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Ask Slashdot: How Will You Update Your Technical Skills Inventory This Summer?
Proudrooster writes "As technologists, developers, and programmers it is essential to keep moving forward as technology advances so that we do not find ourselves pigeonholed, irrelevant, or worse, unemployed. If you had to choose a new technology skill to add to your personal inventory this summer, what would it be and why? Also, where would you look for the best online training (iTunesU, Lynda.com)? The technologies that immediately jump out as useful to me are HTML5, XCODE, and AJAX. How about you?"
BSON is the way to go.
This Ask Slashdot sponsored by: Dice.com.
Why are skills in ALL CAPS?
So managers can ignore them better.
It's a JSON world baby. I'm learning flash myself, it's the COBOL of the future, niche knowledge for the win.
I don't do formal trainings, not any more. I'm happy with my focus on Android, but if I'd want to switch to other technologies, I'd download the tools and read the docs on the web. Same as I did for Android.
no, I don't have a sig
This story submission feels like spam for lynda.com.
Those are not skills for this summer, those are skills for several summers ago.
to kill off the slow brain cells that are holding me back from synergizing my knowledge of vertically integrated mobile platforms in local cloud-based content management system datafication.
crazy dynamite monkey
I'll be learning the latest and greatest hotness - Node.JS. Watch me create jaw dropping, brilliant code on both sides of the request transaction. Meow. Latest and greatest? Yes, of course! http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/06/27/1733243/nodejs-and-mongodb-turning-javascript-into-a-full-stack-language
Just because it's hard doesn't mean you shouldn't try, it means you should try harder!
So I can mod Minecraft.
While I bitch and moan about how I can't find a job?
tieping sckills!
two balls
I'm gonna play some broodwar, to work on my micro.
I'm going to try to compile at least one WorkplaceShell Class.
I'll be using the summer expanding my knowledge with Debian, an Os that won me over on its own as well as with with some awesome variants in the micro-computing scene. Will hopefully spend some time building a Cubieboard cluster and will also be trying out Asterisk.
Writing certified programs in Coq. Once I finally finish wrapping my head around all of the Curry-Howard correspondence between proofs and programs either I can tell the people who urge you to use a "safe" language to go stuff it because no safe language in the world will work, or I can stop writing tests and write proofs instead and not have to worry about hackers finding crazy corner cases in my code.
for me its the summer of PI. raspberry and arduino projects and general amusement.
If I could walk that way I wouldnt need cologne.
As an adult the time of year doesn't make any difference in the amount of free time I have to "update my technical skills inventory."
Reversing virtualized packers, network protocols fuzzing, learning to reliably exploit dangling pointers through heap spraying and other methods. Development with VHDL on FPGA boards. Grasping the inner workings of elliptic curve cryptography and maybe lattices too.
Also emptying/documenting/deleting data from any datacenter belonging to the NSA that i might come across in the meantime.
I don't care about web technologies and fads which will last 2 years.
I will continue to expand my skills in C, C++, cross-development infrastructure, build tools, SOC firmware support, device drivers, build infrastructure management, Linux, compilers, and similar stuff.
With these skills, I will still have a good job in 20 years, because most newbies are terrified of the middleware guts, because it's the hardest part, and everything is built on top of it, so it can't go away.
Once all the AJAX experts are out of work in 15 years, I'll still be making a living writing C.
I find that I make more effective use of the knowledge I already have when I add to it.
I'm teaching my kids some basic python while I learn it.
What? Not all technical skill are computer related, yo.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Don't be silly. Scrap the HTML, but the others might be worth a look; they'll almost have got to a workable state by now..
I'm reading The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, learning to farm, shoot and watch the northern paths for Vandals.
Seriously, this place is on its last legs.
Futurist Traditionalism
XCODE, unless it's meaning changed since I last checked, is not an acronym. It's just Xcode.
