Hacker News Reader

Comment by eddyschai | Hacker News Reader

Not sure what to really take from this article. If it's about what one should spend their time learning, try identify the 'timeless' things. Software design over languages, algorithms over libraries, SQL and JavaScript will probably never die.

View on HN

Author here. I certainly have a lot of opinions about what to study more generally! This was a short note for people who are specifically trying to make it likelier that they'll succeed at a job they're about to start. Lots of people (former versions of myself included) focus too much on learning a language when studying other tools would give a higher ROI.

Nobody will hire you for your SQL knowledge but you can be sure everyone at your new company will heavily rely on you if you know your SQL well.

It's amazing coming at software from a data perspective, my assumption that people would know about SQL and databases is just so so wrong all of the time.

Same with infrastructure (and probably security, etc)

ORMs definitely don't help! In my first dev role I worked at a C# shop and everything was through Entity Framework. You can't take that skill with you if you change languages to Python, or Haskell, or whatever, but the core SQL skills to follow you around. It's worth the effort, I think (and it's not particularly hard to get semi-decent at SQL!).

In the job market right now, this seems like terrible advice: no one except Google are hiring for "algorithms" - they want a React developer, or a C#/.net developer who can pump out web APIs in it or something.

Companies mostly hire for frameworks below the FAANG level.

Every time "who wants to get hired" comes out it's always JavaScript/React/Node/Python/C++ at the top (percentage)

> they want a React developer, or a C#/.net developer who can pump out web APIs in it or something.

All web APIs follow the same basic pattern. The OP said:

>> try identify the 'timeless' things. Software design over languages, algorithms over libraries

If you understand the fundamentals of software engineering, picking up a new framework or library isn't a big deal. It's the same old tropes with some different syntax and domain language. Especially in the world of web development where you're pumping out APIs.

Once you get general topics it's fairly trivial to pick up new frameworks/libraries to pump those APIs out. I'm not saying algorithms for the sake of leetcode!

Saying this, I was interviewing for several roles across the US and EU last April and had algorithm-based questions in almost all of them. So it's pretty useful for that reason too, even if I don't really agree with it.

It’s trivial to learn the frameworks needed to be a competent mobile developer? Don’t get me started with the clusterfuck that is the front end ecosystem.

No, Leetcode has metastasized throughout startup land too. I know because I failed a lot of those interview types in the past year (but I keep trying since the pay is so good)

It’s good advice to not only learn about the tools you’re told to use but also learn about the tools that many others are using. Try to be full-stack versatile rather than just really good at one tool in the much larger process.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com