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Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

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Re: Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

#81

Post by bsaul »

thatcodingdude wrote: post #75
rexreed wrote: post #55

What are your goals in life?

Job-wise I'd love to find something more technical and less business/project oriented. I find myself not really caring about the end product but I love focusing on how things work. I've often been the only one enjoying debugging since it's more of a brain teaser than a business/product focus. Also the build/deploy part of dev interests me a lot. Also gotta get to a scratch golf handicap, but that's outside scope.

Ever tried following the « from nand to tetris » curriculum ?

I knew a few people (including myself) who dream of taking a few months off just to complete that course.

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

#82

Post by mucholove »

thatcodingdude wrote: post #39
speedgoose wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should learn C. Life is too short to struggle with C++ now that we have better alternatives such as Rust. You can also ignore the people who ignore the complexity of web apps. Classic C programs are very often much simpler than full web apps IMHO.

C it is then. Thanks for your input.

Happy you chose to learn C. That's exactly what I would recommend.

If you are so inclined, I'd look into how to write your own home-grown version of Objective-C—given that valid C is valid Objective-C.

Because then you would learn Smalltalk and the whole ladder of it all! Smalltalk is far and away one of the greatest joys on programming. :) http://objective.st

The "Gang of Four" explains the patterns in Smalltalk and in terms of entrepreneurship—Patrick Collison's first startup was written in Smalltalk and I think early introduction to it leads to the clean design and success you see coming from Stripe.

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

#83

Post by bluedevil2k »

a_imho wrote: post #32

Entrepreneurship? Getting more technical has a diminishing ROI after 10 years. Or something completely orthogonal to computing. Something you enjoy. For fun.

I disagree on this. A senior developer in any language will make far more, 2x-3x, what a junior developer will make.

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

#84

Post by jgwil2 »

qorrect wrote: post #67
haspok wrote: post #35

How about getting back to the basics? You know, taking some maths classes, CS fundamentals, algorithms, data structures, that kind of stuff. It is timeless, and if you are self-taught, I can guarantee you that you have massive holes in your knowledge. Also, might sound off topic, but learning a new language (not programming, human) could be an amazing step forward, in ways you cannot even imagine now.

> and if you are self-taught, I can guarantee you that you have massive holes in your knowledge Just curious, why is being self taught a guarantee for having massive holes ? Can you give some likely examples ?

Not OP, but I think there are two main reasons for this. Firstly if you are a professional you probably only had time to teach yourself what you needed for the job at hand. This is a great skill in and of itself but by definition it favors practice over theory. Secondly, if you're self-taught that means you didn't have a mentor and likely you don't know what you don't know. It's impossible to study topics you've never heard of, or whose connection to your field you're unaware of.

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

#85

Post by chrischattin »

erdos4d wrote: post #62

Please learn how to actually make money off web development and let me know how you do it. I've noticed a huge disconnect between what people think a web dev can/should make and what I've been able to get from it.

100% self-taught here. I change $150/hr for full stack Rails work and none of my clients have batted an eye at that. I’m thinking about raising my rates, actually.

If you know what you’re doing, I can assure you, making money is not going to be one if your problems.

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

#86

Post by selykg »

qorrect wrote: post #67
haspok wrote: post #35

How about getting back to the basics? You know, taking some maths classes, CS fundamentals, algorithms, data structures, that kind of stuff. It is timeless, and if you are self-taught, I can guarantee you that you have massive holes in your knowledge. Also, might sound off topic, but learning a new language (not programming, human) could be an amazing step forward, in ways you cannot even imagine now.

> and if you are self-taught, I can guarantee you that you have massive holes in your knowledge Just curious, why is being self taught a guarantee for having massive holes ? Can you give some likely examples ?

I think that in general you CAN learn and skip those holes if you have someone to guide you that already knows the subject well.

But as a person who may be really new to the subject of development and computer science I think it's obvious that without a lot of research and prep ahead of time you might start with a book or topic and keep moving forward, but you may not be exposed to all of the same things (some probably really useful, some are likely bullshit) that you'd get in a more structured learning environment.

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

#87

Post by sushshshsh »

qorrect wrote: post #70
a_imho wrote: post #32

Entrepreneurship? Getting more technical has a diminishing ROI after 10 years. Or something completely orthogonal to computing. Something you enjoy. For fun.

> Entrepreneurship? Getting more technical has a diminishing ROI after 10 years. Does anyone do anything just for the hell of it anymore, or is it all driven by money?

I'm driven by money because everything is getting more and more expensive :)

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

#88

Post by bdcravens »

thatcodingdude wrote: post #68
gitgud wrote: post #52

Have you considered open-source development? [1] All the languages and libraries you've listed are open-source projects started by someone like yourself. > "having done every type of CRUD under the sun - what do now" You have a lot of experience developing CRUD, why not build something that alleviates the pain of CRUDdy development. What annoys you? What sucks and could be done better? Anyway, just a thought. Good lu…

I'm far from being good enough to contribute to open-source projects unfortunately. I can make lots of things work but I don't know enough advanced patterns and low-level stuff to contribute in a meaningful and maintainable way.

You could start by triaging issues, something that is very tedious for maintainers, especially on small projects. More than that, you can look at each issue and try to see if you can identify the problems. You may find you are better than you think.

There isn't a level you need to be to contribute - it may feel like that because on higher profile projects most of the low hanging fruit has already been addressed.

Beyond that, there's a skill you learn here - practice communicating professionally (sometime people are submitting issues when they are extremely frustrated), concisely, and clearly (sometimes you need to speak highly technically, other times speaking with a management voice is needed)

In the same vein, there's plenty of poorly documented READMEs and wikis, other areas you can contribute, and skills that are very important.

Strong communication and writing skills can level you up over better developers.

(I'm a self taught developer from the late 90s)

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

#89

Post by joshribakoff »

thatcodingdude wrote: post #68
gitgud wrote: post #52

Have you considered open-source development? [1] All the languages and libraries you've listed are open-source projects started by someone like yourself. > "having done every type of CRUD under the sun - what do now" You have a lot of experience developing CRUD, why not build something that alleviates the pain of CRUDdy development. What annoys you? What sucks and could be done better? Anyway, just a thought. Good lu…

I'm far from being good enough to contribute to open-source projects unfortunately. I can make lots of things work but I don't know enough advanced patterns and low-level stuff to contribute in a meaningful and maintainable way.

What better way to learn then?
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