As far as Xcode as a skill? Xcode is just another code editor. It has a few fancy features, but nothing that's that dramatically different. Submitter probably means learning either iOS or Mac development (and probably learning Obj-C.) All of these things could be valuable skills.
But let's be specific. Learning Dreamweaver and learning HTML5 aren't the same thing either.
I'll learn more about Linux this summer.
Other than that, not irrelevant.
Lol, damn but do I love it when some high-and-mighty know-it-all makes such a novice mistake...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Im learning assembly language. It will never become obsolete unlike some high level languages.
My honest answer is to unask the question. Learning specific buzzwords should never be a goal. If I can just accomplish some kind of worthwhile amateur project this summer, I will be a hell of a happy camper. And then just learn whatever techs come up in the course of the project.
If I were considering hiring me, I'd be a lot more impressed by "Wrote the cool new thing people use to pirate movies on the internet and $N million people are using it now" than I'd be impressed by "up to speed on $BUZZWORD version $V." And then when I asked me how my new movie pirating tool works, if I then happened to drop a bunch of buzzwords, that'd impress me even more.
Successful applications, dude: that's real tech. HTML5 and AJAX are "sub-techs" ; pieces of minor tech that "real tech" is made out of. You don't ask an architect if he's ever heard of bricks, and you sure as hell don't ask him during a job interview, what color bricks are his favorite.
Unfortunately, I fear by the end of the summer, my resume's extra line will be "Summer 2013: came home tired every day, drank lots of beer and didn't get anything done. One year closer to my grave."
Working, as I'm an adult that lives in the United States. If I waited until the summer to do anything then I would be wasting the fall and the winter, when people take off and work slows down.
that way I can get all my work done while I sleep
I will be re-reading MSCE course materials. Sometimes I forget where to click.
Now up to 70 percent off!
What is old is new again.
I'm relearning OpenGL and shaders with c++11 and having a blast. :)
Never mind I can use it in HTML5 with JavaScript now
I got a head start on the summer, so I've been writing CoffeeScript that runs on Node.js since May.
I avoid online training in lieu of curling up on the couch with a good paper book.
For Node.js, I chose Smashing Node.js
For CoffeeScript, I chose The Little Book on CoffeeScript
I recommend both of these excellent books to anyone interested in CoffeeScript and/or Node.js
Since finishing the books, I've been writing code, uploading it to GitHub, and having a great time with both the new language and the new platform.
Gonna get my ham license this summer. I may try to take the technician and general tests the same day. I'm not sure this particular technology skill will help keep me employed, but it will surely help keep my sanity.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
I am going to learn how to produce 3D printer files from design ideas (probably jewelry products).
-- I wasn't there. I didn't do it. I don't know how. I don't know anyone who does.
For the useless editor: the word "inventory" in the title is entirely redundant.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
By studying trends of buzzwords in Slashdot articles I'll know how to sound relevant to managers, and maybe even learn how to invent my own buzzwords.
So I can mod Kerbal Space Program :)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
So obviously people who are only now starting iOS development are irrelevant, according to you. The fuck?!
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Everyone should know at least HTML5 or stay off the web.
That the one with the blink tag?
So, under your logic, if you don't know something and someone else already does, you are irrelevant? Right. So anyone learning anything new sounds pretty pointless then, huh?
The "age" of a standard, language, or IDE has nothing to do with its usefulness, that's idiotic. How does learning something that has been out for a while put you "behind"? Is it some sort of head-to-head race by all million or so iOS developers to create one app?
And obviously by Xcode he meant iOS app development, your pedantry doesn't help the discussion either.
This seems a rather mercenary outlook to me. You are asking for suggestions on how to spend your spare time with the goal of keeping yourself employed, without regard to whether you would enjoy the subject or process.
I'm all for goal-driven careers, but studies show that the most successful people are the ones who like what they do. It largely doesn't matter whether the skill is the most "in demand", it only matters whether the skill is in demand "enough". This is illustrated by successful people in (what we would consider) pedestrian careers such as furniture sales, property rental, or owning the local laundromat (which, BTW, is the most common way to be successful).
