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Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

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Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#171

Post by uglycoyote »

gear54rus wrote: post #124
kugelblitz wrote: post #59

Sorry if offensive or presumptuous, I assume you are max. 30 years old? Being a freelancer the last 5 years (previously doing webdev part-time for 15 years) and having a couple of long-term side projects, I've been "burnt" enough that I've gotten tired of chasing shiny tech, just for it to become abandoned (e.g. bower, grunt, AngularJS) or introduce big breaking changes (e.g. some upgrade paths in PHP's Laravel or Sy…

The irony of this post is saying you don't want to learn new and then saying you used parcel.

There really is nothing to learn with Parcel, that is the thing. It just works

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#172

Post by mgkimsal »

It's not a 'hottest tech stack', but I would suggest people take 2020 to learn testing. TDD/unit/browser/whatever - look to incorporate testing in to your work more often. For me, that has meant making sure code you're writing is testable first. I don't do hardcore TDD, but often am writing tests more or less concurrently with little bits as I'm writing those bits.

I don't do this for every single project all the time - I do work on systems, that are, essentially, non-unit-testable. While refactoring could be done, clients/owners refuse to give appropriate time/resources to move in that direction. That's their choice, and they pay the productivity price (and often, are acutely aware of the situation but solider on anyway).

However, for my own projects, testing/testable code is an increasing focus, and has helped my own code/projects to be easier to think about up front, and easier to modify/maintain/refactor later.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#173

Post by swayson »

jointpdf wrote: post #131
KasianFranks wrote: post #91

Unsupervised learning

In my experience, unsupervised learning is more broadly useful (and easier to implement) than supervised learning. Use it for data exploration, data validation, anomaly detection, topic modeling, recommender systems, cluster analysis, etc. Recommended algorithms: - UMAP ( https://github.com/lmcinnes/umap/blob/master/README.rst ) - HDBSCAN ( https://github.com/scikit-learn-contrib/hdbscan/blob/master/... ) - MatrixPro…

Totally agree. Such a useful set of tools. Here is an insightful talk about the application of UMAP to learn embeddings for the folks who are interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtVR_ZnXLu4

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#174

Post by brushfoot »

scarface74 wrote: post #136
kugelblitz wrote: post #59

Sorry if offensive or presumptuous, I assume you are max. 30 years old? Being a freelancer the last 5 years (previously doing webdev part-time for 15 years) and having a couple of long-term side projects, I've been "burnt" enough that I've gotten tired of chasing shiny tech, just for it to become abandoned (e.g. bower, grunt, AngularJS) or introduce big breaking changes (e.g. some upgrade paths in PHP's Laravel or Sy…

It's important to know of the new tech, but I think diving deep into new tech just because it might seem cool now can be frustrating and inefficient long-term. There is no “long term” in technology. The best way on average to stay competitive is by keeping up with what the market wants. Sure it’s possible to start a project that is profitable or that you can get someone to acquire but statistically that’s like buying…

It depends on what you're going for. There's some risk with projects, but also more reward.

Being marketable requires staying up to date, but it's a hamster wheel: You stay fit, but you aren't moving.

With projects, you can always pivot. Nothing is truly wasted unless you throw in the towel on being an entrepreneur.

For me, I started a system integration platform 5 years ago. It's made 5 figures over the years. Nothing spectacular, and I'm 30 now, so even if it does take off, I'm not going to be the early success story many people like. But it's taught me lessons that are priceless. I have hands-on experience with sales, development, and marketing. I have sales contacts. I have code that can be repurposed into new products.

If it doesn't reach $x within y months, I may start a new business with a new model. But that's the beauty of it: You can do that. You don't have that option with lottery tickets.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#175

Post by scarface74 »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #169
scarface74 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been working for 20+ years, dozens of successful interviews and the last time I had anything approaching knowing “algorithms and computer concepts” is over 20 years ago writing low level cross platform C. Most software developers are “dark matter developers” doing “enterprise applications” that will never see the light of day outside of the company or yet another SASS CRUD app. Most of those hiring managers coul…

Your experience is not all experiences. Plenty of us have never written a crud app and never will. Sounds boring, and it’s not like it pays better than working on systems or algorithms.

