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Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?

• StudentStuff 8y ago
  Ideally gain skills that will weather the potential recession that should start mid-year? Not sure what those will be exactly, but perhaps others have an idea...
  • mrleinad 8y ago
    That's something we should all have already, regardless of when a recession hits.
  • maxxxxx 8y ago
    Networking and interpersonal skills. I was around when the .COM bubble burst and all your technical skills that made you easy signup bonuses a year earlier were worth nothing. But knowing somebody who trusted you would give you the job.
• lwheelock 8y ago
  Leadership skills. Whether or not you need them today or not, whether you want to be in a leadership role soon or not, they are essential for anyone seeking to progress and you can’t start too soon. There are many many ways to approach this and I’ll just offer two book titles that I believe would be beneficial. 1. Start with Why 2. Extreme Ownership
  • kken 8y ago
    A much faster way to understand the central message of "Start with Why" would be to watch the TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA Is the book worth reading, in addition? I see very mixed reviews.
    • ivanmaeder 8y ago
      Don't waste your time with the book—it's complete fluff: unoriginal, rambling, repetitious, with faulty reasoning…
• apsdsm 8y ago
  A little on the noes perhaps but try learning how to teach. I took some time to learn how to teach English many years ago and it was a great perception changer.
• nilshauk 8y ago
  I would love for us tech folk to dip our toes in idea history, hermeneutics and rhetoric. We need to think about the way we think and talk about the way we talk. I mean reflect on the state of things, instead of blindly increasing shareholder value. We glorify engagement, but we’re arguably glorifying how addictive our creations are. What if apps maximized for less time spent, like help users just do their work and get on with living life? When I work on web sites that deliver services I often picture users being in a hurry. People just want to get on with life, not live their lives within my server side rendered single page web app. :)
  • kurosawa 8y ago
    I say dive in, don't be shy. There is so much that these specific intellectual paths lead to.
  • owl57 8y ago
    What if apps maximized for less time spent Today I used an automated delivery booth. At the end it reported in big letters: "you took your order in 2 minutes 12 seconds". Made me vividly remember the end-of-level screen in classic Doom. Maybe that's a good idea: make the session time prominently visible, to have an urge to optimize.
    • trevyn 8y ago
      Like a package locker? Why did it take two minutes?
      • owl57 8y ago
        Well, I liked the end-of-level screen, but the rest of UI was not so new-user-friendly, especially not sleepy-new-user-friendly. About half the time I was staring at the instruction "the box will unlock now" with the box in question still behind a closed door before trying to pull the door harder.
  • afarrell 8y ago
    Got any recommendations on How to get started studying rhetoric?
• 7ewis 8y ago
  Two things I want to focus on are Kubernetes and Golang. I've played with them in the past, but not spent enough time with them to be confident using them in production.
  • thegabez 8y ago
    I've been using K8's for over a year and have built some golang apps. But would like to take a deeper dive into understanding parts of the k8's source, build my own controllers, etc. If anyone else is interested let me know maybe we can start a niche community.
    • NikolaeVarius 8y ago
      I'm about to start a role using Kubernetes and been trying to kickstart golang. I'm mildly interested, are you part of the golang slack?
  • ojhughes 8y ago
    Go is undeniably very useful, just feels like such drudgery actually working with it.
    • benburleson 8y ago
      Just my 0.02, but I started my primary project in Golang this year (a first for me) and have genuinely enjoyed getting deeper into using the language. Great tools, great community, and a clever language -- what more could you want?
      • 7ewis 8y ago
        In my limited experience so far, I just keep finding out how to do something then wondering why it's so complicated. Things I could do in Python in ~10 lines, seem to require at least double in Go. I'll keep learning it though, I'm sure I'll start to see the benefits soon!
      • ojhughes 8y ago
• jasode 8y ago
  You don't state your programming background but you mentioned C# in previous comments. I would recommend machine learning as a very useful skill to acquire. I have to be more specific because "machine learning", "artificial intelligence", and "data science" are really large topics that can encompass difficult math and PhD research. For application programmers, I think a very realistic subset is using an existing "machine learning toolkit or API" (e.g. Keras in Python) to analyze data and solve problems. You use the machine learning algorithms but don't necessarily write them from scratch. This level of proficiency only requires high-school math. The analogy would be knowing SQL even though one doesn't write b-tree algorithms from scratch or using the "=PMT()" function in MS Excel without deriving the annuity equation from first principles. I think machine learning concepts (classification, clustering, etc) will become an expected baseline of programmer knowledge just like SQL was 25 years ago. Its usage will become more pervasive and will be utilized by more people that don't have "data scientist" in their job title.
