Ask HN: As a Full stack developer how do you keep up with all the technologies

I'm not saying you can only know a couple of frameworks, but it 's hard to be an expert in Python/Django, Ruby/Rails, Node.js and Java. You can do the same for frontend stuff. For example: I think it's a better option to be a Django and Angular.js expert, good at Node.js and Backbone.js.. and kind of ignore projects related to Java, Rails, Ember, React etc. You can pick anything you want, it's just an example. You can still work on side-projects with the trendy stuff and migrate depending on your interests and the market, but you shouldn't transition into new things every month. Just my 2 cents, best of luck. :)

The vast majority of things in webdev land work similarly to something else. The trick is to learn the underlying pattern and then just remember the parts that make a specific implementation of the idea different. The exception tends to be platform extension (the wordpress/joomla stuff you mention) where every platform has it's own patterns and thought process and I just write off as project overhead.

That is the point.

You should assess critically why you can't remember.

It means either you lack knowledge in underlying abstractions OR the map is wrong.

So, you have to orthogonal thinking to do:

- reinforce your capacitive memory by echoing to other concepts (analogy); - or not remembering inconsistent technologies.

I love the map idea: when learning a new technology try to see it as a map.

Follow blindly the analogy. If it is easy to remember and it works it is good technology.

Else, it may mean the technology is shitty or you lack other intermediates abstractions.

Knowing if it is you or the frameworks that sucks is daily challenge, but I can give you an hint: most modern techs are neither modern nor technology; most of them are pure marketing hype of broken tools.

At the end of the day, a lot of the details end up on the mental cutting room floor, there's no getting out of it. If you can't specialize, get used to a bit of Swiss cheese brain, but hopefully retaining the 10000 foot overview so you pick the technology back up reasonably fast next time.

The only things that have really helped:

Key takeaways go into a Deck in Anki (spaced repetition).

Lots of notes and/or screenshots in Google Docs for easy searches. (still haven't embraced Evernote)

Bookmarks in Firefox with tags.

Teach someone what you just learned.

One frustration in particular is the time spent wading through minutiae instead of creating something with impact. But sometimes that's part of what we get paid for, navigating / remedying the pain points. Anyone can (eventually) slog through most development technologies, but adding understanding and context and utility to it, that's where the challenge lies.

Heinlein said something to the effect of "specialization is for insects," but increasingly the bulk of world seems to be leaning that way. There's nothing wrong with specialization, but choose wisely. Check out Google Trends on a few technologies over the past 10 years and see their rise and fall.

I don't. I understand the principles of the stuff I use and can draw upon past experience to analogize to new stuff. Like, despite what a lot of the Node community will tell you, a Reactor model on N threads (where their N = 1) is not new. I saw it in Java, with Netty, most of a decade ago and you see it today, albeit abstracted from you a little, in Play. At a gig last year, I was able to build out a plan of attack for scaling out a Ruby web server infrastructure pretty easily (despite not knowing Ruby or Rails) when I learned that EventMachine was yet another similar system. At some point, the principles stick, and the stuff on the surface just chances. And that--whatever. You can pick that stuff up and set it aside whenever.

Wordpress? Just another CMS.

Joomla? Just another CMS.

JSON? Just another interchange format.

That said, I'm convinced at this point that, barring the very occasional unicorn, measuring yourself against other people who claim to be "full stack developers" is really just a way to make yourself feel bad. "Full stack developers" are stupefyingly rare, despite every startup you see on here trying to say otherwise. It's the new "rockstar" or "ninja". I used to call myself one, but I was a liar. My "stack" skills include "debugging MySQL with gdb and strace" (this has happened, and it was terrible), but doesn't include "JavaScript flavor of the week" because I just have no interest in it. Other folks are more than happy to keep up on the cutting edge of JavaScript, but their conception of a "stack" ends at "well, I tried to configure nginx and it didn't work" (or even higher than that, at "Rails did X but I don't feel comfortable diving in and figuring out why").

Just do what you can, and don't beat yourself up over what you can't.