Ask HN: I need to specialize. Web, or iOS?

3 points by esob3 10y ago ↗ HN

I'm a software engineer, with equal years web, equal years iOS. I've decided, I need to specialize, and that means choosing either:

- Web - iOS - something else?

In the opinion of the wise technologists of this forum, given equal interest in the aforementioned fields, what is the "best career move"

In other words, whats going to be more valuable in 10 years?

8 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 32.8 ms ] thread

nness 10y ago ↗

A. Do you work with either at the moment? B. Will your current employment give you the opportunity to switch?

esob3 10y ago ↗

A. I currently professionally do iOS. But, I also work on side projects using modern web technologies (React, Angular, CSS3, HTML5, etc.)

[deleted] 10y ago ↗

(comment deleted)

bikamonki 10y ago ↗

Neither, bots will develop apps in 10 years. Now, assuming AI does not take over our jobs, I'd say it depends on the kind of apps that you develop. The current state of technology allows for web apps to perform very close to native and browsers are ever more willing to let web apps access phone features. However, for some apps like games, image manipulation, etc. native code is a better choice. I am a specialized web developer, I do mostly 'business-type apps' and so far I have managed to run in the phone's browser or on top of a layer like Apache Cordova.

esob3 10y ago ↗

So from the sounds of it your vote is:

Web.

And your reasoning is:

Web could replace native Obj-C / Java, on mobile platforms, in the future.

My response is:

That makes sense. I don't have much experience building a mobile app with web technology, but it seems to be more and more common, especially in the startup space (because you can kill 2 birds with one stone).

bikamonki 10y ago ↗

You kill 4 birds not 2. Your clients/employer will appreciate a single codebase that costs much less, both to develop and maintain.

There are drawbacks though. For instance, Android is very limited when handling images taken from a camera activity which was called by a browser, in fact this is a documented still unsolved bug. But Google itself is promoting the concept of 'progressive web apps' so one would safely assume that the end goal is to allow web apps to be as feature rich (and as performant) as native apps.

moshiasri 10y ago ↗

well for the start, no body can predict what will be more valuable in 10 years down the road, and who ever says so, it is just mere speculation.

The best road to take for you will be the one which is paying you more right now, personally me being a CS graduate degree and a CFA, i would advise you to weight in scale what will be more full filling to your needs at present.

the best course of action will be the web instead the ios, and the argument here is pretty simple one, first there was ios, then there was android, then came windows, what do you know will come next, but web has been the web, no matter if the bots make it or the AI takes it over, all of those things will also require skilled and smart people to make all the things happen.

We do not yet live in the terminator age (as i like to call it). yes the technology has advanced, and the advancing of it also need specially skilled smart people. iOS or android are just a piece of the pie, why settle for it, when you can have the bigger bite or even the whole.

pedalpete 10y ago ↗

I vote web, not because I'm not an iOS user, but I see the opportunities if you're familiar with web languages to be larger.

When I say 'web', I don't mean just a front-ender, though there will continue to be large opportunity for great front-end devs on the web. To be a great front-ender, you need mad css and javascript skills. Those javascript skills can lead you into back-end web dev with node.js or desktop apps with electron/node-webkit, etc. While you're doing that back-end stuff, does some algorithm stuff catch your fancy? There's some node stuff there too, but maybe you start toying with Python or who knows what language? Want to develop mobile apps, there's phonegap. IoT (going to plug my own library here http://getfavor.net), real-time coms, there's webrtc...

So, you could focus on learning Objective-C/Swift and become great at developing apps for Apple products (don't forget within their walled garden), or you can focus on javascript and whatever new platform comes out, you'll likely get a seat at the table and be hated by all your peers who are 'real programmers'.

I don't mind a bit of disdain, but I clearly <3 js.