Ask HN: ROR or Angular for career development?

3 points by seannaM 12 years ago | 3 comments

Hello!

I'm a software developer new to the bay. I'm starting to feel like my overly generalist skill set is holding me back at this point and I would like to spend a year or so extremely focused on learning one technology. I'm pretty sure that technology would come down to Ruby on Rails or Angular.

I have about 6 months experience in each. I enjoy angular.js more, but I'm okay with Rails. My perception is that the job market is hotter for Rails. I also perceive that angular.js has more potential for growth in a year, but also potential to shrivel up.

I don't really care much about making more than 90k or so, so higher income potential doesn't matter much to me. I'd really like to land in a start up in the SF, but I'm open to other locations + types of work.

rartichoke 12 years ago |

I think the rails team is showing us they are willing to adapt to future trends in web development.

The guys running the show are also basing most of their business on it because they use it every day to develop basecamp and have been doing it successfully for like 10 years.

I would definitely choose rails.

sven98 12 years ago |

Rails.

a)At this point, you need both a backend framework and a frontend JS framework. Backend is typically Rails or Django, with Rails taking 60-80% of the jobs I've seen. Front you can do Angular, Backbone, Ember.. probably others. These are the ones I know.

b)You don't need 1 year of experience in either Rails or Angular to be able to do great work in them and get a good job. With 6 months in each, you should be fine and easily make $100-$150k in the Bay Area.

c)Your perception is correct, Rails will currently get you more jobs than Angular. That's because Rails is more stable and versatile. Personally I think Angular is pretty lame and I hope it doesn't go anywhere, but even somewhat objectively, Angular can't "be the next Rails". Pure JS frontend frameworks just don't have the room to grow that much in the next few years. Maybe much further down the road (5y+), but then it won't be Angular, but FancyNewFramework(tm).

seannaM 12 years ago | |

Thanks for the input!

Curious: Why do you think Angular is pretty lame? Are you against client-side MVC frameworks or something about Angular in particular?

(If anyone wants to talk to me about one of those jobs, email in the profile!)

(Also, my question my not have made it adequately clear: I don't think that Angular can "be the next rails". They're not equivalent except in that I've seen a lot of startupy postings looking for experience in both and they're on the top of my list of things to learn more about. I do think there's a possible future in lightweight node.js + heavy weight angular, though.)