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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?

#101

Post by damidekronik »

ifarhanp wrote: post #74
mesaframe wrote: post #47

I read this book. https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications... And it was really enlightening. I would heavily recommend it. It starts off by teaching different types of implementations of different parts of DBMS. Then goes on to teaching about how distributed systems deal with various problems.

i'm a mobile application developer aspiring to learn backend. will this be a good read for me if i have negligible experience on server side of things?

Not really in my opinion, the book is really about the data aspect. Probably your best bet is to just pick your favourite programming language and build something in it.

The book is great but not what you seem to be looking for.

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

#102

Post by thatcodingdude »

bsaul wrote: post #81
thatcodingdude wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Funny you should mention it, I'm 3 chapters deep in nand to tetris on coursera. It's a great course.

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

#103

Post by mariocesar »

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.

Find a project that you like, and want to support. You could write a blog post about this, a guide, a historical review of the project, a list of people/companies using it. etc.

Most open-source projects need communication attention more than programming work.

You will do a great helping giving attention to an opensource project.

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

#104

Post by monoideism »

andai wrote: post #43
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.

Re: human languages I recently discovered that it is possible to learn Latin by listening to it. I struggle getting through written material so I had given up on my dream of learning Latin, until I found out there's audiobooks [0] and even YouTube channels where people speak it! [1] [0]: Lingua Latina per se illustrata by Hans Ørberg, also available in audio -- this one's entirely in Latin, yet I could understand the…

My observation about most of the new spoken Latin courses and lessons is that they're teaching Vulgar Latin or something akin to early medieval Latin.

That's cool, and very interesting. As you alluded to, you're basically learning proto-Romance.

However, as you likely know, people should not expect to be able to read classical Latin based on that knowledge. They should be able to read many medieval Latin works (including many notable scientific works!), but forget Cicero, Ovid, or Tacitus. Those will require significant additional study.

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

#105

Post by XCSme »

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 ?

Because when you learn alone you don't know what to learn. You usually only learn what you need now.

I would not say "massive holes", as that would somewhat imply that this knowledge would be actually required, even though it's usually the optional, nice-to-have knowledge that you are getting from an actual CS degree.

You can still create whatever you imagine even if you are self-taught, but going through university would make it a lot more likely that you understand better the tools that you are using (algorithms, microprocessors, logic gates, electricity, quantum effects, etc.) so you will better know how to use them and what their limitations are.

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

#106

Post by criddell »

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.

You might find it interesting to write some native macOS or Windows software (ie using the native GUI library). If you've mostly focused on web software you might find the different strengths and constraints of truly native code inspiring.

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

#107

Post by erklik »

chrischattin wrote: post #85
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.

I have been trying to do this, and my biggest problem seems to be actually finding clients. After exhausting my social circle asking for work, it seems really hard to land a client. I am not even able to get anyone on the phone, and all emails are ignored.

Any suggestions?

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

#108

Post by pauletienney »

I was in the same situation. I have done CRUDs for years and finally got longer projects (2 years). I am now facing much more techy problems : recommandation engine, OCR, search engine, simple geographical functions, etc.

It is much more fun, also much more complicated.

My first take would be to learn ElasticSearch, to get a new superpower (it is how it felt to me) and compliment your CRUD expertise. My 2 cents.

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

#109

Post by nwsm »

ifarhanp wrote: post #74
mesaframe wrote: post #47

I read this book. https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications... And it was really enlightening. I would heavily recommend it. It starts off by teaching different types of implementations of different parts of DBMS. Then goes on to teaching about how distributed systems deal with various problems.

i'm a mobile application developer aspiring to learn backend. will this be a good read for me if i have negligible experience on server side of things?

You would definitely benefit from doing general backend side projects and reading before reading this book. I don't think you'll have enough context for it otherwise.

However, the book is definitely relevant to mobile applications. The backends for all the most popular apps are built with systems described in it.

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