Ask HN: Novice looking for an overview of different areas of programming | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Novice looking for an overview of different areas of programming

Complete beginner here. I'm wondering if someone can give me an overview of different areas of programming. I know there is mobile development and web development. That is the extent to my knowledge. I want to venture into a field that will be ripe for innovation in the years to come. I'm not necessarily looking for employable skills, but that won't hurt either. Initially, I was looking into iOS development, but the success rates for indie developers don't look promising.

Essentially, I'm looking for an overview of different fields and my interest is from an entrepreneurial standpoint. Thanks.

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Perhaps you can look at optimization or machine learning. Optimization of processes and algorithms can be applied to almost anything out there and Obviously machine learning is new and hot and will continue to be a hot topic in the near future.

How would I go about the learning path. Would it be something along the lines of: 1) Learn programming language X, 2) Learn Multivariable Calc, Linear Algebra, Probablity & Statistics, 3) Learn machine learning?

Also, what do you think of iOS development in terms of entrepreneurial ventures?

If you have no technical background then you should start by learning a programming language such as python. If you do hav a technical background learning optimisation and machine learning has two paths. 1) theory 2) practical. Most of the time in these two fields to start off as a beginner in depth theory knowledge is not required so you can play around with some open source libraries and get started that way.

In terms of iOS and entrepreneurial ventures my opinion is that you shouldn't focus on say "iOS" as you have framed it. Startups is about finding a problem and building a product that people will use. iOS is a tool that will help you to do so. Likewise the product could be a website (so you'd use a different tool to build, such as ruby on rails) so it ultimately comes down to what you want to do. If you don't have a technical background, even to do a business role in the tech world, it won't hurt to learn one programming language as from there you will have your foot in the door.

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