Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 121 posts

Re: Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

#101

Post by ionised »

petke wrote: post #91
pfarnsworth wrote: post #53

Asking here probably isn't the best thing, because most people here are at the forefront of the latest and greatest, so you will probably get a ton of suggestions and reasons why. Throw mine on top of the pile as well. You need to first define what your goal is. Do you want to become a full-time front-end developer? Do you want to be a full-stack, etc. Different aspects will require a different subset. First and fore…

Thats interesting. Are most people on HN web developers? It makes sense I guess. Im an old C++ programmer and I get the vague feeling that I'm in a minority here. Has there been any polls on HN demographics? Who are you guys?

I'm a desktop applications dev working for an engineering consultancy. I mostly develop and maintain our GIS and simulation applications.

We use a combination of C++ and Java with an Oracle PL/SQL back end.

We plan to deliver some of our applications through web applications/services over the next few years. I've touched on Javascript a bit but as of this moment, I have very very limited exposure to web development of any kind.

I've only been programming for just over three years though, so I'm still kind of in my junior stage.

Re: Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

#102

Post by dev360 »

habitue wrote: post #65
blhack wrote: post #55

Here's a semi-controversial opinion: you probably don't need to learn much. You don't need hipster.js to build a website. You can still build websites that can be used by millions of people using PHP, mysql, and HTML. Lots and lots of people will tell you to learn hipster.js, and will imply that if you aren't using something written by 3 20 year olds in a coffee shop during a hackathon, that you can't get The Scale.…

This isn't a very controversial opinion on HN. It's the standard "js developers are just crazy ADHD kids and all they do is chase the latest shiny framework every week". It gets featured prominently in every thread that mentions webdev. It's also wrong. There is a spectrum from early adopter to head-buried-in-the-sand cobol developer, and most people would agree there are trade-offs to being on either end. Suggesting…

On that note, I'd throw in SPA's and REST. Thats a big conceptual difference in how apps are built nowadays and worth to get up to speed with.

Re: Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

#103

Post by dev360 »

sreejithr wrote: post #57
cpayne wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS is spot on! The only thing I'd add is to choose one of those technologies (jQuery / Node / Angular / Whatever!) and learn it (reasonably) well. I can't tell you how many times I've used Pluralsight to bone up on a particular technology...

Dude, you're missing the point. Angular ⊂ hipster.js.

> Angular ⊂ hipster.js.

Thanks for clarifying that. I dont understand this argument though.

If you come here to tell me in all honesty that single page apps is just a fad, then I'd find that to be quite outrageous. There are precious few sites nowadays worth their while that just use HTTP Post. Sure you could use the Ajax partials technique, but frameworks like Angular and React are here to stay.

I say they are here to stay because there has not been any other architectures capable of addressing rich applications well. Maybe Meteor and DDP, but this, of course, is just hipster.js at this point (e.g. not ready for primetime as of yet).

Modern web development has gone through many evolutions. The emergence of MVC for web frameworks being one, and REST + client-side javascript frameworks being another notable one. The emergence of hipster.sql maybe being another one. It would be almost a little reckless to not take the time to understand what these technologies try to address in this day and age.

Re: Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

#104

Post by dev360 »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #37
joeyspn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is an enormous amount of garbage out there right now. Some things to be extremely wary of are NoSQL databases and NodeJs. > Wow, there is a lot of awful advice in this thread.

Sure, but then again: > Be extremely skeptical of any advice you receive over the internet. :-D

"The problem with quotes found on the internet is that they are often not true." - Abraham Lincoln

Re: Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

#105

Post by [deleted] »

blhack wrote: post #55

Here's a semi-controversial opinion: you probably don't need to learn much. You don't need hipster.js to build a website. You can still build websites that can be used by millions of people using PHP, mysql, and HTML. Lots and lots of people will tell you to learn hipster.js, and will imply that if you aren't using something written by 3 20 year olds in a coffee shop during a hackathon, that you can't get The Scale.…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

#106

Post by stuxnet79 »

ionised wrote: post #101
petke wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats interesting. Are most people on HN web developers? It makes sense I guess. Im an old C++ programmer and I get the vague feeling that I'm in a minority here. Has there been any polls on HN demographics? Who are you guys?

I'm a desktop applications dev working for an engineering consultancy. I mostly develop and maintain our GIS and simulation applications. We use a combination of C++ and Java with an Oracle PL/SQL back end. We plan to deliver some of our applications through web applications/services over the next few years. I've touched on Javascript a bit but as of this moment, I have very very limited exposure to web development o…

Do you sometimes feel left out or that you may be limiting your future career prospects? I am a Java application developer with also limited exposure to web development and it is difficult to not feel disconcerted with all the JavaScript talk.

I've started tinkering around with NodeJS but I'd hate for it to get lambasted just as soon as I've mastered it. The frameworks and tools in web development feel transient to me, and I'd hate to build my career on a foundation made of sand.

Re: Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

#107

Post by sergiotapia »

vskarine wrote: post #42
joeyspn wrote: post #16

> But in the little free time I have available > But after work and family, there isn't much time left If you want to ship ASAP with little time investment, IMO nothing beats Meteor. Skills required: HTML, CSS, JS. I've built projects with PHP, Rails, Django, Node, Angular, etc ... and Meteor is the framework I recommend to newcomers. Ok, you're not exactly a newcomer, but clearly you've been disconnected many years…

+1 for meteor highly recommend to start with https://www.discovermeteor.com/

No, discover Meteor is extremely outdated.

Re: Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

#108

Post by hiram112 »

blhack wrote: post #55

Here's a semi-controversial opinion: you probably don't need to learn much. You don't need hipster.js to build a website. You can still build websites that can be used by millions of people using PHP, mysql, and HTML. Lots and lots of people will tell you to learn hipster.js, and will imply that if you aren't using something written by 3 20 year olds in a coffee shop during a hackathon, that you can't get The Scale.…

>Here is a relevant blog post: http://thingist.com/t/item/21434/

Compared to the typical opinion pieces these days, what a breath of fresh air!

Re: Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

#109

Post by ank_the_elder »

habitue wrote: post #65
blhack wrote: post #55

Here's a semi-controversial opinion: you probably don't need to learn much. You don't need hipster.js to build a website. You can still build websites that can be used by millions of people using PHP, mysql, and HTML. Lots and lots of people will tell you to learn hipster.js, and will imply that if you aren't using something written by 3 20 year olds in a coffee shop during a hackathon, that you can't get The Scale.…

This isn't a very controversial opinion on HN. It's the standard "js developers are just crazy ADHD kids and all they do is chase the latest shiny framework every week". It gets featured prominently in every thread that mentions webdev. It's also wrong. There is a spectrum from early adopter to head-buried-in-the-sand cobol developer, and most people would agree there are trade-offs to being on either end. Suggesting…

If I may: https://imgur.com/OTEDFD6

Re: Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

#110

Post by sgdesign »

sergiotapia wrote: post #107
vskarine wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for meteor highly recommend to start with https://www.discovermeteor.com/

No, discover Meteor is extremely outdated.

I wouldn't say it's "extremely" outdated. The info inside is still valid, you can start with it and then complete your knowledge with the Meteor Guide.
Post reply on HN