The first step is discovering what you enjoy. The easiest way to do this is to spend 1 hour in quiet solitude. This is unexpressibly difficult if you've never tried it - you need a situation which has no interruptions whatsoever (kids, phone calls, other people), and you need to stick with it for the duration. Solo long road trips, long walks, hiking, and biking work well for this.
For the first 1/2 hour your head will be full of day-to-day thoughts, reminders, personal maintenance, reviewing memories, and so on. After awhile, this will quiet down and your mind will start to wander. Whatever you think about most is likely your source of joy.
Figure out some skill that feeds into your joy, choose a project that requires this skill and which also feeds into joy, and resolve to complete the project by the end of summer. Write the goal down (this part is important!) with as much detail as you can, stick it in an envelope, and put it away for later.
Your brain has likes and dislikes, as well as a goal-setting mechanism that you can use to your advantage. If you want to be happy, you should start the process of being happy right now, while you still have leisure to do so.
(Oh, and to answer your question: I'm writing a paper on hard AI.)
"How Will You Update Your Technical Skills Inventory This Summer?"
:P
:P
So, let me start by saying summer doesn't mean 2-3 months of vacation time since I was in highschool. I.e. work as usual, aside from a few days here and there for short rests. Which in turn means, summer is no special occasion to frshen up skills. As a general rule, you;d need to learn new stuff when you need it, or - less likely to happen - when you have time for it and nothing better to do.
If the question is - which it isn't since it looks like some ad for dates online courses - what would be new relevant stuff to pick up currently, well, I won't help with that. No, really, first thing to learn is to be able to find that out for yourself
Anyway, I only learn two things: stuff that I'm interested in - independent of current trends or fashionable tech directions -, and stuff that I need to get some job done. If you think about these and you can't figure out something you'd need to learn thet you're either too lucky to exist, or just dumb as a shoelace in which case you shouldn't care about the whole thing anyway
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Some of us have a job, so summer is no different than winter/fall/spring...
Yes, that is about the size of it. I am still a command line, C, HTML/CSS, JSON, Javascript, PERL, PHP, SQL, backend database, Linux type of developer. I see apps taking over the web on tablets both native and in HTML5. I realize there is still a huge base for this stuff, but I wanted to fast forward 10 years. It was a sincere question not an advertisement for Dice.com or Lynda.com as others have suggested.
...doing a course a day (1.5-3 hrs/day on 1.5x speed).
This summer I'm going to learn XMLRPC and Server Side Includes!
Laravel
"Evil man makes you kill me...evil man makes me kill you..even tho..we're just families apart.."
I'm learning Ruby and then Rails for web apps and teaching. Starting from Perl/Python Ruby is a pretty short step.
You total dick dweeb
I believe OpenCL is the future, since it is able to utilize the processing power of less-than-full-featured processors, such as GPUs, for more general purposes. It is able to unleash vast amounts of untapped processing potential, and seems like to go-to solution for those who seek vastly more processing power than we have today.
Well, there's a small chance that CUDA, RenderScript, or some other yet-unknown language could suddenly become multi-platform and overtake it. Still, even if it does beat OpenCL, learning it will teach GPGPU principles. Picking up a 2nd GPGPU language should be much easier after OpenCL.
Honestly, I've never had as much trouble wrapping my head around a language, as I do with OpenCL. C/C++/Lisp/Haskell were all easy in comparison. But I think it's an unavoidable growing pain we all have to face as we move from our Blub to whatever's more powerful. :)
Learning something new or sharpening something old is kind of a year-round activity. :-)
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
I'm slaving away doing Java monkey work you prick, but thanks for asking.
There's all these droids in the "head shed" that can only speak in grunts, points, and obvious solutions, as shown in PowerPoint cartoons, after the rest of us have done their work for them. They decide who continues, is hired or fired. I will continue to study them, their means of communication, their rewards system, and how to manipulate all those.
