Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?

That's a good idea. It'd probably be great for me to start a non web-app side-project.

Go helped me learn about designing good interfaces, and how to write tests using dependency injection rather than just patching stuff out.

I'm still studying Computing science right now and will start with a master in Game Technology next year. But it is really hard to get a job or do freelance work in the gaming field so no not yet but hopefully soon TM.

Absolutely you can. Just build up some real experience. Some certifications help as well. Just be careful the ones you spend time and money on.

not op, but there was a post today about how to build single page apps using Rust on the front page: http://www.sheshbabu.com/posts/rust-wasm-yew-single-page-app...

Why not try it out by start messing around with it and get a feel for it? But to answer your question: no, you don't. You already have more than enough prerequisites for an easier transition.

https://pentesterlab.com

https://portswigger.net/web-security

Have fun!

Edit: I'm completely self-taught and I've been working in the field for a few years. No dev or even IT background prior to getting into network pentesting and web app pentesting.

If you like devops and security, have a look at SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) positions. Companies look for software engineers to fill these positions. And you'll work on security related stuff. Not necessarily pen-testing per se, but network security, operational security, etc.

Also, teams with SRE expertise most likely use modern tech because SRE itself is a rather new way of managing infrastructure. So you'll probably be able to get your hands dirty with lots of cool tech.

> I don't think I can get a job as self-taught in this field.

Good security firms are the last ones to gatekeep over a degree or other paper.

I'm looking to go into this field too and would also like to hear why

It's a rapidly growing field that has more jobs than people. Meaning, at this point if you have a solid dev background and strong practical skills in security you're most likely going to make bank.

While anecdoctally speaking, I know people who switched from senior dev positions at two of the FAANG companies to smaller security companies and basically doubled their income and making north of $500k/year.

C is probably better, less abstractions.

You should learn C. Life is too short to struggle with C++ now that we have better alternatives such as Rust.

You can also ignore the people who ignore the complexity of web apps. Classic C programs are very often much simpler than full web apps IMHO.

zig is a fantastic alternative to C. The community is mostly C programmers who are sick and tired of undefined behaviour and #includes in C, but if you let them know you're a webdev looking to learn zig as a first low-level language I think you will find a relatively welcoming community.

Undefined Behaviour: Stuff like this - https://twitter.com/jfbastien/status/1280709082626666498

Good point. I'm relying on ORMs too much.

I'm driven by money because everything is getting more and more expensive :)

Well money is a requirement to live, and if you can do what you enjoy and get paid the money you need to live doing it, what's the problem?

Can make.

There is a hard plateau on how much you can make as an employee though. If you can build something and own the business, it's unlimited.

My favorite has been https://pgexercises.com/. Instead of going through theory, you practice writing progressively more complex queries to achieve a specific result.

The postgresql documentation is actually a pretty good start (and finish!).

I like learning by doing something so I took an old side project and I'm making it on PostgreSQL with PostgREST in front of it. It is crazy all the things that the DB can do! Triggers after an actions happens, virtual columns, JWT Tokens, Unit Testing...

I've only used it as a reference, but the art of postgresql is pretty solid. In general any webdev who isn't skilled at SQL is missing out on an easy way to level up. SQL is crazy powerful, versatile, and scalable, and takes a small amount of time to gain proficiency, and stays with you. I methodically read one 350 page book in 2012 and still feel I understand SQL better than most I come across. That's kind of silly. I recommend learning enough to understand the gist of aggregates and window functions. Once you understand what they can do, you can easily reference the syntax when needed.

[1]: https://theartofpostgresql.com

Execute Program has a great interactive course:

https://www.executeprogram.com/courses/sql

I would recommend SQL and Relational Theory by CJ Date.

It completely changed how I use SQL. Before reading it, I had about a decade of experience with SQL. I didn't really understand the theory underneath. I also didn't understand how to write SQL in a way that adheres to the theory.

You can think of this book as being the closest we have to "SQL: The Good Parts".

Theory: Database Lessons by Dr. Daniel Soper (watch at x2 speed) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1LIXLIF50uXWJ9alDSXC...

Learn by watching short videos and practicing: Mastery with SQL (paid course, $49) - https://www.masterywithsql.com/

I have gone down this rabbit hole, and I think neo4j is more suited as an analytics tool than a standalone production database: https://medium.com/@l_i/neo4j-is-a-great-platform-for-analyt...

As a self taught developer I also found Neo4j's query language (Cypher) to be way easier to read than sql. Especially for building complex relationships between data which I find to be kinda a pain in sql. Also the web interface for viewing your database is really easy to use. Although I should say I've switched to using more sql databases over the past year or two because there are way more hosting solutions that support them out of the box.

Neo4j's tutorials are great. But I also agree that they are better for graph analysis.

I've been using Gremlin for crud ops in my apps. I recommend these two resources on Gremlin:

https://kelvinlawrence.net/book/Gremlin-Graph-Guide.html

https://github.com/datastax/graph-examples

I don't see what's so bad. Seems like it would be a convenient way to skip some boiler plate back end code used for CRUD. Probably not optimal for a complex application, but it looks very neat for something quick and small.

Also learn to denormalize. Because performance matters.

Don't forget that the database is not only tables. Abstraction can be done at the SQL level with views.

With views you can maintain backwards compatibility despite migrations happening. No need to change your front-end.

Check this section of the PostgREST docs for more details:

http://postgrest.org/en/v7.0.0/schema_structure.html#schema-...

