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Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

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

#111

Post by freehunter »

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 use Rails for my web programming needs, and I've heard a lot of people talk about switching from Ruby/Rails to Elixir/Phoenix because of "concurrency", but I'm going to be honest and say I don't know what that means. I'm not a CS grad and I'm not super familiar with all of the terminology.

Can someone help me with two things? Really trying to understand the benefit.

1. When you say "concurrency" do you just mean "handles more users at the same time" or is there something more to concurrency? I keep seeing web chat applications in tutorials for Elixir but chat is such a small application of a technology that I find it hard to believe the majority of Elixir users are building chat systems. What are you using the concurrency for? Why isn't Rails sufficient for that application?

2. Given that most web apps are CRUD, are there any benefits to using Elixir for a typical CRUD website (other than less-than-tangible things like "it's functional")?

Much appreciated!

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

#112

Post by natestemen »

davmar wrote: post #96

Our industry is behind when it comes to understanding race and racism. Proof: Slack's mistake this last week. In 2019, learn about institutional racism and why we have to undo it. Take a course from the People's Institute. If you haven't learned about this in depth before, be prepared to learn a lot and have your preconceived notions challenged. https://www.pisab.org/ I promise you'll walk away with new perspectives…

I'm glad someone has mentioned this here. It's something our industry is really not taking seriously at all and needs more people pushing for.

As you mentioned company decisions have real racial effects, and those decisions are often made by homogeneous teams that lack diversity and perspective.

If anyone wants a recommendation for reading to build up some knowledge about these issues I would recommend reading "White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo. She does a great job breaking down lots of common misunderstandings white people have about race, and why those misunderstandings are created in the first place.

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

#113

Post by praneshp »

fersab wrote: post #70
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.

crossfit is like scientology of fitness

It's really not. I used to do it, and then quit it. Nobody even tried to armtwist me into not leaving (except for asking for 30-day notice)

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

#114

Post by praneshp »

giladoved wrote: post #66
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.

Great advice! Do you know of any links/resources to help develop skills 2 and 3?

In addition to the other replies, read up the wiki on r/personalfinance

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

#115

Post by westoque »

Learning more Math.

Contrary to popular belief that you don't need math to do "programming", you actually do need math to progress in said field. Whether you like it or not, Math will be a limitation when it comes to acquiring new knowledge in the computer field. For example, I've been wanting to do Machine Learning for awhile and it just so happened that you need a lot of Math to fully understand it. I've been reading the book "Machine Learning for Humans" and that book is amazing and can't recommend it enough. [0] They explain complex concepts in ever so simple sentences, but reading through the book, you see formulas and equations that are intimidating to the person that is not used to reading them. I would assume that a math major would have a different and opposite experience.

So yes, more math.

[0]: https://medium.com/machine-learning-for-humans

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

#116

Post by bilu144 »

mfazalul wrote: post #83

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…

I love calculus and stats. It's such a pity that I don't get to use them at work, but it's good to have the ability to use them. And keep trying hard beating anxiety and depression! No one can help you with this sort of battle except you. If you haven't read The Alchemist, I highly recommend this book.

Hope all goes well. Happy new year mate

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

#117

Post by sl1ck731 »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #40
finaliteration wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find many of my smart, technology friends don't really have a solid grasp of finances and economics. This describes me, unfortunately. I consider myself fairly smart, did well in college, tons of technical skills, but I am -terrible- with money. I keep a 12-month spreadsheet showing income and expenses for every pay period and one showing current debt, but beyond that I know I’m awful about it. A lot of it comes…

> I keep a 12-month spreadsheet showing income and expenses for every pay period and one showing current debt This means that you are not terrible with money. 90% of practical personal finance can be expressed as follows: expenses < income. The rest is implementation details.

Is there any benefit to doing this in a sheet rather than something like Mint?

I just check it occasionally to make sure my net worth increases month-over-month. Any financial decision like buying a car I take the net income average over time as potential spending bound.

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

#118

Post by AlexCoventry »

bitL wrote: post #31
avip wrote: post #13

Clairvoyance will become increasingly important in 2019.

Any hands-on MOOC for that out there? ;-)

Find a TV show where the protagonist is always right, like House. It will teach you all you need to know, and provide a healthy role model.

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

#119

Post by nikkwong »

bb88 wrote: post #37
lj3 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interesting. Thanks!

The other approach is through a copper ink such as this one: http://copprint.com/

This looks cool and could be a much easier solution than the aforementioned laser/printing setup. Judging from the website though it doesn’t look like they have a product ready to go, is that true, and are there any alternatives? It would be nice if there was a filament I could just plug into my 3D printer and start using :p

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

#120

Post by bb88 »

nikkwong wrote: post #119
bb88 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other approach is through a copper ink such as this one: http://copprint.com/

This looks cool and could be a much easier solution than the aforementioned laser/printing setup. Judging from the website though it doesn’t look like they have a product ready to go, is that true, and are there any alternatives? It would be nice if there was a filament I could just plug into my 3D printer and start using :p

I think googling "conductive" plus one of "3d filaments" or "t-shirt ink" or "epoxy" or "resin" or "nail polish" or "paint" is a good place to start.

I believe that company will probably sell the ink by the barrel full for industrial fabricators.

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