Ask HN: Are my web dev skills still relevant? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Are my web dev skills still relevant?

#31

Post by quickthrower2 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

carpedimebagjoe wrote: post #22

kar5pt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's exaggerating. The workplaces I've seen aren't nearly that bad (and definitely don't have 27 year old managers).

I took a contract once at a mobile handset mfgr that had this. This sysadmin-cum-manager dude (with zero previous management exp) thought he was hot sh*t because of his title. Dude was robotic/patronizing fake, arrogant, useless, and just got in the way. He thought his role was to unsolicited "coach" mission statement BS and insult my intelligence. Oddly enough, I was fired from that gig for witnessing a senior manag…

I’d be on a conference call to a lawyer as soon as my feet hit the street.

Re: Ask HN: Are my web dev skills still relevant?

#32

Post by quickthrower2 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

xondono wrote: post #9

One of my gripes with web development is that it looks like its primary driven by fads. A LOT of companies change the whole stack just to copy the latest gimmick they’ve seen somewhere else. Devs need to be constantly relearning how to do basic things, so you either chose some tech and hope it gets popular, or you get to know a lot of frameworks only superficially, which leaves a lot of the internet broken.

The trick with web dev is to learn what can’t be a fad: http, networking, security, browser apis, vanilla JS / DOM, svg, SEO maybe, devops maybe, docker maybe, performance profiling, debugging skills, relational databases. Then learn frameworks on the job as they vary from job to job although I think React and typescript are fine to regard as core non fad skills in 2021

Re: Ask HN: Are my web dev skills still relevant?

#33

Post by high_pathetic » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #7

Tech interviews have been horribly broken for at least a decade now. They've been mostly broken for a couple decades. Fortunately I haven't had to talk to a recruiter for a job since 1998 and hopefully I never will again. Maybe call up some people you worked with before and see if their company is hiring. They most likely are. Anyway, C# is still very relevant, but it depends on location. In my city, it's huge, in ot…

if C# is not huge in other places, what is? (genuinely curious)

Re: Ask HN: Are my web dev skills still relevant?

#34

Post by muzani » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

bwh2 wrote: post #11

readonthegoapp wrote: post #2

I can't speak from the point of view, directly, as a current web dev, but I'm 100% confident that the landscape has completely changed -- from the point of view of someone who looks at, evaluates, prototypes in new stacks all the time, and product/project-managed modern web stacks. I complain here and everywhere about the insane complexity in modern-day web app dev. The truth is that, after you learn the 20 new tools…

Is ageism really that bad at the companies where you all work? Dang. Can't imagine working someplace where turning 26 puts you at risk of sounding old and washed up.

I think it's an attitude thing more than anything. Many people I meet think I'm 10 years younger and refuse to believe otherwise. It's fun to come in as the instructor and everyone thinks I'm the student.

But it's more that if you come in and say that MySQL and PHP is good enough for everything, you're going to sound washed up. It might be true, but it's not good team chemistry when everyone wants to do one thing and one person keeps pulling them back. You don't even have to be 40 for this; 26 is "old" enough.