  • throwawaymath 8y ago
    > ...just like SQL was 25 years ago. Oh boy have I got news for you :)
    • bitcoinmoney 8y ago
      What’s the news?
      • iamrobschiavone 8y ago
        That SQL is still relevant after 25 years.
        • mbaha 8y ago
          Original comment never mentioned that SQL wasn't a baseline for programmers anymore.
          • 8y ago
• bb88 8y ago
  I think the electronics and electronics fabrication industry is ripe for major disruption in 2019. The end of copper clad fiberglass boards are in sight, and that will change the way we think about electronics in fabrication. Electronics is also kind of exciting right now in particular. The open hardware community while in it's infancy still, is growing rapidly. Notably, the ESP32 platform has allowed home brew IoT technology to grow very rapidly as it brings a processor and Wi-fi to a chip for less than $5.
  • kken 8y ago
    >The end of copper clad fiberglass boards are in sight, and that will change the way we think about electronics in fabrication. That's an interesting thought. But where would this lead us?
  • lj3 8y ago
    > The end of copper clad fiberglass boards are in sight Where can I read more about that? My google searches have not been fruitful.
    • bb88 8y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z228xymQYho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z228xymQYho
      • lj3 8y ago
        interesting. Thanks!
        • bb88 8y ago
          The other approach is through a copper ink such as this one: http://copprint.com/ http://copprint.com/
          • nikkwong 8y ago
            This looks cool and could be a much easier solution than the aforementioned laser/printing setup. Judging from the website though it doesn’t look like they have a product ready to go, is that true, and are there any alternatives? It would be nice if there was a filament I could just plug into my 3D printer and start using :p
• avip 8y ago
  Clairvoyance will become increasingly important in 2019.
  • bitL 8y ago
    Any hands-on MOOC for that out there? ;-)
    • AlexCoventry 8y ago
      Find a TV show where the protagonist is always right, like House. It will teach you all you need to know, and provide a healthy role model.
• Maultasche 8y ago
  I've been learning Elixir, which is really good for creating concurrent and scalable systems. Concurrency has always been something that has fascinated me and I see in Elixir a chance to make very concurrent code without having to deal with locks, race conditions, and all the other icky low-level stuff. Elixir is also a functional language, making this is the first functional language I've learned, which is another reason I'm enjoying it. Over the past couple years, I've heard from developers who were very satisfied with Elixir, so I finally sat down and started to learn it. As I've been learning Elixir, I've been writing a series called "Learn with Me: Elixir" at https://inquisitivedeveloper.com https://inquisitivedeveloper.com. The idea is that anyone else who's also interested in Elixir can follow along as I learn it and learn it for themselves as well. Of course, playing around with it has also helped me learn far more than just reading about it. Writing about it has helped me learn a lot better, and my hope is that someone else will also find my writing useful.
  • ElijahLynn 8y ago
    Nice, bookmarked as I may be hitting Elixir up soon. For those who want to start at post #1, here ya go > https://inquisitivedeveloper.com/lwm-elixir-1/ https://inquisitivedeveloper.com/lwm-elixir-1/
  • _asummers 8y ago
    I love Elixir. There are very few things that it leaves me wanting from other languages, and I am happy for having added it to my professional tool belt a few years ago. I recommend it for beginners and experienced folk alike. The community is pleasant, industrious, and I feel like I get to code in a sane environment every day with escape hatches in just about every spot I would expect them to exist (due mostly to the macros + BEAM). Though I do not take advantage of this as often as I would like, being able to drop down to native Erlang trivially basically doubles the ecosystem size.
  • snake117 8y ago
    For those who are not aware, Jose Valim (the creator of Elixir) live-streamed all his solutions to this years Advent of Code on Twitch (found here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/346878345?collection=YDM6eKu6bhV1Nw https://www.twitch.tv/videos/346878345?collection=YDM6eKu6bh...). I found this to be very informative and enjoyable. It is definitely worth checking out regardless of your proficiency in Elixir.
• asveikau 8y ago
  Empathy. The tech giants are having massive scandals because they lack it. Whatever you do, be here for the end user. Think about their lives and make it no worse.
  • sabarn01 8y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-Compassion/dp/0062339338 https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-Compass...
    • bb88 8y ago
      That seems similar to the concept of "ruinous empathy". In other words, don't waste your feelings on others, especially if you may have to fire them. Having been on both sides of that coin, being fired and having to fire others, it's clear to me that reducing the amount of pain is important, even if such an act must be done.
