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Poll: How do you learn new technologies?

news.ycombinator.com

41–50 of 50 posts

Re: Poll: How do you learn new technologies?

#41
post #12

Always build something. Nothing teaches you about a technologies limitations and benefits like building something with it. I don't think you really know a technology until you've build something with it.

Agreed for the most part, but might not work in all cases. For eg. Learning to use vim ....

Well, I learned vim by building something (using vim).

I just sucked it up and ran vim, then ran head first through the brick walls... That was years ago, and I'll never regret it.

Re: Poll: How do you learn new technologies?

#42
I find someone to pay me to build something using it. It's how I learned jQuery, Sinatra, Bootstrap. Bout to do the same with Angular and Rails.

I wish I could learn a tech from a book, but the signal-to-noise ratio is generally too low in the vast majority of books I see. I don't need a bunch of "recipes" or a disgustingly short bash rundown in a book on Ubuntu, I need clear, server-oriented insight into how the OS internals work, and what went into the underlying design decisions.

Every book on a programming language I pick up spends 90% of the time on basic stuff you could pick up in a few hours with the same language's "getting started" page. I'd love a teardown of the source code with commentary on the intentions of the language designer. I don't want a gentle introduction, that's just a waste of my time. I've already introduced myself with a dozen or so hours of playing around and reading docs. But the people that could write useful things about technologies generally aren't. Or maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

Re: Poll: How do you learn new technologies?

#44

I find someone to pay me to build something using it. It's how I learned jQuery, Sinatra, Bootstrap. Bout to do the same with Angular and Rails. I wish I could learn a tech from a book, but the signal-to-noise ratio is generally too low in the vast majority of books I see. I don't need a bunch of "recipes" or a disgustingly short bash rundown in a book on Ubuntu, I need clear, server-oriented insight into how the OS…

> I find someone to pay me to build something using it.

Sounds good to me. Where do you look for this person? And how do you sell yourself developing in a tech in which you have no experience?

Re: Poll: How do you learn new technologies?

#45

I find someone to pay me to build something using it. It's how I learned jQuery, Sinatra, Bootstrap. Bout to do the same with Angular and Rails. I wish I could learn a tech from a book, but the signal-to-noise ratio is generally too low in the vast majority of books I see. I don't need a bunch of "recipes" or a disgustingly short bash rundown in a book on Ubuntu, I need clear, server-oriented insight into how the OS…

> I find someone to pay me to build something using it. Sounds good to me. Where do you look for this person? And how do you sell yourself developing in a tech in which you have no experience?

Current employers, freelance clients. I don't sell myself on the basis of what frameworks I know, I sell myself based on my accomplishments. When I do get a project, I'll always work in something I want to learn. Selling on my accomplishments tends to give me the leeway to make these kinds of choices on the stack being used.

Re: Poll: How do you learn new technologies?

#47
post #46

I am surprised to see the "work with a mentor" option having such a low score. Don't you guys learn from each other?

Speaking only for myself, I'd love nothing more than to work with a mentor, but I have no idea where to find one with both the time to dedicate and the relevant skills. Nor am I sure how I would fit it into my work schedule.

Re: Poll: How do you learn new technologies?

#48
post #47
post #46

I am surprised to see the "work with a mentor" option having such a low score. Don't you guys learn from each other?

Speaking only for myself, I'd love nothing more than to work with a mentor, but I have no idea where to find one with both the time to dedicate and the relevant skills. Nor am I sure how I would fit it into my work schedule.

Perhaps "mentor" does not paint quite the right picture, but working with smart people (and solid professionals) rubs off, and that, in my experience, has been very useful.

Re: Poll: How do you learn new technologies?

#49
post #46

I am surprised to see the "work with a mentor" option having such a low score. Don't you guys learn from each other?

I think it's the best answer, but it's also the hardest to accomplish.

So many times I'm like "WTF is this tool? Why would I want it?"

Re: Poll: How do you learn new technologies?

#50
post #38

1. Hear about cool new technology for the 3rd time, this time seeing a clear application for how it could be used 2. Get really excited and go to technology's homepage.io 3. Get 40% through homepage.io's tutorial before I get frustrated and confused 4. Shelve new technology away in my brain as a list of potential things I could build something with 5. Months later, get a really Cool Idea for something I could build w…

Do it in one line? Javascript callback functions don't count as "one line". :)

I mean, you could technically do a callback function in one line.
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