I’m not saying it “pays better”. What I am saying is that statistically that’s where most of the jobs are.

I don’t go to work not to be bored. After dealing with computers for over 30 years there is nothing that excites me about computers. It’s a way to fund my lifestyle and to pay for outside interests.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#176

Post by azangru »

zinclozenge wrote: post #159
azangru wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No reason to act like this. Not the author of the parent comment; but with bristling replies like this, aren’t you dismissing the experience of those who, through years of experience, have become weary, and disillusioned, and a bit cynical? Isn't it also a valuable perspective (don't go for the new and shiny; stick with the tried and true), delivered in exactly the same way many older craftsmen have historically sh…

There are plenty of reasons to learn new languages and frameworks. Dismissing them because of 'new and shiny' is not a good reason.

Sure, but this is the objection to the substance of the response, not the way it is delivered (which is what the parent comment is unhappy about).

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#177

Post by professor_panic »

ShamelessC wrote: post #121
kugelblitz wrote: post #59

Sorry if offensive or presumptuous, I assume you are max. 30 years old? Being a freelancer the last 5 years (previously doing webdev part-time for 15 years) and having a couple of long-term side projects, I've been "burnt" enough that I've gotten tired of chasing shiny tech, just for it to become abandoned (e.g. bower, grunt, AngularJS) or introduce big breaking changes (e.g. some upgrade paths in PHP's Laravel or Sy…

It can be incredibly fun to learn new tech for those of us who aren't purely trying to maximize output.

I have always enjoyed learning new technologies and often it has nothing to do with work. I just like the process of learning and adding new tools to my software engineering "batman belt".

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#178

Post by gear54rus »

uglycoyote wrote: post #171
gear54rus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony of this post is saying you don't want to learn new and then saying you used parcel.

There really is nothing to learn with Parcel, that is the thing. It just works

The problem with such tools is well known: as soon as you get outside the anticipated usage patterns, you're pretty much fokd in the arse.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#179

Post by Nican »

Dowwie wrote: post #76

Learn how to really use a relational database, relational data modeling, and SQL. Not knowing of their capabilities may lead you to unnecessarily complicating your tech stack. You can go a really long way with just this domain of expertise. From there, do the same with whatever key-value store interests you (for me, it's Redis). Python isn't known for high performance but when a django web app uses a cache and relati…

+1 for relational models. All data access is relational in some way, and knowing how to efficiently access/index the data is an important step for building efficient applications.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#180

Post by scarface74 »

brushfoot wrote: post #174
scarface74 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to know of the new tech, but I think diving deep into new tech just because it might seem cool now can be frustrating and inefficient long-term. There is no “long term” in technology. The best way on average to stay competitive is by keeping up with what the market wants. Sure it’s possible to start a project that is profitable or that you can get someone to acquire but statistically that’s like buying…

It depends on what you're going for. There's some risk with projects, but also more reward. Being marketable requires staying up to date, but it's a hamster wheel: You stay fit, but you aren't moving. With projects, you can always pivot. Nothing is truly wasted unless you throw in the towel on being an entrepreneur. For me, I started a system integration platform 5 years ago. It's made 5 figures over the years. Nothi…

Is there really more risk adjusted reward? If you’re young, smart and unencumbered, you could easily move to the west coast, work for BigTech for a few years and make more money guaranteed than you could as an entrepreneur unless you get really lucky.

Heck, I am none of those - young, unencumbered or willing to move to the west coast and I’m looking to work for one of the big three cloud providers (well two, I would never hitch my horse to GCP) as a consultant since they hire from any major city as long as you are willing to travel (I’m not right now).

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