at numbers, you will see how starting to learn PHP is much more rewarding for a freelancer, than learning ASP.

Did I say numbers? Just make this comparison: 1469 versus 193. Which is the biggest number? The answer is a no brainer. Now let me tell you something: 1469 is the number of projects in PHP open at this very moment (the moment when I write this article, and they change at a fast rate), and 193 is the number of projects in ASP. Does it get any clearer than that?

It is obvious who’s the winner in this equation. I will not get into the reasons why PHP is so popular in comparison with ASP, but I will mention that PHP is a free server side scripting language and it is considered, by specialists, to be more robust and reliable.

Now, if you decide to learn PHP, in order to engage in this growing market of projects involving it, you will find tones of information on the Internet and you will have many, many sources where to learn from. Also, a large number of projects guarantees that there is a huge amount of work to be done, so competition, even if it exists and there are many specialists competing for the job, is not so fierce as on a niche market which only some master.

It may seem like an extreme example, the one that I have chosen for this article. But I just want to guide you in order to make the best decisions for your developing freelancer career. It is not just small talk what we are doing here, right now. Remember that it takes time and dedication to master a programming language, but if you know which one is the most popular, required for many projects, than, this is a guarantee that you will not fail and you will not learn in vain.

Copyright 2008 - Sergey I.Grachyov

About The Author:

Sergey I.Grachyov [MCDBA, MCAD.NET]
http://www.takereal.com/AboutTakeReal/

Publish me! This article may be freely distributed as long as the whole thing (including all URLs and this notice) remain intact.

Popularity: 30%