What to choose in freelancing: front-end, back-end or mobile?

Question

Freelance

I'm thinking about where to go. I plan to freelance, so I focus mainly on my preferences and the freelance market. What I understand at the moment:
1. Layout is not programming :) You need to be able to photoshop at a sufficient level and tediously adjust the blocks to the state of zen.
2. Front-end is an ephemeral concept (in freelancing, this means "coder-coder", or what?), but the future of HTML5 is most likely rosy. JS, HTML and CSS will take over the world.
3. Backend - well, it's also unclear here. Everyone uses PHP or ready-made CMS like WordPress.
4. Mobile development (Android) - now fashionable, but what will happen next is unclear. Plus java on android looks somehow ... strange.
The questions are as follows:
1. Is it boring to typeset? I hate photoshop, to be honest.
2. What do frontend freelancers do?
3. Do Django or Rails rule the post-Soviet space? How is it on the backend front?
4. What to do with android? It seems like an interesting direction, but looking at a sheet of Java code makes me sad. Was it possible to do this? Toad is not the shortest language anyway, but here in general ...
5. Personal opinion - what would you choose, living in a small town without the opportunity, and most importantly, without the desire to move?

Answer 1

Typesetting is not boring if you need to implement not only typesetting, but also all client-side logic. Only html + css is not needed by anyone, in any case, I consider such developers an extra link. But normal front-end developers are good.
Freelance front-end workers can do a lot: the front-end itself, layout and implementation of client-side logic, development of single-page applications, mobile applications using phonegap, or something similar... There are enough interesting tasks.
In the post-Soviet space, PHP rules, no matter how they shout that the language is so-so. All languages ​​are not without flaws. Yes, and there are no problems with orders, as well as with frameworks, test / development tools, package managers, etc. In fact, there is no difference now, take php or python (it is also not without remnants of old versions, any problems). Ruby has already experienced its peak of popularity, the language is cool, but I personally annoy the approach to development imposed by it. There is also a niche where javascript / node.js reigns.
I don’t like java, but there’s nothing to be done about it. Of course, you can write in xamarin + c#, but what's the point? java is not a short language, it's true, but in fact it's not all that scary there. Try it.
Now the time is such that it doesn’t really matter where you live. The main thing is that the Internet is and the desire to learn. You can always find remote work, so still choose the direction that you like, but do not limit yourself to this, just try something else.

Answer 2

Before you go freelancing, you need to know something first...

Answer 3

and in iOS developers do not want to go? there, the language is shorter and there are more orders than for android, and you can throw your projects in the App Store, more profit than with googlePlay.

Answer 4

Java has always been forward-looking and remains so. Especially with the advent of Android

Answer 5

See what you want to do.
backend - this is what processes requests on the server, it can be anything - python, c #, php ..
frontend - browser / client part - desktop, mobile or web application.

Answer 6

1. Layout is not programming :) You need to be able to photoshop at a sufficient level and tediously adjust the blocks to the state of zen.
You are confusing design.
It is enough for a layout designer to be able to cut graphic images into pieces.
2. Frontend is an ephemeral concept (in freelancing, this means "coder-coder", or what?), but the future of HTML5 is most likely rosy. JS, HTML and CSS will take over the world.
Are you from the past? Long conquered.
3. Backend - well, it's also unclear here. Everyone uses PHP or ready-made CMS like WordPress.
Judging by the fact that you named a small part of the backend technologies, you still have nothing to do in the backend.
4. Mobile development (Android) - now fashionable, but what will happen next is unclear. Plus java on android looks somehow ... strange.
But it's not going anywhere, no matter how strange it looks.

Answer 7

Take "Frontend" (which includes "layout") - almost everyone wants to have a unique design.

Answer 8

It probably depends on the region and your inclinations. If we move away from inclinations, then we have already said about the prospects of the mobile, and from the rest, from personal experience I can say that it is much more difficult to find smart front-end developers than server-side developers. For myself, this was an amazing discovery, but it's true. In Samara.

Answer 9

If programming is not a prerequisite, then I think 3D modeling is a promising area. It’s difficult, there are few people, the fees are high (well, if the result is at the proper level, of course) - not like in the field of layout and typical frontend, there are a lot of people, anyone else will do it 10 kopecks cheaper, and so on :) Yes, and customers, if not from the field of business applications, are a little chaotic.
This is how I choose areas based on the ratio of demand / number of people + financial volumes of the scope of the result.

Answer 10

Something more creative, but really it's up to you to make the decision based on what works best for you and what you like. Try something that seems boring to you will be interesting)