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I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

rachsmith.com

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Re: I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

#11

Post by shoo »

Recently I've been lucky enough to work on a software project that requires a bunch of probabilistic calculations -- so I've been needing to learn about and apply one-dimensional numerical root finding methods that were state of the art in the _seventeenth century_, and still highly applicable today [1].

Maybe a tactic could be to figure out roles or niches where a relatively larger proportion of the work involves dealing with problems or aspects of reality that change at a relatively slow rate (physical laws? logical axioms? geology? human biology?), and where you can spend a greater fraction of your time working from first principles and accumulating depth and breadth of knowledge with a longer half-life of usefulness.

On another hand, there can be a good living in helping address supply / demand imbalances in the market for $latest trendy ephemeral thing.

[1] amusingly, today you can freely download a PDF of the method, as it was published in the original latin: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1694.002...

Re: I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

#12

Post by hutzlibu »

peterkelly wrote: post #4

Obsession with the latest frameworks and the proclivity to refer to someone as an "X developer" for some X ∈ {popular frameworks} is a sign of ignorance/immaturity, both for developers and hiring managers. Those with a solid understanding of the underlying principles (both computer science theory and, in the case of front-end development, the core web standards) are the best positioned to make the most impactful cont…

"Focus on mastering stuff that doesn't change, or changes slowly. Otherwise what you learn will be irrelevant five years from now."

After you followed the x. technology trend, you should have worked out the basic concepts behind them at some point, if you not just copy pasted and edited until something somewhat worked. They are seldom really fundamentally different. So every (necessary) technology change in the future becomes more easy.

(but you might feel less motivated for unnecessary, but mandated change, that just reinvented the wheel in yet another color)

Re: I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

#13

Post by codycraven »

spoiler wrote: post #2

I love her attitude, and I think mine's similar. Main difference being that I usually enjoy the learning experience; don't find it frustrating. I kinda love that beginner feeling and knowing there's lots to explore. Even if I end up disliking what I'm trying, I usually manage to find things I learned from it; so it's still good! Edit: To anyone wondering about the comments, I initially assumed the author was a guy! M…

Definitely can agree with the sentiment. I've done frontend dev since '97 and have multiple times skipped a year or two without staying up-to-date with the current browser/development trends without issue.

It's generally pretty trivial to keep up and maintain usefulness by focusing on the fundamentals (I completely skipped the DHTML fad for example -- lots of widgets you could throw into your page that animated around) and instead picked up JS DOM API and CSS once browser support stabilized a bit.

---

Just a note, when I visited the page there's a small bio intro on the post that introduces Rach as a woman.

Re: I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

#14

Post by stolenmerch »

I've definitely been caught in the trap of chasing frameworks. What finally cured me of it was to go as deep into the JavaScript language as possible. Not sure if this works for everyone, but once I spent a lot of time learning the language under-the-hood, the shininess of the hot new framework or library lost its luster and I was able to focus on what I actually needed to accomplish.

Re: I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

#15

Post by denvaar »

crazy_horse wrote: post #5
peterkelly wrote: post #4

Obsession with the latest frameworks and the proclivity to refer to someone as an "X developer" for some X ∈ {popular frameworks} is a sign of ignorance/immaturity, both for developers and hiring managers. Those with a solid understanding of the underlying principles (both computer science theory and, in the case of front-end development, the core web standards) are the best positioned to make the most impactful cont…

It's also a big part of the hype cycle that is an actual industry with Patreon etc now. The first rule you should remember when reading HN is the real world is not HN.

> The first rule you should remember when reading HN is the real world is not HN.

Can you explain what you mean by that?

Re: I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

#16

Post by omegalulw »

peterkelly wrote: post #4

Obsession with the latest frameworks and the proclivity to refer to someone as an "X developer" for some X ∈ {popular frameworks} is a sign of ignorance/immaturity, both for developers and hiring managers. Those with a solid understanding of the underlying principles (both computer science theory and, in the case of front-end development, the core web standards) are the best positioned to make the most impactful cont…

> Focus on mastering stuff that doesn't change, or changes slowly.

AKA Fundamentals :)

Re: I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

#17

Post by spoiler »

codycraven wrote: post #13
spoiler wrote: post #2

I love her attitude, and I think mine's similar. Main difference being that I usually enjoy the learning experience; don't find it frustrating. I kinda love that beginner feeling and knowing there's lots to explore. Even if I end up disliking what I'm trying, I usually manage to find things I learned from it; so it's still good! Edit: To anyone wondering about the comments, I initially assumed the author was a guy! M…

Definitely can agree with the sentiment. I've done frontend dev since '97 and have multiple times skipped a year or two without staying up-to-date with the current browser/development trends without issue. It's generally pretty trivial to keep up and maintain usefulness by focusing on the fundamentals (I completely skipped the DHTML fad for example -- lots of widgets you could throw into your page that animated aroun…

Ah, thank you for pointing it out. I had a brain fart. I edited and explained in the comment.

Re: I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

#18

Post by spoiler »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #7
spoiler wrote: post #2

I love her attitude, and I think mine's similar. Main difference being that I usually enjoy the learning experience; don't find it frustrating. I kinda love that beginner feeling and knowing there's lots to explore. Even if I end up disliking what I'm trying, I usually manage to find things I learned from it; so it's still good! Edit: To anyone wondering about the comments, I initially assumed the author was a guy! M…

> this guy The author isn’t a guy! I agree otherwise, it’s refreshing perspective. I spent a few years fairly deep in backend work and worried quite a bit about going back to the front. Ultimately it ended up being a valuable break and pretty much all of the important things I’d learned before were still totally transferable. I think as long as you’re learning something, regardless of the discipline, your brain will…

Hi! Thank you so much for pointing out it's not a man! I thought it was "Lucas", because of the comment . I've updated my comment to reflect that.

I also completely agree that it's a much bigger picture and that life situation plays a giant role in it.

Re: I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

#20

Post by spoiler »

denvaar wrote: post #10
spoiler wrote: post #2

I love her attitude, and I think mine's similar. Main difference being that I usually enjoy the learning experience; don't find it frustrating. I kinda love that beginner feeling and knowing there's lots to explore. Even if I end up disliking what I'm trying, I usually manage to find things I learned from it; so it's still good! Edit: To anyone wondering about the comments, I initially assumed the author was a guy! M…

Yo, she's a woman.

Hello! Thank you for pointing that out! I was a bit silly and somehow came to the (wrong) conclusion that "Lucas" (the first commenter) was the name of the author... I don't even know what to say lol. I just went a bit derp there.
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