  • ojhughes 8y ago
    Hah I was gonna say Empathy as well!
  • deleted 8y ago
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  • m_fayer 8y ago
    How I understand empathy in our context: in addition to privacy and security, have empathy for your real user, who chances are is not the middle class educated fashionable 20-something from the Google commercial. Your real user might be elderly, or poor, or uneducated, or a kid, or a harried parent. If you convinced them to pay you, maybe that money wasn't just pocket change to them. Maybe you sold them a hope for an honest well earned diversion, or something that could make their lives a bit easier or more streamlined or fulfilling. Don't sell out that hope with nagging, annoying up/cross-sells, attempts to addict, or by making the user feel unsafe and paranoid, or by tripping them up with unasked for "innovative" features/UI overhauls or confusing ux. Given the scale at which our work is deployed, any one of us has the power to unwittingly cause, in aggregate, huge amounts of stress, as if people need any more of that these days. Excuse the rant, this year my cynicism with a big chunk of our industry has reached a high I couldn't have imagined.
• purplezooey 8y ago
  Brown-nosing
  • scarface74 8y ago
    While that could be stated better, Organizational Theory 101 is that there are three levers of power - relationship, expert, and role in that order. After ignoring relationship power for years, that has helped me get ahead more than anything.
    • mud_dauber 8y ago
      The 48 Rules of Power should be on your bookshelf as well. (This not entirely in jest.)
• eggy 8y ago
  Financial literacy. I find many of my smart, technology friends don't really have a solid grasp of finances and economics. Something as simple as a six-month cash flow spreadsheet would do wonders for most people. I am trying to instill this in my older children.
  • finaliteration 8y ago
    > I find many of my smart, technology friends don't really have a solid grasp of finances and economics. This describes me, unfortunately. I consider myself fairly smart, did well in college, tons of technical skills, but I am -terrible- with money. I keep a 12-month spreadsheet showing income and expenses for every pay period and one showing current debt, but beyond that I know I’m awful about it. A lot of it comes from my parents also being terrible with money and never teaching me saving vs. spending, investing, etc,. I’ve figured out some of it on my own but I still struggle. I’m glad to hear you’re trying to teach your children better.
    • travisoneill1 8y ago
      > I keep a 12-month spreadsheet showing income and expenses for every pay period and one showing current debt This means that you are not terrible with money. 90% of practical personal finance can be expressed as follows: expenses < income. The rest is implementation details.
      • finaliteration 8y ago
        That's fair. When I say I'm terrible with money I mean more in the realm of saving vs. spending. I have a small amount in savings for emergencies/cash flow safety but I definitely do not have 6 months worth of expenses set aside or hundreds of thousands of dollars in my 401(k) as some of my peers seem to. Also, if I'm being totally honest my retirement plan is basically to never retire, partly for financial reasons but also because I like working in my current industry and staying busy and don't see that changing. Part of that comes from being in a high cost-of-living area with a child and student loan debt, but I also know that a part of it is due to the fact that I buy things I don't need way too often.
• xiphias2 8y ago
  Investing is a great skill to have. Starting with understanding different asset types, their histories, modern portfolio theory, diversification, tail risks of all assets, how central banks and other banks work. I believe the market can be beaten, but you have to have more financial knowledge than the average retail investor.
  • thomas93 8y ago
    While this might be true, I think a more reasonable skill to acquire would be a better grasp of financial literacy. People spend an incredible amount of time accumulating capital, but many spend hardly any time learning to properly manage it, relying instead on financial advisers selling commission driven products. I think that it is often the mentality of trying to "beat the markets" that lead people to make poor financial decisions, when in fact the majority of the population would benefit from taking the time to obtain a fundamental understanding of their own personal finances.
    • xiphias2 8y ago
      We can say both are important skillsets (two sides of the same coin), so I won't argue with you :) Also maybe beating the market is not that important, but I was making a mistake of accumulating cash without investing it when I was younger. I didn't have spending problems though as I was frugal in my life (though being too frugal was a problem in itself as well).
  • jsgoller1 8y ago
    +1 to this. Reading The Bogelheads' Guide to Investing was a game-changer for me.
  • bionsystem 8y ago
    I would recommend Robert Shiller's course at Yale (available on youtube) which covers all those subjects + some.
