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Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?

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Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?

#31

Post by flurdy »

With kids, my commute is my 'me time'. And nearly only me time. Once home I am a human trampoline. :)

I hack away for an hour each way, especially on my home journeys. I actually appreciate the long train journey. Thankfully it is all one journey without changes. And train delays once I am on the train I don't actually mind. Though I go first class so I have a guaranteed seat with table and comfort. Otherwise, I'd be a miserable sod.

Though I also had to cut out all time wasting like tv watching, time sinks like free newspapers on the train, and ban myself from any gaming before 11pm.

With one kid it felt like I hardly had any spare time for hacking or anything, and I was so envious of my previous childless me with all that spare time I had then. Now with two kids I am envious of all the spare time I had with just one kid!

Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?

#32

Post by Joky »

No TV ever (except when it is about watching a movie with my son, and he choses what we watch), less hobbies (reading tech books instead of novels, etc.), and especially optimizing my time around family: for example I'll drive my son to his ice skating lesson and will watch a technical talk on youtube or read a technical book during 1h while he practice. Another things is living close to my work: little commute time means less waste and more time at home. Biking during my commute (~20min) is also giving me my daily physical exercise!

Also, some people have the ability to get into work and focus efficiently even for a 10 min slot, which can happen multiple time during the day.

Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?

#33

Post by throwaway243546 »

It depends. Some people have children that go to bed at 8pm and wake up at 8am.

We have a 14 month old that wakes up 3 to 4 times every night. Even using strategies with my partner to take turns, it weighs down on us and sleep becomes the priority after the kid and work.

I have no idea how people with more than 1 kid have any time to do anything, unless you have access to babysitters, of course.

Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?

#35

Post by dronacharya »

padseeker wrote: post #28

The company I work for pays for Safari Online. They also have mobile apps that allow you to read content or even download videos for offline viewing. This evening on my train ride home I watched a video on how to use webpack. The best time for me to get extended learning is after my kids go to sleep. I have a 10 and 8 year old, they're usually asleep by 9. It was harder with very young kids. Now at this age its somew…

That's what I had to say, pretty much to a T! (My kids are 11 and 8 1/2, and go to bed around 9 as well). I watched a video on bash scripting on the way to work today. My daughter is into robotics and programming, so we do get to have a lot of fun together. It was very hard to find the time to learn something new when they were younger.

Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?

#37

Post by danielvf »

Father of four with one on the way.

As mempko said, kids can go to bed at a structured time. Kids getting enough sleep is really good for them and really good for you. After work I spend about three hours with the whole family, including supper and housework. Then the kids go to bed, and I get an hour of learning coding in, then hang out with my wife for an hour. Usually I get about theee straight hours on a project somewhere in the weekend.

Newborns are something else though. It's prudent to plan on being a sleep deprived zombie for three months. If you are in the lucky 33% that escapes this, rejoice!

Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?

#38

Post by brightball »

You have to let your interests drive you. I've got 2 kids who are 8 and 6 years old respectively. Prior to having kids, I had my own contracting business, all nighters were a part of my nightly routine and I obsessed about every new technology that came out. I tried to keep this up almost through the birth of my second child before I put myself in the hospital.

That'll put things in perspective.

Now I'm a lot more selective about what I devote my time to learning. I'm skeptical of new language offerings. If a language doesn't give me a reason other than being a different flavor of C for using it, it doesn't even cross my radar. I'm more of a server side, devops, database guy for the most part so I've largely avoided the framework a week craziness in javascript world.

You pick your battles. Something looks cool...great. Does it really add any value beyond my current tools...?

Since getting back into a full time job about 4 years ago there are 2 technologies that have sufficiently captured my interest that I make time for them. Those are PostgreSQL and Elixir.

As it turns out, because of the two of those there's very little that comes on my radar that makes me say...I need to learn that. Most new tech that comes out seems to live in the land of edge cases that I may need one day, but don't have a reason to dive into.

IBM's Watson API's are probably the only thing I could see really grabbing my attention in the last year or so. You pick your battles.

Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?

#39

Post by jaxn »

I am a father of 6.

I could be a better father. I could be a better programmer. I'm doing a good job of both. It is a full life.

6 hours of focused work is more than most people get done in a day. You want to be a great dad and a great programmer? Cut out Hacker News ;)

edit: I guess we are listing ages. 15, 14, 12, 11, 10, 7.

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