Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

#81

Post by owl57 » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:18 AM UTC

nilshauk wrote: post #6

I would love for us tech folk to dip our toes in idea history, hermeneutics and rhetoric. We need to think about the way we think and talk about the way we talk. I mean reflect on the state of things, instead of blindly increasing shareholder value. We glorify engagement, but we’re arguably glorifying how addictive our creations are. What if apps maximized for less time spent, like help users just do their work and g…

What if apps maximized for less time spent

Today I used an automated delivery booth. At the end it reported in big letters: "you took your order in 2 minutes 12 seconds". Made me vividly remember the end-of-level screen in classic Doom. Maybe that's a good idea: make the session time prominently visible, to have an urge to optimize.

Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

#82

Post by jacques_chester » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:19 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #73

jsgoller1 wrote: post #67

Interviewing. I spent about 3-4 months this year working on my interviewing and competitive programming skills via LeetCode, reading The Algorithm Design Manual, and taking classes at Bradfield School of CS in San Francisco. I feel like it's made a world of difference. I know Hacker News tends to hate on programming interviews, but it really pays to be good at them (and trust me, it's a learnable skill). I do agree t…

You spent 3-4 months honing your interview skills, that sounds very expensive. Are you claiming that this practice made you a better programmer overall or just better at interviews? It isn’t just hackernews hating on the current way of doing programming interviews, it’s a widespread sentiment in the industry. The current way of doing interviews seems both excessive (requires 2 months of practice) and easily games (wi…

> You spent 3-4 months honing your interview skills, that sounds very expensive.

Assuming a 25% pay bump, it more or less pays for itself in a year.

Not counting the effect of compounding. Bumps are typically by percent, so every point you chisel out early in your career is valuable.

Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

#83

Post by mfazalul » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:21 AM UTC

I've made a list of things I'd like to learn soon. These are personally important to me, but based on your circumstances and specializations, it may (or may not) be important for you as well.

1> Learning to learn From my interactions with some of my friends, I've come to realize that I'm pretty bad at learning, or at being focussed and determined enough to put work into it. I'm not sure how I can correct it, but I've decided to learn at least one skill (like playing guitars, skateboarding, etc.) that requires persistence.

2> Calculus. statistics and some neuroscience I'm a PhD student and my work primarily focuses on machine learning applications. However I've come to realize that there are too many AI Engineers and very less AI researchers and computational neuroscientists. I feel it's sad that a lot of people are following the hype-train for deep learning, while there is a third-generation neural network (spiking neural networks) that needs more research. Although this has been around for about a decade, the field is still lacking in terms of research. To even contribute a little bit into the field, I would need more knowledge in calculus, statistics and neuroscience (at the very least, about how neurons work). Even if I end up being unable to do research in the field, I still think calculus and stats are very important, so its a win-win anyway.

3> Psychology. I've had my own battles with anxiety and depression, and one of the things that has helped keep me at bay even when I had suicidal thoughts was my knowledge about mental health. I could tell myself "this is not right, fight it or get help", because of what I've learned about psychology. I believe that learning psychology can help me better understand myself, my thoughts and my yearnings, as well as that it would give me the ability to understand others who are going though similar (or more difficult) circumstances. On the side, learning "persuasive psychology" can probably help with understanding the effects of different marketing tactics, while also maybe help me deal with difficult people. Other things like cognitive behavior therapy and mindfulness are also things I need to learn, but that would require some help from a therapist.

Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

#84

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:22 AM UTC

febin wrote: post #77

1. Learn Math required for ML/AI. 2. Learn to write deep content. 3. Learn to manage personal finances 4. Learn to invest 5. Learn to draw 6. Learn to sing 7. Learn to have proper 8 hours of sleep 8. Attempt to build a profitable startup again

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

#85

Post by _asummers » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:28 AM UTC

Maultasche wrote: post #14

I've been learning Elixir, which is really good for creating concurrent and scalable systems. Concurrency has always been something that has fascinated me and I see in Elixir a chance to make very concurrent code without having to deal with locks, race conditions, and all the other icky low-level stuff. Elixir is also a functional language, making this is the first functional language I've learned, which is another r…

I love Elixir. There are very few things that it leaves me wanting from other languages, and I am happy for having added it to my professional tool belt a few years ago. I recommend it for beginners and experienced folk alike. The community is pleasant, industrious, and I feel like I get to code in a sane environment every day with escape hatches in just about every spot I would expect them to exist (due mostly to the macros + BEAM). Though I do not take advantage of this as often as I would like, being able to drop down to native Erlang trivially basically doubles the ecosystem size.

Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

#86

Post by vladf » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:28 AM UTC

lwansbrough wrote: post #75

vikas5678 wrote: post #59

3 critical skills that will help you through out your life: 1. Learn to workout well - crossfit, hire a trainer, etc 2. Basic financial knowledge - investing, taxes, RSUs/Options, etc 3. Presentation skills - most of your career will be determined by how effectively you communicate, influence and persuade. Invest in it.

There’s a lot of better ways to work out than crossfit. But I agree with the basic premise! Learn the skill of lifting heavy things and running farther than you’re willing to walk. I’d add to presentation skills: negotiation skills. I’ll recommend Chris Voss’ book “Never Split the Difference” as I have been to all my relatives this Christmas.

Can you elaborate on why other things are "better" than crossfit? I've found it to be very time-efficient and well-rounded.

Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

#87

Post by titanomachy » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:30 AM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #53

The skill I am working on the hardest for 2019 is being able to put down my phone. Or more generally to stop the cycle of mindless addictive loops, checking for comments and upvotes on social media, endlessly refreshing forums, and so on. I’ve tried a few times over the past year to make headway on this and haven’t felt successful, so I’m redoubling and trying to deconstruct the concept a little, figure out some rule…

I've been working on this over the holidays, since it's a chance to spend time with people I don't see too often. I have had some success with the Android app Cold Turkey. Every time I catch myself using the phone in an undesirable way, I can lock it for 15 minutes or so. Instead of putting it away and then absently picking it up again 30 seconds later.

EDIT: I know it's cliched to give technical tricks as answers to comments like this, but these tricks are actually IMHO the best solution to these problems. Trying to enforce through willpower alone seems a losing battle. Eventually the habit fades and you don't need the tricks anymore.

Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

#88

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:33 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #82

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spent 3-4 months honing your interview skills, that sounds very expensive. Are you claiming that this practice made you a better programmer overall or just better at interviews? It isn’t just hackernews hating on the current way of doing programming interviews, it’s a widespread sentiment in the industry. The current way of doing interviews seems both excessive (requires 2 months of practice) and easily games (wi…

> You spent 3-4 months honing your interview skills, that sounds very expensive. Assuming a 25% pay bump, it more or less pays for itself in a year. Not counting the effect of compounding. Bumps are typically by percent, so every point you chisel out early in your career is valuable.

Assuming you couldn’t get that job any other way, sure. However, even most Googlers would think that is excessive (even if they did it themselves, most of them would not admit to it).

Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

#89

Post by friedman23 » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:33 AM UTC

throwawaymath wrote: post #35

jasode wrote: post #9

You don't state your programming background but you mentioned C# in previous comments. I would recommend machine learning as a very useful skill to acquire. I have to be more specific because "machine learning", "artificial intelligence", and "data science" are really large topics that can encompass difficult math and PhD research. For application programmers, I think a very realistic subset is using an existing "mac…

> ...just like SQL was 25 years ago. Oh boy have I got news for you :)

I would say the baseline is a little higher now, maybe that is what he meant? But yeah, SQL is required knowledge for any programmer.

Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

#90

Post by zero4ll » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 1:34 AM UTC

Learning Azure Dev Ops is always good as it makes it possible to publish your own Ideas in a scalable environment that is affordable. Microsoft Learn is pretty neat as they will take you through the basics for free, just take your time. You also get nifty badges from Microsoft for completing different learning modules. They are very much making it look like a nice page you can attach to a resume.