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• nick_urban 8y ago
  Meditation. Being able to direct your attention, to be present in difficult situations, to care about others when it's easier to worry about oneself, and to be willing to see truths that contradict one's self-image. There is much to be gained from this simple practice, and much to be lost from foregoing it. "the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of judgment, character, and will. [...] An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence." - William James
  • trevyn 8y ago
    Note also that you can train these useful skills in ways other than extended courses of formal sitting meditation. (Which also often come with a lot of woo attached.)
    • mdsharpe 8y ago
      https://wakingup.com/ https://wakingup.com/ and https://www.headspace.com/ https://www.headspace.com/ are both woo-free choices I'd recommend.
• loteck 8y ago
  Organizing. Not necessarily in your workplace, but sure, that too if you're into it. Mostly I mean community groups of like-minded folks who stay in touch, remain active and do meaningful things together, like speaking up against bad uses of technology in government and law enforcement. Or training people how to get started in tech. Or hacking something together that could be meaningful for the lives of people in a city.
  • confounded 8y ago
    This has been the most satisfying tech-related thing I’ve done in the last few years. It’s how I’ve felt most useful outside of my day-job, and also how I’ve gained a broader perspective on the culture, values, and practices at other companies.
• davidwihl 8y ago
  Public speaking. It's a skill I developed later in life, and could have used very frequently had I had previously. The power of oration to influence people is quite amazing.
• scarface74 8y ago
  I am in the middle of a technology pivot - moving away from the on-prem/Microsoft stack to AWS development/Devops/networking and the $cool_kids JavaScript full stack along with Python. Also adding on Docker/Kubernetes and ElasticSearch. Finally, I’ve railed against the need for LeetCode style studying and I haven’t had an interview in almost 20 years that has required it, but I guess I will get back to basics and start working through it.
• kurosawa 8y ago
  Do something that would be orthogonal to the current sum of your life experiences.
  • mooreds 8y ago
    This! If you have time off, do something risky that you wouldn't do normally. Why? Because soon enough you'll likely be back in the normal swing of things and unable to take that risk. Examples: Work on a farm Do the Appalachian trail (or similar) Take the train across Australia Learn to ride a motorcycle Learn to play guitar Etc Etc
    • omosubi 8y ago
      I worked on an organic farm this past year for two weeks (through WWOOF) and it was probably the best two weeks of the year for me. It really opened my eyes to how food is produced and just how much humans have changed the landscape of the planet - well worth the effort
      • mooreds 8y ago
        I spent 6 months at home and abroad travelling and WWOOFed for 3 weeks of it. Those 3 weeks had the biggest impact and resonate through my life even today, years later.
    • csomar 8y ago
      Take the train across Australia Learn to ride a motorcycle Learn to play guitar Are these risky endeavors?
      • mooreds 8y ago
        I take your point. Maybe "difficult" or "alien" would have been better adjectives.
• edgecrafter 8y ago
  a personal skill which improves life over time, e.g. take up meditation, tai chi, yoga, regular fitness or similar If planning on going freelance/solo develop presentation skills. (reading up on stuff like https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321668790?ie=UTF8&tag=garrreynoldsc-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0321668790 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321668790?ie=UTF8&tag=gar...) For technical skills, really depends on where your interest and skills are ... look for longterm trends and learn stuff that matches your personality/interests/skills
• DrNuke 8y ago
  Sales. You will have a different job every day and meet different people until the end of this world.
• disposedtrolley 8y ago
  I've just begun my dive into games programming (coming from a web dev background) which has taught me to think about problems from a data-driven perspective, and how to write performant code. It's also a great way to learn how complex programs are structured and iterated upon. Games have so many layers of abstractions which are fun to explore :) I'm following the Handmade Hero series which aims to create a production-quality game from scratch - https://handmadehero.org/ https://handmadehero.org/ - building and engine and all.
• bitwize 8y ago
  Cloud, machine learning, AI. If you haven't gotten your Ph.D. in machine learning by now, you're at considerable risk of being replaced by an offshore dev who can do your job for pennies on the dollar. As for languages, the future of computing is JavaScript (except for the lowest and most performance-sensitive layers, over which the Rust Evangelism Strike Force has an unshakable claim). Nontechnical skills: practice vipassana and observe a strict, austere hipster diet (preferably plant-based) if you want to not die. Learn how to sustainably live off-grid with zero emissions if you want to not kill the planet. And for God's sake, delete your FANG accounts. All of them.
