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Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

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Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#401

Post by scarface74 »

madhadron wrote: post #389
scarface74 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can pick up the syntax of the language. The ecosystem surrounding the language is a different story. I might be able to pick up Swift in as little as two weeks that doesn’t mean I could be a competent iOS or Mac developer. The same applies to Java and Java + iOS. The number of shops that still care about native desktop software has been dwindling weekly. Why would someone hire a developer who has no history of…

> The ecosystem surrounding the language is a different story. Is it? If you're being hired to worked in a particular setting, the choices from that ecosystem have probably been made. If there are really new abstractions that's one thing, but that's rarely the case. If you're being asked to make choices in a new ecosystem, that's different. But I think you also over estimate the depth of these ecosystems. > Why would…

Ecosystem as in knowing Java and Android. Knowing C# and Entity Framework/ASP.Net. Knowing Swift and iOS.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#402

Post by scarface74 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #380
scarface74 wrote: post #133

For context, I’m 45, but was an “expert beginner” staying at one company for over a decade before I took my career seriously a little over a decade ago. I also don’t live on the west coast where both salaries and the cost of living are both far beyond normal. My experience from being in the job market frequently, watching trends, talking to people in the industry locally and recruiters, is that it doesn’t take more t…

This makes me wonder - what do you plan to learn in 2020? What do you see as in that phase now? As someone that is nearly 40 and has a family your goals seem fairly in line with mine. Not enough time to follow all the new hype, but need to keep up to stay employable.

I spent the last two or three years learning all of the core fiddly bits of AWS. In 2020, my goals are more about “sharpening the saw” by going deeper in C#/.Net Core and the related frameworks, Typescript and Python.

Also focusing on documentation, architectural diagramming and communicating more clearly with non technical people - “the business”.

I’m hedging bets between preparing for a “right now” job or contract as an engineer if things go sideways and the “right job” when the time comes as overpriced consultant working for a consulting company.

Most of my time studying outside of work is done by watching videos on my AppleTV in my home gym while working out. Luckily, now part of my job is what they call unofficially “special operations” - to do proof of concepts using a technology and coming up with documentation and deployment strategies.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#403

Post by alimw »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #217
Dowwie wrote: post #76

Learn how to really use a relational database, relational data modeling, and SQL. Not knowing of their capabilities may lead you to unnecessarily complicating your tech stack. You can go a really long way with just this domain of expertise. From there, do the same with whatever key-value store interests you (for me, it's Redis). Python isn't known for high performance but when a django web app uses a cache and relati…

I inherited a code base that has major issues stemming from the developers not realizing what postgres can do. It's reliant on Kafka with a bizarrely complex queue system for answering questions from users automatically in a distributed, scalable fashion. It has schema-less messages shooting around referencing database rows and tables with zero certainty that anything will exist when the message arrives. It works, bu…

This is exactly what I'd expect of something called Kafka.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#404

Post by simplecto »

Let's go in another direction here, away from a lot of the hype and cargo cult. I will suggest IntercoolerJS [1] and TurboLinks [2]. These are simple javascript libraries that let you do much of the slick in-dom updates without all the hassle of build pipelines, JSX, or functional paradigms.

I have deployed this in production for clinical trials applications as well as into side projects. Using this with Django means I have a lean, mean, and simple stack without a complicated build or deployment process.

[1] - https://github.com/turbolinks/turbolinks

[2] - https://intercoolerjs.org

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#405

Post by paul_d »

mfateev wrote: post #203

Learn Cadence Workflow ( https://cadenceworkflow.io/ ). It implements a new way to build distributed systems using fault tolerant virtual memory. It lowers the complexity bar for hardcore backend programming by eliminating the need for managing the application state through databases and queues.

