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Ask HN: What is the best technology to learn right now?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best technology to learn right now?

#61

Post by jasonlotito »

pwang wrote: post #19
jasonlotito wrote: post #3

Either JavaScript (and by extension, Node.js) or a mobile language (Objective-C or Java, pick the one for the phone you have). Python won't solve anything for you that you can't already solve between C or Perl. While learning that, learn a tool like RabbitMQ.

> Python won't solve anything for you that you can't already solve between C or Perl. ... unless you found Perl to be difficult to maintain, and C difficult to debug and monstrously low-level and segfault-prone for doing simple things like calling web APIs. When I first learned Python back in the day, even though I was a pretty decent C++ programmer and shell scripter, I found my internal "gumption" towards simple pr…

I'm not arguing against Python. Merely against learning yet another language in a domain that the OP has, apparently solved. I can only go by the original post. So, in the context of this discussion, learning something in another domain will not only expose him to something new, but also expose him to something in an area he doesn't already have solved.

Myself, I really don't enjoy reimplementing something I've done already just for the sake of learning a new language. I'd much rather expand my capabilities, hence my comment.

> One could argue that C and Perl don't solve anything that isn't already handled by ASM.

Which, as you hopefully see now, is not at all what I said.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best technology to learn right now?

#62

Post by jasonlotito »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #46
joshanthony wrote: post #37

I'll throw in my hat for PHP. There will be many people who will tell you to avoid PHP and I would have agreed if it wasn't for the Laravel framework. Laravel 4 is really amazing, it carries the simplicity and power of Ruby on Rails over to the PHP world. As a framework it covers most of your typical newbie problems out of the box (e.g. plugging security holes and organising your code) and you'll end up doing things…

I would like to second this. Laravel is all the lessons learned from a decade of frameworks, code igniter, kohana, and others. Its the cutting edge framework. Plus, PHP is the most widely supported scripting language on the planet. Its the default scripting language for any host to support. Also, combine it with Bootstrap and Jquery, You'll have amazing job opportunities and will be able to make amazing things. Cavea…

> Laravel is all the lessons learned from a decade of frameworks, code igniter, kohana, and others.

If Laravel learned anything from those frameworks, it's how to make all the same mistakes using an update version of PHP, and invent new mistakes on top of it.

No, Laravel is not the solution. It's encouragement of globals, it's decision to implement solutions in the slowest ways possible. It's a complete mess.

You cannot use Laravel as an example of best practices.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best technology to learn right now?

#63

Post by sinemetu11 »

random_coder wrote: post #40
dizzystar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My weapon of choice is Clojure and I don't really agree with this post. There is a serious lack of tutorials and guides to get basic things going, the documentation is all-around horrible, and in general, Clojure is a very difficult language to get started with, though it certainly has improved immensely over the past year and it is rewarding once you get past the initial humps and start to really grok it. Clojure is…

How do you suggest that one should get past the initial hardships in learning clojure, assuming one is willing to put the needed effort? I've always wanted to learn a lisp and clojure seemed good, but couldn't find a good tutorial for lisp beginners.

The koans would be a good starting point: https://github.com/functional-koans/clojure-koans

Re: Ask HN: What is the best technology to learn right now?

#64

Post by RMacy »

dizzystar wrote: post #39
adrianm wrote: post #6

I'll throw my hat in here for learning Clojure. It's a modern Lisp that runs on the JVM, with a great community and awesome libraries. (For example, https://github.com/Engelberg/instaparse ) As others have mentioned, it all comes down to what you really want to do. I use Clojure both professionally (for web development, statistical computing/analytics software, natural language processing) and for fun on a daily basi…

My weapon of choice is Clojure and I don't really agree with this post. There is a serious lack of tutorials and guides to get basic things going, the documentation is all-around horrible, and in general, Clojure is a very difficult language to get started with, though it certainly has improved immensely over the past year and it is rewarding once you get past the initial humps and start to really grok it. Clojure is…

Actually I completely disagree with you. Coming to Clojure with absolutely no lisp or functional programming background (and little java experience), and while it's been challenging to learn a new way of thinking, it wasn't hard to find documentation, read source code, or ask a question in #clojure. Leiningen really made the process more streamlined.

http://cemerick.com/2012/05/02/starting-clojure/ http://clojure-doc.org/ http://clojure.org/cheatsheet

and (source ) have been great resources.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best technology to learn right now?

#66

Post by pwang »

kazagistar wrote: post #52
pwang wrote: post #23

Since you know Matlab and C, I would suggest Python as being a good choice. It's much faster to develop web-oriented things in than C or Perl, and if you ever want to do more computationally intensive things, many people find NumPy and SciPy to be fantastic alternatives to Matlab. The nice thing about Python is that you can find so many things all in one language: shell scripting; graphical UIs; web programming and w…

If you wanna move towards what the future of mathematical computing looks like though, you should probably look at Julia. It has one thing other high level dynamic languages like Python cannot hope to touch: incredible performance without having to resort to C.

You should look at Numba: Direct Python -> x86 and CUDA without touching C.

http://numba.pydata.org/

Re: Ask HN: What is the best technology to learn right now?

