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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?

#262

Update your skills, php is hard to market, learn python or rails, that would have high roi

PHP is used a lot in France where I'm based, so that probably differs a bit from the US market.

However, the market will eventually change and it's better to be prepared. Plus with PHP being the mainstream I wouldn't be surprised if you could make better $$$ by going after the (still) relatively niche technologies.

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

#265

Suggestion: Dig in to the very bottom of your computing stack and get a working knowledge of your CPU, bootloader, OS kernel, system libraries, etc. Along the way, you will want to try: - Using a debugger to step through simple programs at the machine level and see what happens to the registers, stack, etc - Using tracing tools like strace (for Linux) to see what syscalls various programs issue (this is after you lea…

Do you recommend any books / courses that could help give me some sort of curriculum around this knowledge ? I unfortunately don't know what I don't know, so I'd need a bit of guidance to learn efficiently. Something like http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/ maybe ?

I really loved this book: https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softw...

Which goes from bits on up without shying away from circuit diagrams. It's also really well written and you can read it from start to finish.

It puts it in a historical context too which makes it fun to read.

Once you read that, they'll be fewer unknown unknowns.

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Rust has been recommended a bit in this thread so I'll check it out. Out of curiosity, what's the appeal of learning Rust ? What kind of projects do you use it for ? I find that I can solve mostly everything with a blend of PHP/JS, but I also never escaped web CRUDy stuff, and PHP is very well suited for these.

It's a general-purpose programming language, so it can be used for most projects. Most problems can be solved with most languages, sure, but rust is fast and "safe", so people flock to it. It has some nice features. Personally I never found myself besotted with it, in fact I rather dislike it and suggest ada instead. But rust is much more likely to get you a job.

Not sure about employability, at least here. A few months ago I searched for Rust job postings in Montreal (a decent-sized tech hub), and the only three results were Morgan Stanley accepting Rust as a "C++ or similar" language, and two listings for professional aircraft painters.

Still playing with it for funsies, though.

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

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you recommend any books / courses that could help give me some sort of curriculum around this knowledge ? I unfortunately don't know what I don't know, so I'd need a bit of guidance to learn efficiently. Something like http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/ maybe ?

Please feel free to privmail me and I will try to share some ideas.

[deleted]

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

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you recommend any books / courses that could help give me some sort of curriculum around this knowledge ? I unfortunately don't know what I don't know, so I'd need a bit of guidance to learn efficiently. Something like http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/ maybe ?

I really loved this book: https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softw... Which goes from bits on up without shying away from circuit diagrams. It's also really well written and you can read it from start to finish. It puts it in a historical context too which makes it fun to read. Once you read that, they'll be fewer unknown unknowns.

This is a far better idea than "Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces" as suggested by the OP.
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