Read. And I don't just mean books (although they are a great place to start). Read technical blogs, read documentation, read other people's code. Seek out challenging reads that seem overly ambitious and use them to find out what your unknown-unknowns are, then use that knowledge to steer your learning.
Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?
21–30 of 104 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?
#22Mostly what I anticipate I will need for the job. For my own pleasure I choose tools whose proponents talk with a reasonable voice. I dismiss any technonology when I see people that:
* Says that the rest of the world is doing it wrong and they will fix the situation with this "change of paradigm".
* Presents their products as a "social movement" that's "challenging the industry as we know it".
* Promises 10x productivity.
* In general, bases their success on attacking others. Specially if they say things like "everybody knows exceptions are like cancer".
* Uses grandilocuent names to call a two thousand lines library.
* The resulting code looks like gibberish. The most likely a child can understand it, the better. It it's directed at the elite programmers, bad.
* Doesn't put enough care on tooling.
Edit: OK, it's a very negative answer, but it's effective. It quickly discards 99% of shiny new things.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?
#23When in doubt, learn more math.
I read 2 college textbooks on linear algebra, abstract algebra last year and managed to finish most of the exercise questions.
It was never useful to me and I remember zero content from either of those now.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?
#24Intersection of what looks like fun, that I can be good at, and good career or money-wise.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?
#25By whoever's giving away the latest free t-shirt
https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-sk...
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?
#26I look forward in time and try to imagine myself knowing/doing something new. Whatever pops in my head us what I go for. Always live in the future and build towards it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?
#27Read. And I don't just mean books (although they are a great place to start). Read technical blogs, read documentation, read other people's code. Seek out challenging reads that seem overly ambitious and use them to find out what your unknown-unknowns are, then use that knowledge to steer your learning.
^ This year I bought the subscription to Safari Books Online (https://www.safaribooksonline.com), which offers unlimited access to many books (every O'Reilly book) and some video courses.
Though it's not cheap, I think it's the best investment I've made in my own professional development.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?
#28Sometimes I just browse StackShare for what's trending or if there's a more highly rated competing tool for something I use regularly.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?
#29Read. And I don't just mean books (although they are a great place to start). Read technical blogs, read documentation, read other people's code. Seek out challenging reads that seem overly ambitious and use them to find out what your unknown-unknowns are, then use that knowledge to steer your learning.
^ This year I bought the subscription to Safari Books Online ( https://www.safaribooksonline.com ), which offers unlimited access to many books (every O'Reilly book) and some video courses. Though it's not cheap, I think it's the best investment I've made in my own professional development.
Just to add to this, pick up an Amazon Kindle. There's almost no-where you can't read when your entire library fits in a pocket or a rucksack. I've been travelling for most of this year and my kindle comes second to only my laptop on the list of essentials.
Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?
#30When in doubt, learn more math.
I read 2 college textbooks on linear algebra, abstract algebra last year and managed to finish most of the exercise questions. It was never useful to me and I remember zero content from either of those now.
Take that knowledge in linear algebra and put it to use by learning how machine learning algorithms work.