  • ultrasounder 8y ago
    "As for languages, the future of computing is JavaScript (except for the lowest and most performance-sensitive layers, over which the Rust Evangelism Strike Force has an unshakable claim". You mentioned AI/ML both of which are deeply embedded in Python ecosystem though R is still the choice of academia. JS is and will continue to be a client only Tech stack for ML because of it's lack of a NUMPy like Math library. Between friends you should also add Python to your arsenal of languages to learn.
    • bitwize 8y ago
      I have a feeling that will all change once the data community gets wind of TypeScript.
• CPLX 8y ago
  The skill I am working on the hardest for 2019 is being able to put down my phone. Or more generally to stop the cycle of mindless addictive loops, checking for comments and upvotes on social media, endlessly refreshing forums, and so on. I’ve tried a few times over the past year to make headway on this and haven’t felt successful, so I’m redoubling and trying to deconstruct the concept a little, figure out some rules and habits to impose on myself, and so on. I don’t feel confident of success at all, it feels like the defining characteristic of our time is that we’re all walking around with the equivalent of a gram of cocaine in our pockets 24/7. My working theory is that drastic abstinence oriented solutions are the only way forward. Any success stories welcome.
  • grenoire 8y ago
    For putting down your phone, for me one thing that has been very helpful was not getting data. This basically prevents me from using my phone anywhere but work, school, and home. I live in a city that allows me to connect to many hotspots if needed, but oftentimes I just don't bother. Helps a lot not to have notification streams or timesinks available to you.
  • hn_meditate 8y ago
    I've had a lot of success via Ulysses contracts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_pact You're stuck in these loops through little fault of your own. Our environments are engineered to be very addicting; tech products train our brains to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom. Trying to fight against this with just willpower alone is an uphill battle. Willpower fluctuates throughout the day, and (supposedly) it is a finite resource per unit of time. You may win a few battles, but the strong cues in your environment remain, and will likely snare you next time around. It's hard to resist the temptations because they are pleasurable and salient rewards in the here and now, in a way that longer-term, more abstract goals (read a book, stop wasting time on junk info-snacking, etc) can never be. Ulysses contracts bridge this gap by pulling the longer-term, more abstract goals into the here and now, endowing them with an immediate saliency of their own. Now your new habits can fight on the same ground as your old habits. Examples: the person who, in trying to quit smoking, gave a friend a check for $5k and promised that if she smoked again, she'd have to report herself to her friend, who would then donate that money to the KKK. Examples of my own: - I jettisoned caffeine by promising my spouse that for every caffeinated drink I took, I had to give up in proportion something I love dearly (e.g. skip a day of meditation) - I cut down on online boardgaming by promising a friend that I would only play with him -- and should I play with an online stranger, my friend would receive $5k and proceed to squander it at the poker table. (Making the resulting outcome of your contract breach, something that stings, that is visceral and has an emotional valence to it, it key to making the contracts successful). It also helps to engineer your environment. Remove the cues and temptations. I've had more mixed success with this. But quitting FB, Linkedin, definitely removed strong loops. (My brain fought like hell against their absence, then after the three week mark, never a peep again. Goes to show the arbitrariness of our cravings)
• mud_dauber 8y ago
  Negotiation skills. https://abe-winter.github.io/2018/12/20/stalin.html https://abe-winter.github.io/2018/12/20/stalin.html http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2014/05/the-ultimate-cheat-sheet-to-become-a-great-negotiator/ http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2014/05/the-ultimate-cheat-shee... http://time.com/38796/6-hostage-negotiation-techniques-that-will-get-you-what-you-want/ http://time.com/38796/6-hostage-negotiation-techniques-that-... https://hbr.org/2016/07/how-to-negotiate-with-a-liar https://hbr.org/2016/07/how-to-negotiate-with-a-liar https://hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-negotiate-with-someone-more-powerful-than-you https://hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-negotiate-with-someone-more-p... https://www.fastcompany.com/3001209/negotiate-car-salesman-5-tactics-help-you-win-every-time https://www.fastcompany.com/3001209/negotiate-car-salesman-5... https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/ask-a-hostage-negotiator-whats-the-best-way-to-talk-about-a-raise/391943 https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/ask-a-h... https://bothsidesofthetable.com/when-should-you-allow-exclusivity-in-deals-15b37534cfba#.zick9tdk7 https://bothsidesofthetable.com/when-should-you-allow-exclus... http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2014/11/how-to-deal-with-difficult-people/ http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2014/11/how-to-deal-with-difficult... https://mindhacks.com/2014/05/26/the-best-way-to-win-an-argument/ https://mindhacks.com/2014/05/26/the-best-way-to-win-an-argu...
