Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?

#31

Post by tedmiston » Sun, Apr 24, 2016, 2:16 PM UTC

Something I've always wanted is "a Netflix queue for tech I want to learn"

Ideal features would include:

- a regular review of the things you've listed to see if they're still relevant and to help you prioritize

- a way to see what's trending amongst everything you've listed (ex. I have three front end web frameworks on my list but React is collectively popular, so perhaps I should start there)

- it could notify you if a new (good) book / blog post is published on a topic you're interested in

- you could compare with your friends to see if someone you know has learned it recently or to sit down and hack together

- it could share a common list of subtasks across users -- for example, starting with Django Rest Framework might consist of: (1) doing the python tutorial + (2) doing the Django tutorial + (3) doing the DRF tutorial

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?

#32

Post by thedonald123 » Sun, Apr 24, 2016, 2:18 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #23

DavidSJ wrote: post #17

When 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.

Which textbooks?

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?

#33

Post by tedmiston » Sun, Apr 24, 2016, 2:21 PM UTC

codecurve wrote: post #29

tedmiston wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ 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.

I actually haven't bought one yet because I was under the impression code rendering was still less than ideal (e.g., lines wrapping to fit the Kindle screen where they shouldn't in code). Is that still an issue?

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?

#34

Post by shrugger » Sun, Apr 24, 2016, 2:21 PM UTC

I try and learn things bottom-up. I don't know if that's a good way or not, but that's how I've always done it. It has seemed pretty natural to me to sort of explode things into pieces and pick it up small bits at a time, gradually composing all of the knowledge that I need to be able to complete the thing I'm working on/learning about.

Is there a better way?

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?

#35

Post by m0rganic » Sun, Apr 24, 2016, 2:23 PM UTC

You need to pick something you can sink your teeth into but unfortunately that doesn't satisfy your first requirement (limited amounts of time). Learning things of value normally takes time and lots of dedication.

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?

#36

Post by shekhargulati » Sun, Apr 24, 2016, 2:26 PM UTC

I am doing a series called 52-technologies-in-2016 https://github.com/shekhargulati/52-technologies-in-2016 where in I learn a new technology, build a small app, and blog about it every week. I maintain an Evernote where I write down all the interesting topics or projects I find. I go through the list and randomly pick any topic that excites me that day and then work over the weekend to publish something. This helps me keep in continuous learning loop.

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?

#37

Post by vinitagr » Sun, Apr 24, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

I decide based on what i need to build next, and that came from what i want to build, at some point in the past.

Also i have "This is interesting" moments, from time to time.

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?

#38

Post by soared » Sun, Apr 24, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

DavidSJ wrote: post #17

When in doubt, learn more math.

Any suggestions for statistical analysis? I'd be like confidently do math, rather than just do math.

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?

#39

Post by mrleinad » Sun, Apr 24, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

shekhargulati wrote: post #36

I am doing a series called 52-technologies-in-2016 https://github.com/shekhargulati/52-technologies-in-2016 where in I learn a new technology, build a small app, and blog about it every week. I maintain an Evernote where I write down all the interesting topics or projects I find. I go through the list and randomly pick any topic that excites me that day and then work over the weekend to publish something. This helps…

This is a great idea! Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next?

#40

Post by altern8tif » Sun, Apr 24, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #20

mhurron wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't underestimate "this is interesting". That's pretty much me. Someone will say something, or I will see something somewhere and a little bit of looking it up to find out what was being talked about might pique some interest and off we go.

This doesn't work at all for me. Something seems interesting to me (and my problem is, a lot of things interest me) and I start reading up on it, somewhere along the way there is something else that is referenced, which also seems interesting, so I read up on that...and so on. Pretty soon I've deviated far from where I started. Interestingly, this doesn't happen in my day job :(

Also known as the "cool-new-framework rabbit hole" or also the more common "Wikipedia rabbit hole".