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God technology moves so fast. I'd be stupid not to learn this stuff. It could be life changing! The question remains; When do I have the time to learn this stu

God technology moves so fast. I'd be stupid not to learn this stuff. It could be life changing! The question remains; When do I have the time to learn this stuff? I was thinking about this for a while. Besides working/planning/coding on my own project, I feel like I don't have much time for this. I think I'm going about this all wrong though. I should divi up my week into departments. That is, have a few hacking days, a planning day, a maintenance day and a R&D day. Having one day a week to study new techniques doesn't sound like much, but at least it gets the juices flowing. Its all about balance.

veyron 14y ago
The easiest way is to work on a side project (of your choice) and explore what technologies would be best. For example, why not try to write a HTML5 game? Even if its something relatively simple like a platformer, you will have opportunity to learn a bunch of technologies and actually have an end product (if you have the stamina)
- sreyaNotfilc 14y ago
  Good idea. With my pet project (artJutsu) I've already experimented a lot with jQuery's ajax call to asp.Net web services. The results actually changed the way I approach problems at my 9-5. I should figure out how to incorporate this html5 game dynamic into the site somehow. Perhaps as a chat-game project. Who knows what cool things I can learn from this. Exposure is the greatest thing a developer can have. It helps spur up innovations. Kinda like a kid with an Erector set.
  - chudi 14y ago
    It seems to be that in your 9-5 you cant play with new stuff and you're learning on your on time and not getting paid for that, start doing it in your job or change job now, you're bringing more value to were you are than they pay to you
- bazookaBen 14y ago
  i started just making a simple HTML5 game, and kept going at it. Taught me a bunch abt game development, the industry and ultimately founded a startup
confluence 14y ago
Technology doesn't actually move fast - you just haven't been watching this progress over the last 5 or so years. Indeed I've found technology to be slow burning with a large bang. Similar examples are found in start ups, inventions and financial crises. Discontinuities only occur due to inadequate sampling of the information stream.
- sreyaNotfilc 14y ago
  You're right. It seems like there's so many places to watch. Its really a coin flip. You can either choose to look one way, or look the other. That is, focus on what you know, or go on a technological safari. I think having a R&D day will help balance this out. I'm always using new techniques and technologies, but they are only logical progressions in my current scope of knowledge. What I need to really do is to go from A to Epsilon to Z and then to B. At least for one day a week. I just want to be a bit more well rounded and beef up my "bag O' tricks".
jblow 14y ago
Look ... guys ... this is NOT TECH, unless you classify hooking up a sewage pipe at the RV Park as tech too. This is just another example of fighting through a gross kludgey mess to do something relatively trivial that we already knew how to do, much more robustly and performantly, in other systems. Any time you see an article titled "X in HTML5" you know you are about to ride the short bus. I recommend learning some computer science. See also Alan Kay's comments about the Web vs the Internet, recently linked on HN...
- SvenBergstrom 14y ago
  I actually wrote the article with this in mind. Lots of people dont know how multiplayer actually works. The demo is 'in html5' because people can try it now in their browser. Also because thats where the sites target market is.
  - jblow 14y ago
    I have no objection to the actual existence of the article. I just think it's important for people to understand this fact, that seems to be increasingly misunderstood these days, that "technology" is about expanding the frontiers of human knowledge. Just because someone types program-like things into a computer doesn't mean what he is typing is technology. If the defining property of your activity is that you are trying to negotiate messes that other people have made in order to make things happen, where the things you are making happen are not novel in themselves, that is pretty much what working in a bureaucracy is like. So you can think of it as "working in a vast decentralized computer bureaucracy" rather than "working in tech".
    - slurgfest 14y ago
      How do you propose to make web games? Flash? Read Knuth and then use Flash? Abandon web games because it's too messy for you? Please be more specific about what you propose instead.
      - jblow 14y ago

veyron 14y ago

The easiest way is to work on a side project (of your choice) and explore what technologies would be best. For example, why not try to write a HTML5 game? Even if its something relatively simple like a platformer, you will have opportunity to learn a bunch of technologies and actually have an end product (if you have the stamina)

sreyaNotfilc 14y ago
Good idea. With my pet project (artJutsu) I've already experimented a lot with jQuery's ajax call to asp.Net web services. The results actually changed the way I approach problems at my 9-5. I should figure out how to incorporate this html5 game dynamic into the site somehow. Perhaps as a chat-game project. Who knows what cool things I can learn from this. Exposure is the greatest thing a developer can have. It helps spur up innovations. Kinda like a kid with an Erector set.
- chudi 14y ago
  It seems to be that in your 9-5 you cant play with new stuff and you're learning on your on time and not getting paid for that, start doing it in your job or change job now, you're bringing more value to were you are than they pay to you
bazookaBen 14y ago
i started just making a simple HTML5 game, and kept going at it. Taught me a bunch abt game development, the industry and ultimately founded a startup

confluence 14y ago

Technology doesn't actually move fast - you just haven't been watching this progress over the last 5 or so years. Indeed I've found technology to be slow burning with a large bang. Similar examples are found in start ups, inventions and financial crises. Discontinuities only occur due to inadequate sampling of the information stream.

sreyaNotfilc 14y ago
You're right. It seems like there's so many places to watch. Its really a coin flip. You can either choose to look one way, or look the other. That is, focus on what you know, or go on a technological safari. I think having a R&D day will help balance this out. I'm always using new techniques and technologies, but they are only logical progressions in my current scope of knowledge. What I need to really do is to go from A to Epsilon to Z and then to B. At least for one day a week. I just want to be a bit more well rounded and beef up my "bag O' tricks".

jblow 14y ago

Look ... guys ... this is NOT TECH, unless you classify hooking up a sewage pipe at the RV Park as tech too. This is just another example of fighting through a gross kludgey mess to do something relatively trivial that we already knew how to do, much more robustly and performantly, in other systems. Any time you see an article titled "X in HTML5" you know you are about to ride the short bus. I recommend learning some computer science. See also Alan Kay's comments about the Web vs the Internet, recently linked on HN...

SvenBergstrom 14y ago
I actually wrote the article with this in mind. Lots of people dont know how multiplayer actually works. The demo is 'in html5' because people can try it now in their browser. Also because thats where the sites target market is.
- jblow 14y ago
  I have no objection to the actual existence of the article. I just think it's important for people to understand this fact, that seems to be increasingly misunderstood these days, that "technology" is about expanding the frontiers of human knowledge. Just because someone types program-like things into a computer doesn't mean what he is typing is technology. If the defining property of your activity is that you are trying to negotiate messes that other people have made in order to make things happen, where the things you are making happen are not novel in themselves, that is pretty much what working in a bureaucracy is like. So you can think of it as "working in a vast decentralized computer bureaucracy" rather than "working in tech".
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    How do you propose to make web games? Flash? Read Knuth and then use Flash? Abandon web games because it's too messy for you? Please be more specific about what you propose instead.
    - jblow 14y ago