  • walamaking 8y ago
    This is fantastic.
• vikas5678 8y ago
  3 critical skills that will help you through out your life: 1. Learn to workout well - crossfit, hire a trainer, etc 2. Basic financial knowledge - investing, taxes, RSUs/Options, etc 3. Presentation skills - most of your career will be determined by how effectively you communicate, influence and persuade. Invest in it.
  • giladoved 8y ago
    Great advice! Do you know of any links/resources to help develop skills 2 and 3?
    • deleted 8y ago
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    • snazz 8y ago
      My personal recommendation for learning to give better presentations is to just do it. Start your own little tech convention and do as much public speaking as possible. You get the "bystander effect" at social events when someone has to say something to a crowd but nobody wants to do it, so step up and get some practice! People don't judge you for errors nearly as much as you think. As for written communication, Markel's Technical Communication was used in my English class in college and I remember getting a lot out of following its directions. As you might expect, it's very well written. Of course, I had the advantage of classroom instruction, but I think it would be helpful even for self-study.
    • brianbreslin 8y ago
      read Iwillteachyoutoberich.com to start on #2 his site is by no means the end all be all, but it will give you a start.
      • rkho 8y ago
        +1 to this, I think Ramit Sethi's material is a great introduction to financial knowledge. This year I'm following up with Bogleheads and, if I can handle it, The Intelligent Investor
• totemandtoken 8y ago
  I hesitate answering because I am not really a software engineer, but I think a strong understanding of philosophy will probably help. I see a lot of other comments in this thread recommending empathy, organizing, hermeneutics, etc. Most of that goes under the admittedly large umbrella of philosophy. Software engineering/programming is somewhat distinct in most fields because you can by some abstraction recreate and scale a thought with high fidelity. In the past, we could transfer or spread thoughts through books or other media. This might've created some sort of mimetic action on the consumer of the media, but it would probably be some corruption of the initial thought of the author. Consider for example, Marx claiming that "what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist" (not that I am intending to start a political discussion, just to point out that sometimes artists distance themselves from the art). By contrast, a computer program is a thought that is enacted with precision each time it is called. Which is what makes the content of program so philosophically important. Ethics of course becomes paramount because speech is now action in a much more salient way than it ever was before. But the questions of values and of aesthetics should also be considered. You will probably have to carve out your own fields of study within philosophy and how it relates to computer science beyond the usual accelerationism, trolley car problems, digital physics, etc, but I think it will be well worth it if I'm just giving my two cents here.
  • badsavage 8y ago
    Philosophy and functional programming are my most important skills. Ontology and logic are super useful for a programmer.
• northwest66 8y ago
  This year I'm going to build a small CNC mill and learn to operate it correctly. That and dance cha to at least a competent social level.
• jsgoller1 8y ago
  Interviewing. I spent about 3-4 months this year working on my interviewing and competitive programming skills via LeetCode, reading The Algorithm Design Manual, and taking classes at Bradfield School of CS in San Francisco. I feel like it's made a world of difference. I know Hacker News tends to hate on programming interviews, but it really pays to be good at them (and trust me, it's a learnable skill). I do agree that the algorithms-and-whiteboard method can be highly problematic, but I've come to firmly believe that the time for criticism is when you're designing the interview for a candidate, not being interviewed.
  • seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    You spent 3-4 months honing your interview skills, that sounds very expensive. Are you claiming that this practice made you a better programmer overall or just better at interviews? It isn’t just hackernews hating on the current way of doing programming interviews, it’s a widespread sentiment in the industry. The current way of doing interviews seems both excessive (requires 2 months of practice) and easily games (with 2 months of practice...). Who is winning from this?
    • jsgoller1 8y ago
      Both - my interviewing skills got better mostly from doing mock interviews and exposure to the questions that would be asked during an interview, but I'd say my programming skills got better from learning more about algorithm and data structure design, as well as carefully thinking about edge cases so as to beat the battery of test cases that each LeetCode problem has.
      • seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        We really have to be careful here, because many CS programs have or are planning CS courses specifically designed around LeetCode problems as a way of giving their students a leg up in the interview process. If these kinds of interviews become more widespread (and there are a lot of companies trying to copy google here), this will only intensify and possibly begin push out other CS courses with more useful content. That kind of future would be very dystopian for the field.
• jsgoller1 8y ago
  C. I read K&R and did every exercise in it this year, and it really changed how I thought about programming, even in higher level languages. Specifically, I feel like it's made me a lot more considerate about algorithm design and detecting edge cases. More justification: https://blog.bradfieldcs.com/the-cost-of-forsaking-c-113986438784 https://blog.bradfieldcs.com/the-cost-of-forsaking-c-1139864...
