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Today’s Top Tech Skills

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Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#31

Post by mattlondon »

yamrzou wrote: post #15

I’m thinking about the future. What skills will dominate the software market 10-20 years from now? - Big companies use C++ heavily, besides being the language for deep learning/GPU programming. Will Rust/Go replace it anytime soon? - Will React still dominate front end development? - What about Python and the data analysis ecosystem?

React might go away, but javascript/typescript will probably be a good bet for the next 10 years (who knows beyond that).

I'd like to think that people will come to their senses about Python and use sensible languages for ML + data once they relearn all the problems that software engineers learnt about it all that time ago (fast development != reliable/maintainable development, fast development != easily-scaled development with teams of 10+ etc)

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#33

Post by kweinber »

ravenstine wrote: post #3

I don't really understand the desire for skills to be in high demand. Obviously, you want your skills to be in demand in some capacity . But putting so much emphasis on whether some tech skill is a winner on a scoreboard can give people the wrong impression about other languages and technologies that appear to either be unpopular or dying. It's reassuring that Java and SQL are still in high demand after all these yea…

Library depth and growth are side-effects of a language ecosystems popularity.

It doesn’t mean that all libraries are good ones, but remember the open-source rallying cry “many eyes make all bugs shallow”? Yeah, that tends to be true.

Also, in-demand technologies tend to have a larger talent-pool to choose from. Not everyone is good, but you have a much better time finding the right skills and cultural fit if the talent pool is larger.

A great example counter example is elixir... A technology with a lot of advocacy but almost no demand. Slow library growth, almost no programmers with production experience, and almost no market demand... which is a self-perpetuating cycle. Choosing a technology like that for your stack is like buying an obsolete car with impossible to find parts.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#34

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

_bxg1 wrote: post #14

It remains weird and disturbing to me that "AWS" is treated as a skill. Not "cloud system management", but " AWS ". Edit: I do understand why it can be lucrative to have expertise with a specific cloud provider. It's just the status quo of these services being their own unique silos that disturbs me: I would personally be wary of making "ability to effectively use Amazon's servers" a pillar of my career.

Having spent some time in AWS, it’s not to me. I get it. You can “learn AWS”.

Strictly talking policies, there is a lot to know there. Gotchas abound. Things that don’t transfer at all outside their ecosystem and I assume vice versa to azure or etc.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#36

Post by _bxg1 »

auspex wrote: post #27
_bxg1 wrote: post #14

It remains weird and disturbing to me that "AWS" is treated as a skill. Not "cloud system management", but " AWS ". Edit: I do understand why it can be lucrative to have expertise with a specific cloud provider. It's just the status quo of these services being their own unique silos that disturbs me: I would personally be wary of making "ability to effectively use Amazon's servers" a pillar of my career.

The skill sets needed for the three big cloud providers are very different. At a high level it seems the same... VMs, VPC, Firewalls etc. but they all are configured and managed differently on each platform. You need the experience as an AWS, GCP or Azure expert.

Then it's disturbing that they're so non-standardized. I personally wouldn't want to spend a bunch of time becoming an expert in a skill that only applies to one company's physical servers.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#37

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

_bxg1 wrote: post #16
murukesh_s wrote: post #13

Java is still undisputed in the enterprise. Node.js was a contender but lost steam. May be .net once it becomes truly platform neutral have a chance to take on Java. Until then most probably it will remain widely popular.

I figured that was mostly due to legacy code at this point; is it undisputed for new code too?

I can only speak from experience, but I know two large corporate entities that used Java and have over the years dropped it in favor of Go and websites.

Edit: i like how my first hand experience is disagreeable and should be hidden. This site gets STRANGE with facts that users just don’t want to see.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#38

Post by _bxg1 »

dharmab wrote: post #20
_bxg1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I figured that was mostly due to legacy code at this point; is it undisputed for new code too?

There are few competitors that have strong, static typing, great test tooling and broad library support.

I guess "great test tooling" and "broad library support" are subjective, but there are several contenders these days that I would say might fit those criteria

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#39

Post by jackcodes »

dathinab wrote: post #25

In the recent two or so years I was surprised to see how many people don't _really_ know about SQL. Sure they can write a simple insert and update query and maybe a join, assuming they can just ignore that there actually are different types of joins. But if you ask them about other _still fundamental_ knowledge like a _rough_ idea about what the different transaction isolation level are/mean/imply for you, they fail…

You really don’t need to know transaction isolation to do the vast majority of work on a typical web app.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#40

Post by chrisseaton »

_bxg1 wrote: post #36
auspex wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skill sets needed for the three big cloud providers are very different. At a high level it seems the same... VMs, VPC, Firewalls etc. but they all are configured and managed differently on each platform. You need the experience as an AWS, GCP or Azure expert.

Then it's disturbing that they're so non-standardized. I personally wouldn't want to spend a bunch of time becoming an expert in a skill that only applies to one company's physical servers.

Why would they standardise? They see their way of doing things as their competitive advantage - they each think their approach is better.

Maybe you don’t understand how much people spend on these services? If you’re spending a million dollars a month on AWS then it pays to have a few people who focus on AWS full time and know it intimately.

I really don’t think you need to let yourself get disturbed by this.

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