This has been so useful for us. This gives us the ability to write synchronous code that can literally fall asleep for days, wake back up and run some more stuff, fall back asleep, and be totally scalable. It changes the game.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#406

Post by unk1102 »

Dowwie wrote: post #76

Learn how to really use a relational database, relational data modeling, and SQL. Not knowing of their capabilities may lead you to unnecessarily complicating your tech stack. You can go a really long way with just this domain of expertise. From there, do the same with whatever key-value store interests you (for me, it's Redis). Python isn't known for high performance but when a django web app uses a cache and relati…

+1 My focus is on OLAP data modelling SQL. Just curious do you know any practical data modelling learning tools?

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#407

Post by madhadron »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #391
madhadron wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no theory behind testable code. Mathematical theory exists only for formal methods. > Dependency injection with mocks is the one I hear about the most Correction, you don't happen to know the theory. Nor is it a mathematically super complicated theory. It's not a replacement for formal methods. The heuristic I use is "formal methods as far as can be straightforwardly done, tests thereafter." It boils down t…

>If I have a parameter that is a list, then the boundary (empty list, one element list, two element list) needs to be probed carefully but in most cases the bulk (fifty element list vs fifty one element list) just needs a couple of samples Isn't this just a design methodology? You set the boundary parameter as the beginning elements and you arbitrarily choose a sample of a 50 element list. I wouldn't call this theory…

> You set the boundary parameter as the beginning elements and you arbitrarily choose a sample of a 50 element list.

That isn't what I was trying to express. I was saying you would use: [], [5], [12, 3], and then a few long lists.

> I would think it would be the same as the theory behind science/experimentation in general: probability.

Probability isn't the underlying theory behind experiment selection in general. It's used in what's called design of experiments in statistics to calculate optimal sampling points for continuous variates, but if you look at what scientists actually do to choose what experiments to run, it is not based in probability.

> Can you point me to a resource explaining the trace assertion method?

There are a bunch of papers. A quick Google search should suffice.

> Your talking about using some method (Parnas's) to modularize external services like IO away from testable logic

No, I'm saying that you can use the trace assertion method to produce a description of a service that is amenable to choosing a set of test conditions the way you would for a list or a tree.

> You talk about a function that takes two variables then you suddenly say f takes all three.

No, I'm saying it takes two parameters, but we let each parameter accept all three of seconds since an epoch, a relative time reference, e.g., "2 days ago" or a text description "march 15, 2019".

The size of a test plan is the number of conditions to run. N is a constant characterizing the test plan. This is just a scaling argument so it kind of doesn't matter.

> From what I can make out you're overall reducing the cardinality of the types of the parameters to a function but it's not clear to me exactly how or what you're doing.

I was just trying to give an example. Obviously failed.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#408

Post by ryanmercer »

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #283

I'm an Eng Manager and half of my learning time in 2020 will be focused on developing better management/leadership skills. It's something I've found comes with little mentorship opportunities in tech and is also hard to find others to reach out to / network with for mentorship opportunities. The other half / pure tech - taking on some of the stack that has largely been abstracted by other teams as I've worked, namely…

>I'm an Eng Manager and half of my learning time in 2020 will be focused on developing better management/leadership skills. It's something I've found comes with little mentorship opportunities in tech and is also hard to find others to reach out to / network with for mentorship opportunities.

What is your plan for this?

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#409

Post by vearwhershuh »

simplecto wrote: post #404

Let's go in another direction here, away from a lot of the hype and cargo cult. I will suggest IntercoolerJS [1] and TurboLinks [2]. These are simple javascript libraries that let you do much of the slick in-dom updates without all the hassle of build pipelines, JSX, or functional paradigms. I have deployed this in production for clinical trials applications as well as into side projects. Using this with Django means…

Thanks for mentioning intercooler! I think a lot of people would benefit from adding it to their toolbelt in 2020.

Re: Ask HN: What Technologies to Learn in 2020?

#410

Post by quelsolaar »

jointpdf wrote: post #122
quelsolaar wrote: post #57

Mathematics. Its Probably just another fad that will prove worthless next year, but I'm jumping on the band wagon for now.

> Probably just another fad that will prove worthless next year Sorry, my humor detector is a little out of tune this morning. This is sarcasm right?

Yes
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