  • romeisendcoming 8y ago
    You are not going to get much love here. But you are right.
    • jsgoller1 8y ago
      Well then, I'm happy with just your love.
• febin 8y ago
  1. Learn Math required for ML/AI. 2. Learn to write deep content. 3. Learn to manage personal finances 4. Learn to invest 5. Learn to draw 6. Learn to sing 7. Learn to have proper 8 hours of sleep 8. Attempt to build a profitable startup again
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • mkl 8y ago
    Can you go into more detail on what you mean by "write deep content"? I think number 8 is probably mutually exclusive with most of the others, especially 7!
    • febin 8y ago
      I write on Medium. But, most of the content I write only touches the surface of a topic. It doesn't go deep into the topic like some of the excellent articles upvoted on hackernews.
      • ultrasounder 8y ago
        Could you post a link to your medium posts or atleast divulge your medium username so that I can look your articles up?
        • febin 8y ago
          https://medium.com/@heyfebin https://medium.com/@heyfebin I have written a lot of bullshit due to ignorance. However, some articles turned out to be decent. Here are a few. https://hackernoon.com/popular-use-cases-of-blockchain-technology-you-need-to-know-df4e1905d373 https://hackernoon.com/popular-use-cases-of-blockchain-techn... https://hackernoon.com/the-impatient-programmers-guide-to-learning-e2960d0516a https://hackernoon.com/the-impatient-programmers-guide-to-le... https://hackernoon.com/how-to-build-it-fast-and-cheap-cffbd21881bc https://hackernoon.com/how-to-build-it-fast-and-cheap-cffbd2... https://hackernoon.com/3-popular-types-of-blockchains-you-need-to-know-7a5b98ee545a https://hackernoon.com/3-popular-types-of-blockchains-you-ne... https://medium.com/wethinkideas/how-to-validate-if-your-ideas-need-a-blockchain-e1a4846d16fd https://medium.com/wethinkideas/how-to-validate-if-your-idea... https://hackernoon.com/what-happens-when-you-combine-blockchain-and-education-d533ef6d4862 https://hackernoon.com/what-happens-when-you-combine-blockch...
• badsavage 8y ago
  WOW, VERY USEFUL -> Clojure <- MANY ADVANCES, SUCH PROFIT
• mfazalul 8y ago
  I've made a list of things I'd like to learn soon. These are personally important to me, but based on your circumstances and specializations, it may (or may not) be important for you as well. 1> Learning to learn From my interactions with some of my friends, I've come to realize that I'm pretty bad at learning, or at being focussed and determined enough to put work into it. I'm not sure how I can correct it, but I've decided to learn at least one skill (like playing guitars, skateboarding, etc.) that requires persistence. 2> Calculus. statistics and some neuroscience I'm a PhD student and my work primarily focuses on machine learning applications. However I've come to realize that there are too many AI Engineers and very less AI researchers and computational neuroscientists. I feel it's sad that a lot of people are following the hype-train for deep learning, while there is a third-generation neural network (spiking neural networks) that needs more research. Although this has been around for about a decade, the field is still lacking in terms of research. To even contribute a little bit into the field, I would need more knowledge in calculus, statistics and neuroscience (at the very least, about how neurons work). Even if I end up being unable to do research in the field, I still think calculus and stats are very important, so its a win-win anyway. 3> Psychology. I've had my own battles with anxiety and depression, and one of the things that has helped keep me at bay even when I had suicidal thoughts was my knowledge about mental health. I could tell myself "this is not right, fight it or get help", because of what I've learned about psychology. I believe that learning psychology can help me better understand myself, my thoughts and my yearnings, as well as that it would give me the ability to understand others who are going though similar (or more difficult) circumstances. On the side, learning "persuasive psychology" can probably help with understanding the effects of different marketing tactics, while also maybe help me deal with difficult people. Other things like cognitive behavior therapy and mindfulness are also things I need to learn, but that would require some help from a therapist.
  • bilu144 8y ago
    I love calculus and stats. It's such a pity that I don't get to use them at work, but it's good to have the ability to use them. And keep trying hard beating anxiety and depression! No one can help you with this sort of battle except you. If you haven't read The Alchemist, I highly recommend this book. Hope all goes well. Happy new year mate
• zero4ll 8y ago
  Learning Azure Dev Ops is always good as it makes it possible to publish your own Ideas in a scalable environment that is affordable. Microsoft Learn is pretty neat as they will take you through the basics for free, just take your time. You also get nifty badges from Microsoft for completing different learning modules. They are very much making it look like a nice page you can attach to a resume.
