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Ask HN: Why learn a back-end stack?

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Re: Ask HN: Why learn a back-end stack?

#11

Post by ensignavenger »

foo101 wrote: post #5

You are going to receive many suggestions and many words of advice in this thread. Here is mine, so that you can consider this as well while making your final decision. - Coding is a good choice but like any profession, it has its pros and cons. Pros could be immense job satisfaction in creating something that has a tangible effect on the world. Cons could be having to work for terrible managers that could turn a fan…

I like this advice, but I would point out that the con you mentioned really could be a con for any profession. Perhaps it occurs more often in coding jobs, but I haven't seen any hard data to this effect.

Re: Ask HN: Why learn a back-end stack?

#12

Post by peterwwillis »

Coding is a good way to build things and work on new ideas, but certainly not the only way. And you can make as much or more money in a field that does not require as much knowledge or skill. DBAs, system administrators, network engineers, and other fields allow you to work on problems and make a living without having to immerse yourself in complicated languages and years of studying different solutions to problems.

Re: Ask HN: Why learn a back-end stack?

#15

Post by gremlinsinc »

pritambarhate wrote: post #3

Coding is the right choice if you have a passion for it. If you don't have CS background, then for self-learning you will need a lot of dedication. Generally, for all popular languages, you will find free video tutorials on YouTube. If you don't mind paying a little, then Udemy also has very good set of tutorials. Be ready to put one solid year of effort into it though. As a first step learn one language well. I woul…

I wouldn't say js runs everywhere... If you're getting started out it's possible they might use shared hosting instead of roll a VPS..so while js/jquery will work everywhere... NODE/JS as a backend won't unless nodejs is installed.

However PHP + Jquery is a good option and it DOES literally work everywhere.. I've run laravel from shared hosting... wanted to kill myself and can't run everything like using a redis cache...

You can also use laravel for backend, frontend, and mobile (as an api). A good mix is laravel api + cordova or ionicframework for the mobile part.

Re: Ask HN: Why learn a back-end stack?

#16

Post by tarunkotia »

Given you are interested in working on new ideas, it seems like you are looking at programming from entrepreneurial point of view. If that's true, focus on the problem you want to solve and then pick up tools along the way. Programming is a great skill to have and will go a long way.

If you are looking at programming to gain employment then probably I would pick up data analysis within customer support domain rather than software development at this point in your career. Your employment prospects will improve many folds if you are able to perform data analysis providing industry insight having worked in the industry. Don't throw away your experience, use it for operational analytics.

Re: Ask HN: Why learn a back-end stack?

#17

Post by johnpython »

peterwwillis wrote: post #12

Coding is a good way to build things and work on new ideas, but certainly not the only way. And you can make as much or more money in a field that does not require as much knowledge or skill. DBAs, system administrators, network engineers, and other fields allow you to work on problems and make a living without having to immerse yourself in complicated languages and years of studying different solutions to problems.

It is being asked from sysadmins and network engineers to be able to code in at least 1 language (typically Python or Ruby).

Re: Ask HN: Why learn a back-end stack?

#18

Post by matchmike1313 »

Way to go on wanting to embark and double down on a new path! I love coding and although it will be a hard choice I think it will be a good one. I feel that back-end or front-end for web would be a good start. I would start by working through Free Code Camp: https://www.freecodecamp.org. I believe some of their students have actually landed jobs working through all the curriculum.

Re: Ask HN: Why learn a back-end stack?

#19

Post by titodini »

I tried learning backend over the summer and it confused the shit out of me. If you're a beginner I suggest you check out https://www.turbo360.co since that's what I've been using to start. The guy who runs it posts a lot of tutorials on how to make sites with complicated backends, so learn that and once you've got the hang of it you can go on the more complicated programming
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