#67

Post by pwang »

lsiebert wrote: post #43
pwang wrote: post #23

Since you know Matlab and C, I would suggest Python as being a good choice. It's much faster to develop web-oriented things in than C or Perl, and if you ever want to do more computationally intensive things, many people find NumPy and SciPy to be fantastic alternatives to Matlab. The nice thing about Python is that you can find so many things all in one language: shell scripting; graphical UIs; web programming and w…

Perl isn't a flavor of the moment language, and can do everything you say, plus sees a lot of use in bioinformatics and linguistics. It's a mature language that predates python. As for a lot of good libraries, Python's PyPI has 34665 packages to CPAN's 124,546 modules. And it's community is well known for it's helpfulness and humility, perhaps because of the character of it's creator. Most modern dynamic programming…

Perl predates Python by 4 years, which is not a whole lot given they're both 20+ years old now.

By "flavor of the moment", I was not referring to Perl, but rather to all the "compiles-to-JS" type stuff.

Merely comparing package repository sizes is not any indicator of quality or future prospects. Once you're beyond a few tends of thousands of packages, the bases are basically covered.

The biggest ding against Perl is the readability and maintainability. For scientific and data analytics oriented code, generally written by non-programmers who do not understand good software development process, Perl is frequently way too much rope.

Coolness has nothing to do with Python's popularity. (Unlike e.g. Rails which soared to popularity as a "Non-Java" way to do web apps, and then became a bit of a victim of its own success.) The scientific Python people I know all moved to Python from Matlab, C, and Perl because it made them more productive.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best technology to learn right now?

#68

Post by grumps »

I think that completely depends on your goals. Are you wanting to work for a startup company? Are you thinking an agency? freelance? Or are you thinking some large corporations? The answers will vary slightly, IMHO.

If you're thinking Agency/Freelance, I'd look at agencies that you'd like to work for. Check out any blog posts from the tech team, or current openings. Sometimes there's little tidbits in there if they're shifting tech directions.

If you're wanting to work for a startup, I'd suggest looking in the startups in your current location. They're may or may not be a correlation to the technology that's being used.

If you want to work for a corporation, you would probably be best to learn .NET/Java. I know that's going to annoy someone but for the most part companies want .NET.

You could also base in on the who's hiring trends if that's your goal.[1]

If you want to learn for heck of it, pick a technology that seems to draw you.

[1] http://www.ryan-williams.net/hacker-news-hiring-trends/

Re: Ask HN: What is the best technology to learn right now?

#69

Post by nickthemagicman »

jasonlotito wrote: post #62
nickthemagicman wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to second this. Laravel is all the lessons learned from a decade of frameworks, code igniter, kohana, and others. Its the cutting edge framework. Plus, PHP is the most widely supported scripting language on the planet. Its the default scripting language for any host to support. Also, combine it with Bootstrap and Jquery, You'll have amazing job opportunities and will be able to make amazing things. Cavea…

> Laravel is all the lessons learned from a decade of frameworks, code igniter, kohana, and others. If Laravel learned anything from those frameworks, it's how to make all the same mistakes using an update version of PHP, and invent new mistakes on top of it. No, Laravel is not the solution. It's encouragement of globals, it's decision to implement solutions in the slowest ways possible. It's a complete mess. You can…

Ohrlly? Your comment is literally an paragraph of inflamatory statements with nothing to back them up.

Globals? Have you used it since the new version? It's all namespaced now.

"It's decision to implement solutions in the slowest ways possible. It's a complete mess."

What does that even mean?

I can whip up a really excellent CRUD app in TEN minutes.

What is your 'better' alternative? Are you a Ruby 'rockstar'?

Re: Ask HN: What is the best technology to learn right now?

#70

Post by jasonlotito »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #69
jasonlotito wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Laravel is all the lessons learned from a decade of frameworks, code igniter, kohana, and others. If Laravel learned anything from those frameworks, it's how to make all the same mistakes using an update version of PHP, and invent new mistakes on top of it. No, Laravel is not the solution. It's encouragement of globals, it's decision to implement solutions in the slowest ways possible. It's a complete mess. You can…

Ohrlly? Your comment is literally an paragraph of inflamatory statements with nothing to back them up. Globals? Have you used it since the new version? It's all namespaced now. "It's decision to implement solutions in the slowest ways possible. It's a complete mess." What does that even mean? I can whip up a really excellent CRUD app in TEN minutes. What is your 'better' alternative? Are you a Ruby 'rockstar'?

> Ohrlly? Your comment is literally an paragraph of inflamatory statements with nothing to back them up.

Yeah, it's a comment. Not an essay. These are clearly my opinions based on my years of experience. That being said, yours offered nothing other than opinions as well, so it's balanced.

> Globals? Have you used it since the new version? It's all namespaced now.

If it's changed, they haven't updated their docs. I can only go by this:

http://laravel.com/docs/routing

Could you please direct me to the latest docs?

> I can whip up a really excellent CRUD app in TEN minutes.

That's really not an endorsement to the quality of a framework, nor is it a unique feature of Laravel.

> What is your 'better' alternative?

In the PHP space? Zend or Symfony. Both do things better. Beyond that, most other new frameworks suffer from the same problems Laravel has.

> Are you a Ruby 'rockstar'?

No. I'm a programmer, not a programming language.

Laravel does a lot things many would consider bad. Sure, it makes CRUD easy, and it has a low learning curve, which many consider a feature. But being easy doesn't mean doing things well. CodeIgniter is easy, after all.

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