Ask HN: What to learn next | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What to learn next

3 pointsbuthow3 comments

I picked up rails in 2010, right when rails 3 came out. I've been doing it ever since. I want to keep upskilling myself, however, I can't seem to pick which of the new techs is going to dominate in the future. What would be the best thing to add to a seasoned Rails dev skillset?

Would adding something like react, or one of the other js techs be good? Should I expand into django as it is relatively similar. Should I be leaning more about UI design? What extra skillsets makes a rails dev desirable to companies as a freelance/contract dev?

Most contracts I've been on have only slightly deviated from a rails/JS stack and I feel like I'm getting a bit stale!

I appreciate any help to send me in a new learning direction by those in the know!

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It's hard to know where it's going and concurrently learn the right pieces of that thing in the right time to not be late or early to the party...

So, learn the thing you can either learn the deepest or the fastest, or both... because nothing helps learning stick than being fascinated or having fun with it.

Sometimes you can learn on the side and sometimes it's healthy to bite off just a little more than you can chew if you are determined and learn some parts of it in real time.

Personally I think go, swift, javascript/react are going to be around for awhile and see many new projects in these. But I think this is on a rolling cycle; every 5 years seems like so many changes. Just seems like yesterday that rails was the coolest thing since sliced bread. Then there is java which just is everywhere. Rust is also very interesting, and seems to have a great community, job wise not many in comparison to either rails or js.

Finally however elixir seems cool. And slightly railsy. That might be next on my list.

Three things to try:

1. Move to close but related skill. You mention design, which is a good example, but could also be e.g. understanding HTTP on a much more basic level.

2. Alternate solutions. E.g. Sinatra is a very different approach to building web applications.

3. Get better at things you already know. Learn how to test rails better, or a new JS library you can use to write better code within same stack.

More detailed writeup: https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/04/27/which-technology/

Golang, React

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