Ask HN: What new skill or tech you intend to master in 2014?

18 points by phektus 12 years ago | 28 comments

I'm soliciting ideas, because last time I decided to learn Unity3d but ended up learning more about full-stack javascript web development, which I now use at work exclusively. So I may pick Unity3d again but it can be another as well. I'd like to know what plans you guys have.

marco-fiset 12 years ago |

I've been a constant learner since the beginning and it just hinders me from doing anything meaningful. Anytime I read about something new, I always want to start my project from scratch using that new technology. I started something in plain PHP, migrated over to Ruby/Sinatra/HAML, then to Angular + Node.js. It's been very time consuming and oh so useless.

So I guess I won't be learning new tech in 2014. I'll be focusing on writing, basic marketing, building an audience for my future product and just shipping the damn thing.

atroyn 12 years ago | |

So few people recognize this as a fault, I wish you the best of luck!

"Real artists ship!"

bmelton 12 years ago | |

I've been there and done that, so please don't take this as a negative when I say this -- the only thing you need to learn is how to finish.

I don't know your motivations, but what always happened to me is that I'd get to a point in a project where the tools seemed constraining, and whatever problem I had, some other toolset aimed to solve it, so I'd jump ship, usually before making any sincere efforts at solving it with whatever language I started the project in.

Or even worse, I'd write the hard parts, and then be left with the boring bits. Login, registration, sending notification emails, etc., so I'd hop on over to Rails which let me rewrite all the fun parts, and then scaffold the rest, only to find now I had a new problem somewhere that I hadn't considered.

Finishing is mental, but once you get past the hump, it gets added to your skillset just like every other skill. Once you can ship, you play the game differently. Good luck!

brianchu 12 years ago |

I'm a student at Berkeley. Here's my list:

learn Vim.

master iOS and release several apps.

learn devops / sysadmin.

gain experience with SQL/Postgres (as opposed to just hacking together something with MongoDB, the easy way to do things)

My background is in iOS and JavaScript web (Angular.js, Node.js).

playing_colours 12 years ago |

This year I switched to JVM/Scala programming so next year I would like to improve my Functional Programming skills in Scala, and learn more about JVM internals and low level concurrency

I also want to have something lightweight for playing and prototyping so I think I should improve my Clojure/WebStack or Python/Flask, I haven't decided yet.

I wish to continue with learning more Computer Science / Maths stuff like Statistics.

And I finally would like to adopt Emacs, I got inspired by recent talks about its power at HN. Lots of plans :)

blisterpeanuts 12 years ago |

Django - deploy a web app that demo's our web services - I already have a Java servlet but I want to add a couple of examples that use 21st Century frameworks :)

Grails - same as above - some of the guys in my shop are using this as a transitional technology since we're a Java shop. Looks pretty cool so far. Probably do one in Django/Python, then one in Grails.

Ruby - have done a tutorial but need to write some real apps

Android - have written about a dozen internal apps plus a library (abstract class derived from Activity). I want to write a couple of my own apps to put on the Market, unrelated to work stuff. With a million apps out there, it's hardly likely to even be noticed, but that's OK, just to have an app out there is kind of essential if you want to be taken seriously.

I'd like to understand more about full-stack javascript apps; it seems like a lot of people are using it to write pretty sophisticated apps these days.

slashnull 12 years ago |

1) set up a tiny homepage on my home server, create a share on my home LAN, automate my backups, that kind of sysadmin-ey stuff that could be mildly useful on a day-to-day basis

2) get better with Haskell; basically make it replace Scala as my "native tongue".

3) learn more math stuff, especially abstract algebra, type theory, and more category theory as used in Haskell

4) do all right at my internship as a web developer, and get intimate with this nice funky lang that is JavaScript (and get an actual job though that's not a tech skill)

5) learn another lang that will blow my mind with some weird feature. I'm not sure yet; Erlang, J, and more advanced Scheme/LISP/Clojure are possible candidates.

6) find my hipster server-side scripting lang of choice and get decent with it; Node.js and Yesod and two possiblities.

meerita 12 years ago |

I want to master iOS development design process. Also make more coding on Rails to polish my knowledge. Start designing for the Android also is one of the things I want to master too.

pkinsky 12 years ago |

-Master Scala -build at least one full-stack project with Scala (most likely a twitter or vine clone)

-AngularJS

-Vim

-Dvorak

wturner 12 years ago |

My two goals are to understand how to view a simple algorithm like a quicksort and be able to replicate it intuitively with much less 'fight through' than I currently have. The other thing is to get comfortable with learning web frameworks and MVC well enough that I can learn any number of them confidently within a week or less.

atroyn 12 years ago |

I'm sitting on the fence between learning some web-oriented stuff like angular/rails, or some systems stuff like Rust/x86ASM.

Then there's node.js, which I toyed with earlier but now has some pretty exciting applications like nodecopter.

zerohp 12 years ago |

I'm a non-traditional student at Illinois. My prior career was writing web apps.

My main focus in the spring will be learning SystemVerilog for design/synthesis and later in the year I want to join a Computer Architecture research group.

codonaut 12 years ago |

Go is at the top of my list. I've just started using it at work a couple weeks ago after using exclusively Python for a while, and am really enjoying the change in thinking required for working with a statically typed language.

zachlatta 12 years ago |

    * Learn Haskell
    * Send a patch to the Go project
    * Release a useful Ruby on Rails gem
    * Perfect my hackathon stack

munimkazia 12 years ago |

I am finally going to start learning android development seriously. Also going to continue upgrading JS skills with angular, ecma6.

blizzard30 12 years ago |

Learn game development : Starling, Feathers etc. Continue learning mobile development.

My background is Flex/AIR development.

brd 12 years ago |

Angular is first on my list

Given the opportunity I'd add Go to the list but we'll see how the year goes

trapped 12 years ago |

1. Work towards becoming full stack developer

2. Open source contribution

Great question!! Thanks for posting.

computerslol 12 years ago |

The black art of hand tuned, run-time emitted, MSIL.

I have done some already; I intend to master it in 2014.

jbarrec 12 years ago |

Ruby on Rails or Django. I am torn on which to move forward with. Suggestions are welcome!

BWStearns 12 years ago |

Vim

C/C++

Really understand more Algorithms

pcharles 12 years ago |

Ruby on Rails development iOS development

krapp 12 years ago |

Android application development.

senthadev 12 years ago |

Functional programming using F#

matttheatheist 12 years ago |

Going back to plain C.

clavoie 12 years ago |

Verilog / VHDL.

clamchowderz 12 years ago |

MySQL Python

jsnk 12 years ago |

- Write cleaner maintainable JS

- Start learning Java

- Start learning C

- Algorithms