As a self-taught dev, this was a very helpful curriculum. I will say that it can be a little hard to stay motivated on some of these things if you have little chance to apply them, but at least skimming the various topics and understanding the terminology / primitives of each area is a big benefit. For example, understanding what processes and virtual file systems are is helpful even if you're not implementing page tables or whatever.

My observation about most of the new spoken Latin courses and lessons is that they're teaching Vulgar Latin or something akin to early medieval Latin.

That's cool, and very interesting. As you alluded to, you're basically learning proto-Romance.

However, as you likely know, people should not expect to be able to read classical Latin based on that knowledge. They should be able to read many medieval Latin works (including many notable scientific works!), but forget Cicero, Ovid, or Tacitus. Those will require significant additional study.

Luke Ranieri has some of the best advice on learning Latin. But note, even though Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata is one of the best Latin books available, he doesn't recommend starting with that. It's more effective to first learn your noun, accusative, dative, genitive, and ablative cases, plus verb tenses and moods, by brute memorisation. Then move on to the Ørberg readers: http://wcdrutgers.net/Latin.htm

Not OP, but I think there are two main reasons for this. Firstly if you are a professional you probably only had time to teach yourself what you needed for the job at hand. This is a great skill in and of itself but by definition it favors practice over theory. Secondly, if you're self-taught that means you didn't have a mentor and likely you don't know what you don't know. It's impossible to study topics you've never heard of, or whose connection to your field you're unaware of.

I think that in general you CAN learn and skip those holes if you have someone to guide you that already knows the subject well.

But as a person who may be really new to the subject of development and computer science I think it's obvious that without a lot of research and prep ahead of time you might start with a book or topic and keep moving forward, but you may not be exposed to all of the same things (some probably really useful, some are likely bullshit) that you'd get in a more structured learning environment.

Because when you learn alone you don't know what to learn. You usually only learn what you need now.

I would not say "massive holes", as that would somewhat imply that this knowledge would be actually required, even though it's usually the optional, nice-to-have knowledge that you are getting from an actual CS degree.

You can still create whatever you imagine even if you are self-taught, but going through university would make it a lot more likely that you understand better the tools that you are using (algorithms, microprocessors, logic gates, electricity, quantum effects, etc.) so you will better know how to use them and what their limitations are.

I don’t know if it’s guaranteed, but here’s my perspective (as someone with 2 BScs and an MSc, who also self teaches a ton of stuff):

My personal drive for self-teaching generally stems from either a specific problem I’m trying to solve on a project or a desire to dig deep into something “cool” I’ve come across.

In the first case, I’m tugging on the strings that seem most likely to get me to the solution to the problem I’m trying to solve. There’s a bit of backtracking here and there as I choose dead end paths, but it’s usually a depth first traversal. I’m not trying to learn all of a field, I’m just looking at what I need to know to move past the hurdle I’ve encountered.

In the second case, the goal is different but the process is pretty similar. When I’m learning for fun there is usually a bit more breadth, since I’m not trying to solve a specific problem in the immediate future, but I’m also probably not building a robust implementation of anything. I’ll usually end up with a decent surface level understanding of a topic; this is useful in that, if I encounter a related problem in my work, I’ve got at least the concept in my mental toolbox already and can do a deep dive more easily.

Over time I’ve built up a pretty wide and deep understanding of a lot of things as I’ve built them, but I am also fully aware there a ton of gaps (and have a big topic list that I occasionally visit during a slow period).

Everyone has massive holes in their knowledge, but holes which formal education tries to address tend to stand out more.

My best guesses for likely examples:

- Pointers and understanding how operating systems address/access memory at a low level.

- Hashing (This one may seem a little insulting but I have seen otherwise good developers confuse hashing with encrypting and it seems like an easy mistake to make if you haven't worked specifically with either concept)

- Binary math, logic, and encoding.

- The OSI model.

- Parallel programming, the program counter, and how operating systems execute/switch programs.

I would not count these as "massive" holes and it is also likely that these concepts would be discovered by a self-taught developer especially if she has looked for material from college-level CS courses.

None of this stuff is necessary to make great software but having this knowledge can help make other things easier to learn or understand. It's like the difference between knowing how to use common git commands and understanding how trees of objects are used to form a chain of commits.

Not really in my opinion, the book is really about the data aspect. Probably your best bet is to just pick your favourite programming language and build something in it.

The book is great but not what you seem to be looking for.

You would definitely benefit from doing general backend side projects and reading before reading this book. I don't think you'll have enough context for it otherwise.

However, the book is definitely relevant to mobile applications. The backends for all the most popular apps are built with systems described in it.

Just my two cents: I'm a front-end dev, and I found this book to connect with me a lot more once I also learned some backend.

Earlier this year, I read a few chapters of the book, and it was really abstract to me, so I stopped reading it.

On a whim, I had two developers teach me SQL and relational database theory. I spent a few weeks creating a few databases and connecting them to the front end to mimic real life application, before picking up the book again and the book made way more sense.

However, the market will eventually change and it's better to be prepared. Plus with PHP being the mainstream I wouldn't be surprised if you could make better $$$ by going after the (still) relatively niche technologies.

Honest question, why would you read a book about Regex? I personally find it a lot easier to learn how it works just by going to sites like https://regex101.com/ and trying things out while reading their docs.

Knowing how they work under the hood will help you to write better expressions that perform well and don't waste performance.