Ask HN: What are you learning? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are you learning?

#151

Post by selfish-duck » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

ericax wrote: post #78

World-building. After reading about storytelling, I realized that I'm as fascinated to a well-crafted world as good plots and characters. There's not much to read about, as a fiction world can contain as much detail as the real world. I'm spending time looking at the fiction worlds that I like and taking them apart. As an exercise, imagining places and races is also interesting. You'll be amazed by the amount of deta…

Although you said there is not much literature around the subject, did you find anything? This has always been one of my favorite aspects of The Elder's Scrolls and, of course, Tolkien.

Re: Ask HN: What are you learning?

#152

Post by starpilot » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

Data structures & algorithms, for the first time, because I want to transition from being a data scientist to a ML engineer.

Re: Ask HN: What are you learning?

#153

Post by CalRobert » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

SQLAlchemy.

Old school but I haven't found a better ORM for my use case - though I keep thinking there's got to be something like an open-source LookML, which is what I want in the long term.

Also, lime plastering traditional (100+ year old) buildings, and trying to get a fruit orchard going without rabbits eating the trees.

Re: Ask HN: What are you learning?

#154

Post by CalRobert » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #69

I've been clearing land all day and bought 50lbs of buckwheat. I intend to try sowing/harvesting by hand. I will use this mostly for breads and pastries. This is something of an experiment. Building skills, I'm almost finished a chicken coop. I made a dry stone arch bridge but it failed because the frame sank, I will try again. I am learning carving to make wooden animal toys for my child, who will be born in July (I…

If you have any pictures available (especially of this bridge) I'd be curious to see.

Are you tilling? Doing raised beds? We're planting a bit this year and dealing with weeds, etc. has been a hassle (also, most of the no-dig crowd seem to basically advocate using many tons of compost, which is great but not something you can assume a steady supply of)

Re: Ask HN: What are you learning?

#155

Post by CalRobert » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

nukeu666 wrote: post #17

German, should lower the barrier to emigrate

From where are you emigrating?

It's not Germany, but if you happen to be from the US the Dutch American Friendship Treaty is worth a look. Relatively attainable bar, especially for people in tech.

Re: Ask HN: What are you learning?

#156

Post by __s » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

EnderMB wrote: post #138

I'll probably get a lot of shit for this, but LeetCode. I've recently been furloughed, and I think that redundancies aren't too far away. There aren't many companies hiring in my area at the moment, and if I'm going to move it's going to be for a big company, so I'm dusting off the CV and am applying to some Big N companies. A recruiter recently reached out to me, and I've got an interview with one Big N company comi…

> I'll probably get a lot of shit for this, but LeetCode.

Don't hate the player; hate the game. gl

Re: Ask HN: What are you learning?

#157

Post by anfractuosity » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

I'm working on learning KiCad + FPGAs, I've been making a little PCB, I can plug into my FPGA board (via a PMOD interface), to drive some WS2812B lighting strips via VHDL.

I've sent the PCB off to a fab, who will do the SMD assembly part too for me :) Will be a couple of weeks before it arrives I think.

I need to work on an SPI interface next in VHDL which will need to interface with BRAM which will act as the 'framebuffer'.

Re: Ask HN: What are you learning?

#158

Post by CalRobert » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #8

Infosec history. I'm just entered the PC era, so things tend to be more interesting from now on.

Is this purely technical or including the stories, people and politics around it as well?

Re: Ask HN: What are you learning?

#159

Post by selfish-duck » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

DizzyDoo wrote: post #25

tomxor wrote: post #10

... Don't laugh: C I learnt programming mainly through various scripting languages, some of which had some relatively simple visual output available, which I personally found invaluable for learning and visualizing. I realized that better visual output was the main thing holding me back from doing more in C since there are so many options, often complex, involving much boilerplate. So my mini project is essentially e…

Out of interest, why would people laugh at someone learning C? I know plenty of people using C in all manner of domains, choosing it over C++ or Rust for fair and sensible reasons - I'm not a C person myself, but it certainly seems extremely useful to have in the toolkit!

I started coding 10 years ago (damn I just figured that...) learning C at my engineering school for 2 years. Never had to use it ever since (mostly working front-end and webAPIs) but I'm still glad I studied it to learn the programming foundations. I would probably choose Rust or Go today though.

Re: Ask HN: What are you learning?

#160

Post by CalRobert » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

EnderMB wrote: post #138

I'll probably get a lot of shit for this, but LeetCode. I've recently been furloughed, and I think that redundancies aren't too far away. There aren't many companies hiring in my area at the moment, and if I'm going to move it's going to be for a big company, so I'm dusting off the CV and am applying to some Big N companies. A recruiter recently reached out to me, and I've got an interview with one Big N company comi…

Can't imagine getting shit for studying up on what's likely to help you get a job. I'd be doing the same if I were in your situation (though if laid off I'm hoping to start my own thing).