Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 27 posts

Ask HN: I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

#1

Post by basdevries »

I'm a junior dev working for freelance clients and working on my own projects. I've noticed that in the recent couple of months, I've not progressed as well as I hoped I would.

Yes, I gained experience and whenever I'm going to work with framework x again, I'll be a lot quicker. However, I don't have full insight in the tradeoffs that I'm making when chosing a certain architecture for example. I'll just code what seems logical in my head, and build further upon that.

I'm mostly coding in OO languages. Should I focus on programming concepts? Should I dive deeper into API methods?

Also, Since I'm able to 'build', there's the fact that spending more time on figuring out what approach is best, I'm developing on a lower pace.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

#2

Post by valarauca1 »

If you want to grow as a developer the best thing to learn is normally always the same.

Data Structures.

Nothing will help you more in interviews, day-to-day dev work, general problem solving, and even application planning. The goal is eventually to transition your mindset into thinking about structures holding your data, and how they act, and interact. Once you do this the optimal architecture, and what you need to write as code becomes clear as day (really regardless of the language).

Re: Ask HN: I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

#4

Post by basdevries »

valarauca1 wrote: post #2

If you want to grow as a developer the best thing to learn is normally always the same. Data Structures. Nothing will help you more in interviews, day-to-day dev work, general problem solving, and even application planning. The goal is eventually to transition your mindset into thinking about structures holding your data, and how they act, and interact. Once you do this the optimal architecture, and what you need to…

How should one go about 'training' that? Is it experience, or are there books etc? I'd love to dive into that.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

#5

Post by valarauca1 »

basdevries wrote: post #4
valarauca1 wrote: post #2

If you want to grow as a developer the best thing to learn is normally always the same. Data Structures. Nothing will help you more in interviews, day-to-day dev work, general problem solving, and even application planning. The goal is eventually to transition your mindset into thinking about structures holding your data, and how they act, and interact. Once you do this the optimal architecture, and what you need to…

How should one go about 'training' that? Is it experience, or are there books etc? I'd love to dive into that.

Tons of online resources. Books are all a bit dense. The ones I'll suggest are bit hard to get into, I'm a huge fan of The Art of Computer Programming Vol 1-3 all a master piece, but very very dense, very very mathy and challenging even if you've taken college level discrete mathematics courses. But a HUGE amount of the field is contained within them, and the information density is staggering. Donald Knuth's writing is just absolutely brilliant and pointed in places.

Simply searching on Amazon, "Your language of choice" + Algorithms/Data Structures I.E.: "Javascript Algorithsm", "Ruby Data Structures", "Java Algorithms", etc.. Will likely pull up a few options, check reviews, find something in your price range and read it.

A lot of it is self study. Just be willing to explore docs, watch videos, a lot of reading, try things out on your own.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

#6

Post by jimkri »

basdevries wrote: post #4
valarauca1 wrote: post #2

If you want to grow as a developer the best thing to learn is normally always the same. Data Structures. Nothing will help you more in interviews, day-to-day dev work, general problem solving, and even application planning. The goal is eventually to transition your mindset into thinking about structures holding your data, and how they act, and interact. Once you do this the optimal architecture, and what you need to…

How should one go about 'training' that? Is it experience, or are there books etc? I'd love to dive into that.

There are tons of books on Data Structures, a lot of them are super interesting too. You can Google data structures and algorithm books, and you will get a crazy amount. I have a good amount because I just finished the class in school. One of the books I like is Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition. There's also a lot of college's that have the course and all of their assignments are online if you wanted to do them. They are super interesting, like binary search trees are cool, hash tables and the hash functions, linked list, graphs and the algorithms that go along with them. Are so interesting and once you know them they can lead to so much stuff, its exciting.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

#7

Post by valarauca1 »

niche wrote: post #3

Keep reading Hacker News, cross your fingers and learn Haskell

I really do support your last statement (even if you made it as a joke).

OP stated s/he comes from an OOP background, and expanding into FP is a big step into expanding the ways you think about programming, and gives you new tools to solve problems with.

My job is still OOP, but the experience I've gained learning FP has helped me a lot to come up with different solutions I may have never thought up before.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

#8

Post by JSeymourATL »

> I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

Beyond technologies-- Focus on building a solid consulting practice, client management, how to prospect & pitch new business. Recommend reading Alan Weiss, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/260218.Million_Dollar_Con...

Re: Ask HN: I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

#9

Post by basdevries »

valarauca1 wrote: post #7
niche wrote: post #3

Keep reading Hacker News, cross your fingers and learn Haskell

I really do support your last statement (even if you made it as a joke). OP stated s/he comes from an OOP background, and expanding into FP is a big step into expanding the ways you think about programming, and gives you new tools to solve problems with. My job is still OOP, but the experience I've gained learning FP has helped me a lot to come up with different solutions I may have never thought up before.

I am excited to dive into FP, however, there doesn't seem to be a 'good' language yet. I noticed that oCaml is running up but that's still a bit too much 'scientific' as you might say. eg it doesn't really come close to anything web/app related. If I'm wrong, please tell me! I'd love to do FP.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a solo junior dev, what should i focus on?

#10

Post by valarauca1 »

basdevries wrote: post #9
valarauca1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do support your last statement (even if you made it as a joke). OP stated s/he comes from an OOP background, and expanding into FP is a big step into expanding the ways you think about programming, and gives you new tools to solve problems with. My job is still OOP, but the experience I've gained learning FP has helped me a lot to come up with different solutions I may have never thought up before.

I am excited to dive into FP, however, there doesn't seem to be a 'good' language yet. I noticed that oCaml is running up but that's still a bit too much 'scientific' as you might say. eg it doesn't really come close to anything web/app related. If I'm wrong, please tell me! I'd love to do FP.

Common LISP is a great language, but it spoils you since it has so few restrictions, its kinda in a class of its own because its just so unrestricted.

Scala is a fine language, but limited, largely serves as gate way drug to other FP languages. Its a very good starting point.

Haskell is odd and the type system is I feel restrictive. Also the community is really addicted to big mathy words. I do love its notation at the same time :\

F# is pretty much universally loved (from what I gather, I haven't used it myself), and now that the .NET run time is unbolted from windows it might start gaining traction.

oCaml I haven't used so I can't comment.

Erlang is VERY popular, especially with the backend FP crowd since it does concurrency very simply. I haven't used it.

Post reply on HN