I shall offer to teach others how to do the same, provided they have the interest and wish to learn the skills.
I know eight programming languages cold. I've worked as a senior engineer, project lead and CEO.
Ain't no jobs for Americans any more. It doesn't fucking matter what technologies you know.
HTML5 is about as useful as a dick on an airplane propeller.
Fuck HTML5
XCODE [sic] is not a technology, it's an IDE. Jesus, Slashdot, this is pathetic.
There is no summer of learning; it's every day.
Look, the whole "tool belt" approach is short sighted. Yes, you can learn the basics of a lot of things but your are better off with a deep understanding of one thing. Every language runs into the same issues. The difference is basically syntax but once you have a deep understanding in one language it's applicable across them all. Performance tuning an application to death is a great driver for that type of exploration as you will learn about I/O limits, server configurations and optimizations, caching strategies, network latency, query optimization, different types of databases for different purposes, asset optimization and delivery via CDN and potentially even how to run your favorite language on the JVM (like jruby or jython) without having to deal with writing Java.
Just take a project and have a never ending goal to make it faster. Do that for long enough and you'll have such a deep understanding of how stuff works you won't care what language you are using. You will understand the limitations of frameworks and the strength of experience too. Anybody can say "look, I learned Node.js this summer" but experience will let somebody understand wear nodes value comes from enough to say, "Using the nginx http push module I can get the same advantages of node in any language you want."
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
Done a bunch of stuff with 8051s and MSP430s so want to learn a different flavor of embedded. And x86 assembly for fun.
I'm a linux kernel hacker, C, C++, and bash kind of developer....
the dreaded /blink/ im going to have nightmares of tripod and geocities pages now because of you
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I bought a Nexus 10 and I'm going to write a few apps for that. It seems like mobile stuff is attracting all the attention so I'll at least familiarize myself with what that's all about. Yes, I know I'm at least a half-decade late to this party.
I'm going for the FPGA/ARM competence by fiddling around with a Zedboard.
This seems to be an interesting thing to go on with since it is very useful to have knowledge in how to do custom designs.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
A decade ago was better.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I will watch some ted talks. I do not want to be too small minded.
Well, what I'm probably going to is try to encourage people that 'summer' is no more a useful global chronological coordinate than is 'night'.
The world is round, and tilted.
Such terms are descriptions of purely local phenomena that occur at different times at different places.
I have six months to decide what I'm going to do this summer.
Now, let's all go skiing.
Summer is for golfing, boating, kayaking, beach, swimming, BBQs, vacation, reading for fun, and watching summer blockbusters (when it's raining).
I agree that most of us do not have two months off as we work for a living, but most of us do take vacation time at this time of year. In addition, I would rather spend my evenings and weekends outdoors during the summer working on my golf swing or enjoying a BBQ with friends and family.
Summer is short enough (at least int he North East). Leave training for the cold winter months...
... that I do that all the time, all the other months. If my day job has requirements that need me to learn something new it's all the better. If not, I still do try to get acquainted with new technologies by myself, even if I don't dive too deep while doing so (I can do that effectively when the need arises).
But I most certainly DO need at least 2-3 weeks per year to relax. Play music, go on a trip, sit down and read a (non technical) book; these kinds of things. I go as far as to replace my smartphone with a dumb one and disconnect my computer from the mains for at least a week and it works wonders for me. It's incredibly relaxing and something I'd recommend in a heartbeat.
I used to maintain C (with curses) well over a decade ago, but it's all gone now (rusted away to nothing). However, with the advent of the Raspberry Pi (which I think runs better either headless or without going into X) I'm getting this strange urge to revisit and re-establish some C skills. Back-to-basics, as it were.
In addition to this, I'll probably aim to study for some Java certification, and get a solid handle on design patterns.
If I do need to get to grips with something "modern", it'll probably be Google Web Toolkit (GWT)
OK, I'll be honest, the Java certification and GWT would be for work. The C and nCurses would be for me!