• davmar 8y ago
  Our industry is behind when it comes to understanding race and racism. Proof: Slack's mistake this last week. In 2019, learn about institutional racism and why we have to undo it. Take a course from the People's Institute. If you haven't learned about this in depth before, be prepared to learn a lot and have your preconceived notions challenged. https://www.pisab.org/ https://www.pisab.org/ I promise you'll walk away with new perspectives and discover a whole new area you can grow and make a difference in.
  • natestemen 8y ago
    I'm glad someone has mentioned this here. It's something our industry is really not taking seriously at all and needs more people pushing for. As you mentioned company decisions have real racial effects, and those decisions are often made by homogeneous teams that lack diversity and perspective. If anyone wants a recommendation for reading to build up some knowledge about these issues I would recommend reading "White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo. She does a great job breaking down lots of common misunderstandings white people have about race, and why those misunderstandings are created in the first place.
    • ryanwaggoner 8y ago
      I start with a pretty strong bias against any philosophy that counts skepticism of itself as proof of its own existence. It's like a religion that says you know it's true because other people will claim it's not true.
      • davmar 8y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean by this comment. How does it relate to the discussion on racial equity?
• deleted 8y ago
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• randcraw 8y ago
  Writing. Clarity, brevity, and expressiveness are all too rare these days, especially in technical writing and presentations. Writing well can greatly improve your thought process and make your message sing. I'd start by reading Strunk & White, which nicely addresses clarity and brevity, leaving only a source for expressiveness, which is basically storytelling. There I like the writing books by Steven King, Ray Bradbury, and Ursula LeGuin, but many other worthwhile primers of style are (almost) as good. Then practice writing while critically reading the best works of good writers, carefully observing their techniques, and then stealing them liberally. Ask friends you trust to assess your work and explain what they liked, didn't like, and why.
  • afarrell 8y ago
    I read Style: Towards Clarity and Grace recently and found it really practical and actionable
  • daleco 8y ago
    Thanks for the tips. Any other recommendations to improve clarity in writing and speaking? I’m not a native English speaker and I’ve been looking for ways to improve.
• todd3834 8y ago
  I've been getting pretty psyched on Machine Learning / Tensorflow. I plan on diving deeper into this world in 2019
• crb002 8y ago
  Postgres, Rust, and Angular is the current long term support tech stack. Start with Heroku and some AWS S3 buckets to store media assets. UX research methods. Then finding projects/teams you want to work on. Personally? Thinking about writing a book on SMT solvers, extending jHipster to other languages, doing some high performance SAAS offerings, publishing my semigroup research, my serverless complie optimzation toolchain, and my LLVM based operating system call taint annotation for C++/Rust to get Haskell style IO annotations.
• westoque 8y ago
  Learning more Math. Contrary to popular belief that you don't need math to do "programming", you actually do need math to progress in said field. Whether you like it or not, Math will be a limitation when it comes to acquiring new knowledge in the computer field. For example, I've been wanting to do Machine Learning for awhile and it just so happened that you need a lot of Math to fully understand it. I've been reading the book "Machine Learning for Humans" and that book is amazing and can't recommend it enough. [0] They explain complex concepts in ever so simple sentences, but reading through the book, you see formulas and equations that are intimidating to the person that is not used to reading them. I would assume that a math major would have a different and opposite experience. So yes, more math. [0]: https://medium.com/machine-learning-for-humans https://medium.com/machine-learning-for-humans
• pjbster 8y ago
  Not a list of "whats", exactly; more like a list of "whys": https://80000hours.org/ https://80000hours.org/
• huxflux 8y ago
  Have less girlfriends
  • xchaotic 8y ago
    said no programmer ever ;)
• qwertyuioppp 8y ago
  Test
• ultrasounder 8y ago
  1. Go deeper into the PyTorch ecosystem to be able to work my way through an ARXIV research paper and implement it. 2. Go deeper into Calculus and Linear Algebra to support my quest to understand the PyTorch implementations better. 3. Using these newly acquired skills build a better clone of a very popular SAAS offfering that charges an arm and leg for even basic operations and offer it at a deep discount. 4.Learn marketing skills(NOT Growth hacking) 5. Learn tech interview skills. Similar to what someone had posted.
• deleted 8y ago
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