Ask HN: How transferable are web dev skills? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How transferable are web dev skills?

6 pointshackaflocka5 comments

I know some HTML, CSS, JavaScript (via jQuery mostly), MySQL, PHP, and basic web server admin (LAMPP stack set up and operation).

I work on hobby projects for myself.

I'm wondering where these skills can be transferred outside of the web development world.

I tried a little iOS dev once, just a very basic app, but I felt disconcerted by the hardcore object orientation and the naming conventions.

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They are transferrable. You'll still have a learning curve but it'll be shallower than if you didn't know any development.

Not only that, but open-mindedly exploring new ways of doing things once will make you a better web dev, make it easier to learn the next thing, and keep you from getting stuck in an identity trap, i.e. "I am a COBOL developer" rather than "I know lots of COBOL (but moved on when the market did)"

Just watch out for the typical 'developer new to a language and tries to make everything just like their old language' trap.

...and the 'I now know a dozen architectural approaches to solve this problem so suffer from paralysing indecision' trap.

Also, recommend reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It's short and has a nice take on skill transferability

Appreciate the answer. I have read ZAMM.

I remember the quote about how the an artist making a painting isn't very different from a motorcycle mechanic maintaining a motorcycle. That ultimately it's about applied quality.

Exactly, maintain the mindset that you can absolutely master the problem once you've learned your way through it and you'll be fine. It's a pain to have to re-learn libraries and APIs, but new idioms are always interesting.

It's also important not to get caught up in the tribal ego-driven BS, or bias that says one idiom is better than another because it happened to be the way things are done in a previous language or framework. Maybe that's a general problem, or maybe it's heightened in the software world because we're (statistically speaking) a bunch of overprivileged daiper-babies.

They are transferable skills BUT it's very hard to find a job that isn't a keyword match for your previous job.

I have a lot of C/C++ experience, but that experience has a market value of $0 when applying to other jobs. There are transferable skills, but employers don't want transferable skills, they want someone who's already an expert in their stack.

I.e., most of my current work is LAMP, but I'm not getting any serious interviews for non-PHP jobs. Learning new stuff on your own doesn't help much, because most HR/Headhunters say "Only paid experience in a tech stack counts."

Regarding mobile development, my current interest is Unity. With Unity, you can use the same code on Windows/Android/iPhone.

Appreciate the answer. Am going to check out Unity.

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