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Ask Slashdot: How Will You Update Your Technical Skills Inventory This Summer?

Posted by Soulskill on from the underwater-basketweaving-using-node.js dept.

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?"

4 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Marketing babble galore by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This Ask Slashdot sponsored by: Dice.com.

    1. Re:Marketing babble galore by foniksonik · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Looks like a question from a high school student to me. Maybe answer it appropriately?

      Ajax is still heavily used in web dev but typically you use a wrapper library like Jquery, Dojo or similar.

      HTML5 isn't really a skill or a technology. It's a buzzword to describe a set of HTML extensions, CSS extensions and the way you combine them with JavaScript.

      XCode is an IDE to develop Objective-C applications for iOS and OSX operating systems.

      These are fine if you have something in mind. If not might I suggest the following.

      Read a book on Design Patterns and get a cookbook for your favorite language (JavaScript, Ruby, Python, PHP, C++, LUA, etc) that uses said patterns (factory, decorator, etc).

      Try making a game using a game engine such as Unity or Unreal.

      Buy a $25 Arduino board and find some tutorials on programming for it.

      If it must be web related, try out NodeJS and use Meteor framework to build an app.

      --
      A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
  2. spam? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This story submission feels like spam for lynda.com.

  3. Re:no formal training by White+Flame · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People learn new platforms via reference materials, which brings existing programmers into their realm. This is especially true with Android, since it builds off of Java and to a lesser extent from the user & app-programmer perspective, Linux.

    Learning to program, however, is a separate skill. I'd suggest learning Java, then applying what you've learned to Android. If you're good at learning on your own, then go straight into Android programming examples from Google's materials and learn both at the same time, sussing out any weird language understandings with Java references.