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
I'm going to be wreaking havoc on several VM's and study some malware. With the recenty leaked carberp source, etc, this hsould be fun.
Despite Neurosky's fierce resistance, I have managed to buy one of their EEG headsets. I can only hope that I'll manage to write some interesting Android apps that I can control with my mind by the end of the summer :D
I play around with Pharo/Squeak.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I won't be, that's what winter is for. I guess I can understand why you would think summer is the time for learning, however most of us don't still live in their mothers basement, avoiding the sun like the plague.
I'll be learning SEO, Sun Enjoyment Optimization.
i want to learn PDP-11 assembly =P
I am in Antarctica, you insensitive clod!
I am maintaining my virtualization, Winders, *NIX and network skills in the harshest, driest, coldest continent. It is midwinter. Dark. Cold. Windy.
Thanks for reminding me of all of the bikinis that I will not see this year. :-(
Whatever be the skill asked for, there's an offshoring consulting firm fielding a candidate with 25 years of experience in that exact same skill.
Tell us why your one summer skill should not be thrown into the dustbin?
I plan to attend two courses offered through Coursera: "Startup Engineering" and "Coding the Matrix".
Is the implication that all these technologists aren't going to be busy sowing (spring) and reaping (fall)? Or that they only work during the academic year, so they have summer vacation?
With my employer recently making an unexpected decision to modernize it's entire supervisory control and data acquisition system, it appears even we electricians will be learning to work with the RSLogix5000 development environment. And we are ripping out analog control wiring and replacing it with cat 5 all over the place!
FYI: A good tutorial is worth its weight in gold. Don't mistake a reference for a tutorial.
A tutorial will walk you through the basics. A reference is like a dictionary. Good for someone who already has a good idea of what he's doing and just needs details on the specifics. A tutorial is for someone just trying to figure out how to apply the technology.
irregardless...
Installing OwnCloud, OpenVPN, GPG, Zimbra Srvs.
See the similar thread across all these?
I hope to completely disconnect the networks I use from google, yahoo, facebook, twitter, apple, oracle ... any large, tracking, services.
So you're wondering what hot young thing you want to get to know this summer? Is she going to be JSON, MongoDB, WebGL, or maybe Node.js? The reality is The Business doesn't care. The Business only cares about one thing and one thing only: that you're driving value-add moving forward. Getting to know Clojure is only so much developer indulgence; The Business doesn't care, and they only see that it will make you more valuable to some other employer instead of them. You are better served learning all the intricacies of the ancient information system that's mission critical. Learn all the contradictory layers and business rules that have accumulated over the years. Learn what keeps it happy. You should be a SME, a go-to guy The Business can call on when it has questions. Then learn about Gantt charts and a bit of project management. The all-coveted tower of Lead is found on a path through these. You will code less and sit in meetings and on bridges more. You may even add a process of your own to the bureaucratic machine.
Look to your elders. How did they become Leads and architects? It wasn't by learning new technologies, APIs, and languages; it was by understanding The Business, respecting the chain of command, following process, and paying their dues. Just play your role as a well-greased cog in the corporate machine and grind on and on.
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
For me it will be Angular.js and Go (golang.org)
Waaay back to the very firstest of all Browser Wars, when a "web page" was considered sexy if it managed to have an image in it somewhere, I gave up on javascript. This is bollocks, I said, and stomped off to the server in a huff.
Fast-forward to today, and we got javascript in the browser, javascript in the database (MongoDB), and javascript on the server (Node.js). If you really want someone to tell you what to get your hands dirty with over the summer, that'd be my recommendation.
"The mind is a terrible thing to, um, uh, oh bollocks." -- Me
I spend all year staying on top of the technologies I need foe work. This summer, I will focus on playing with my kids and perfecting my BBQ ribs. Because without enjoying life sometimes, all professional knowledge is useless.
Steam Sales.