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Ask HN: Rough estimate on how long it can take to pick up a web stack?

Context: I'm a professional software developer (more than 5 years of professional experience) working mostly on low-level C/C++ developing cross-platform (OSX, Linux and Windows) desktop applications. I'm currently based in London and I don't feel very enthusiastic about the job market for C++ developers for several reasons[1] and am thinking about changing my "development environment". For someone that stopped learning about web frameworks/libraries a long time ago (~8 years) would it be too hard to pick up the enormous amount of web frameworks, DBs and libraries I keep hearing/reading for back-end development ? Is 3 to 6 months (full-time) a reasonable amount of time to master some of the current recommended/best web frameworks ? [1]- I can list them if folks show some interest.

Supraperplex 10y ago
What about zeros seconds? There are several indications in your question that you are crazy. If you are a C++ pro, why step down to web devel? You must be crazy. Or a liar. But if you are established pro in C-whatever. Why. step. down. to. script. kiddy.? You are crazy. Well, you asked. I would say, just develop an app in RoR. Give yourself a short timeframe, two months say, and develop a tiny app in RoR or Django. See how it feels. Do you know that iOS is C based? Objective-C, yeah, but still C. Do you know that many web apps get re-written in low-level ( C for instance) for performance reasons? Are you sure the language stack is your problem??
- dang 10y ago
  This comment breaks the HN guidlines. Please eliminate incivility and name-calling from your comments here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
bikamonki 10y ago
I did the same some years ago, moved from client-server intranet systems to web development, the reasons probably the same: market demand. It took me a year to land and master a web stack, but I tried many. In the end I am mostly using node.js in the back-end and backbone in the front-end. If you don't fool around like I did and choose a stack up-front I would say 3 months is enough to be able to do production level apps.
mtmail 10y ago
https://generalassemb.ly/education/web-development-immersive https://generalassemb.ly/education/web-development-immersive teaches novices in three months so you should be fine in that timeframe. Here's a nice guide on modern Javascript. https://medium.com/javascript-and-opinions/state-of-the-art-javascript-in-2016-ab67fc68eb0b https://medium.com/javascript-and-opinions/state-of-the-art-...
eip 10y ago
Are you good at math and algorithms? If so you would probably be much better off getting into finance. There are probably lots of high paying jobs in London if you are skilled.
- throwawaywebdev 10y ago
  That's absolutely true even excluding the small HFT shops that pay loads of money (> £100k/year). I'd prefer to stay away from them because I want to spend my energy trying to make the world a better place. =) The finance industry scares me a bit mainly because I consider it to be a high risk job having loads of legacy software and changing that sort of code is scary for many reasons including the amount of undefined/implementation defined behaviours present in languages like C and C++.

Supraperplex 10y ago

What about zeros seconds? There are several indications in your question that you are crazy. If you are a C++ pro, why step down to web devel? You must be crazy. Or a liar. But if you are established pro in C-whatever. Why. step. down. to. script. kiddy.? You are crazy. Well, you asked. I would say, just develop an app in RoR. Give yourself a short timeframe, two months say, and develop a tiny app in RoR or Django. See how it feels. Do you know that iOS is C based? Objective-C, yeah, but still C. Do you know that many web apps get re-written in low-level ( C for instance) for performance reasons? Are you sure the language stack is your problem??

dang 10y ago
This comment breaks the HN guidlines. Please eliminate incivility and name-calling from your comments here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

bikamonki 10y ago

I did the same some years ago, moved from client-server intranet systems to web development, the reasons probably the same: market demand. It took me a year to land and master a web stack, but I tried many. In the end I am mostly using node.js in the back-end and backbone in the front-end. If you don't fool around like I did and choose a stack up-front I would say 3 months is enough to be able to do production level apps.

mtmail 10y ago

https://generalassemb.ly/education/web-development-immersive https://generalassemb.ly/education/web-development-immersive teaches novices in three months so you should be fine in that timeframe. Here's a nice guide on modern Javascript. https://medium.com/javascript-and-opinions/state-of-the-art-javascript-in-2016-ab67fc68eb0b https://medium.com/javascript-and-opinions/state-of-the-art-...

eip 10y ago

Are you good at math and algorithms? If so you would probably be much better off getting into finance. There are probably lots of high paying jobs in London if you are skilled.

throwawaywebdev 10y ago
That's absolutely true even excluding the small HFT shops that pay loads of money (> £100k/year). I'd prefer to stay away from them because I want to spend my energy trying to make the world a better place. =) The finance industry scares me a bit mainly because I consider it to be a high risk job having loads of legacy software and changing that sort of code is scary for many reasons including the amount of undefined/implementation defined behaviours present in languages like C and C++.