The Good Bits - July 21

**The Ultimate Guide For Getting Freelance-Ready When You’re A Self-Taught Coder**– This article caught my attention because I am a self-taught coder, and I hope to one day be a freelancer. Joyce Akiko tackles the burning questions that many in my situation have asked or will ask if they have freelancing as a goal. She packs a lot of information into this guide, but distills each key point into a takeaway, 10 in all. After reading it, I can not only picture myself in the role of a freelancer, but I can start working towards that even now.

**Attracting Developers to Your Company**– I really like Peter Morlion’s take on the dynamics of the software development job market. Presently, I know no out-of-work developers, and that has remainedtrue forthe last several years. As Peter points out, that has put employers and recruiters in the position of having to woo talent away from their present employers. Potential employees will take into account many other factors beyond what they will be working on, and that also allows them to be picky about the right opportunity for them to take. I certainly will be.

Visual Studio 2015 launches, with Android, iOS, and even Apple Watch support– There is lots of news this week about the release of the new version of Visual Studio. As a software developer mainly focused on the Microsoft stack, this interests me a lot. But this article highlights one of the really exciting aspects of the new version: built-in support for cross-platform development. Eventually, I would like my mobile apps to be on all the major platforms, and being able to use one IDE—and potentially one language —for that is hugely beneficial.