HN Explorer

Ask HN: What skill do you want to develop or improve in 2023?

35 points by Anon84 ↗ HN
I, not the biggest fan of new year resolutions, but I do establish goals at the beginning of the year. To my mind having something to strive for instead of a commitment to keep makes all the different in terms of focus and perseverance so I’m curious about the HNs hive mind take.

What are your goals for 2023? I’m particular, what would you like to lean? What skills do you want to develop?

48 comments

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djaouen
My plan so far includes learning the Genie framework, which is written in Julia.
dontbenebby
My tact.
m463
"Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip." - Winston Churchill

:)

dontbenebby
Haha that made me smile. Was Churchill known for his tact?

(Never met him :))

jamisonbryant
Kubernetes (well on my way) and Infrastructure as Code (yikes). Advice and resources welcome.
digitalsushi
I do some IaC at work... I'm not an expert, I'm just a user of it.

At first I thought Terraform was the only way to do it, but now that I've used some CFT in AWS, I think they both have their strengths. They don't really overlap each other perfectly. Maybe like 90% overlap but the good stuff is on the periphery. Azure Resource Templates are not bad. Google Cloud Platform seems to be a Terraform shop. So is OpenStack. They all kind of bleed together.

We want to use the kubernetes control plane for a lot of stuff in the near future. If I had time to learn some golang, I think I could break free of writing IaC stuff, and start working on provisioner code that automates IaC.

Buttons840
I'd like to resume my efforts to train an AI to win Slay the Spire ascension 20.

I'd like to find a way to mix reinforcement learning with traditional AI techniques and perhaps create a game to demonstrate it.

bl4ckcontact
This sounds awesome and would love to see this demonstrated if you make any headway on it!
agumonkey 

    - theory and applied parsing
    - graphs and enumerative combinatorics
    - some infra/sys (k8s, kafka)
    - more fp, prolog, gofai
    - more geometry
tavorep
Embedded programming and my DSA skills in general. I recently graduated with a degree in EE (my second bachelors) but realized that my microprocessor courses weren't well taught and my programming skills aren't where they need to be to be employed doing these things quite yet, in my opinion. So for the time being I'll build up these skills while applying to jobs. Hopefully they improve enough to the point where I can find an entry level role in the field.
peruvian
Nothing technical, but want to keep up fitness and socializing.
altdataseller
1. Bodybuilding

2. Skincare

3. Meditation

m463
I think 1. should be both exercise + strength training
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
mindcrime
As far as technical / intellectual pursuits, I want to continue to brush up on old math stuff, and learn new (to me) math stuff. I'm going through Professor Leonard's Calc II video series now, which is pushing into new territory for me, as I dropped out of school the semester I was taking Calc I.

And not a "skill", but something I want to do in 2023 is to continue to lose weight and get more fit, mostly by continuing to do a lot of bike riding and start mixing in some trail running. And eating more plant-based foods and less highly processed foods.

grwthckrmstr
Top priorities 1. Nourish my body back to full health. Got Vit D and B12 deficiencies and minor exercise related injuries, put on a few extra kgs of fat in the abdomen area. 2. Nourish my mind back to full health. I overworked myself during the pandemic without a good balance and badly burnt myself out. 3. Explore the world with spouse. Find a place to stay that has good environmental chars (air quality, water etc.).

Next 1. Complete my journey of learning to code by building and launching 1-2 simple apps in the year. 2. Build a few new businesses that run with low maintenance effort in software, content or a combination.

tsingy
Just an appreciation post after looking at your blog and all the various things you've built and achieved. You're the kind of person that keeps me motivated to learn everyday so thank you for sharing.
dysoco
I want to train willpower and overall organization.

Going at least 3/4 times to the gym a week, studying every day, waking up at a reasonable time, keeping everything clean and eating well.

I don't care if I actually manage to get buffed or excel at all my classes; I just want to end the year knowing that I gave everything; and try to create habits out of these things.

digitalsushi
I want to take a week of time off from work, and find a friendly, recently retired machinist to give me a crash course on the lathe. I'd pay whatever rate is fair for a thing like that. I think it would be one of the best memories of my life.

If I could make a bolt from a piece of steel, I'd be one happy camper. Yeah yeah I can youtube all day long. I just want to learn something in real time from a person.

m463
I've heard with a milling machine and a lathe, you can make... a milling machine and a lathe.

I'd love a later-in-life university that would have courses that let you take that hero's journey.

gautamsomani
I just want to improve my ability to relax more in stressful situations and take it easy. Thats all.
jonas-w
To produce more than consume.

My life currently is 90% consumption, be it media, news, tv shows, movies, food, etc. I feel like a trash can. Not that majority of the stuff i consume is trash, but that the stuff i consume trashes me. I only do stuff that i need to, sometimes not even that because i'm too occupied consuming.

My goal is to lower my "I/O" and to choose more wisely what should take up my "bandwidth". And at the same time to free some "disk"-/brain-space.

Basically reducing screen time and finding activities that can be done without electronics and maybe give me some energy back instead of draining my "battery".

The problem is my only real interest is programming, sysadmin stuff or basically anything that has something to do with creating/doing something on something that has a processor in it.

Going to be interesting to develop skills outside of my usual comfort zone but it is long due.

renaissance_tea
Well said. You’re off to a good start because you produced this comment and it resonated with me.
jonas-w
I hoped for a good start after that comment but today was definitely not a good start :|
sol2k
I share this sentiment. Would be interesting to see how many folks this resonates with, maybe it's the beginning of a wonderful support group. And the irony that it started on HN will be lost on... well, nobody!
jonas-w
I wish. A few people actually upvoted, we seem not to be alone. But when we look at the broader society, it looks like everyone just wants to consume. Maybe they also just struggle to find something outside of the digital world that brings them the same kick of dopamine over and over...
Anand_S
1. To live in the present moment

2. To let go off the need to constantly improve something or to constantly chase something.

steve_adams_86
I’ve been loving embedded programming on various boards suited to IOT and I want to keep at it.

It’s been amazing to discover that I can throw up a LoRa network, get some controllers sensing and actuating, talk to them and observe them from the web, run their data through a message broker, etc. and have this little ecosystem of hardware doing things I want or need. I’ve just started piping some of the data online so I can observe and interact while on vacation in the future.

I’ve always just bought stuff that kind of does what I need, had a vague understanding of how it works, and left it at that. Now I can build a lot of things I need from components, and it’s sometimes even cheaper! I understand so much more about how things work. It’s really cool to be able to say I actually know what’s happening in a Bluetooth speaker and that I could (rudimentarily) build one from a Bluetooth-capable microcontroller. From code to power source to amplifier and wiring up speakers, I actually get it! Sure it would look and sound awful, but to me it’s amazing.

I’ve got a hydroponic garden that’s very well automated (dosing pumps for nutrients and pH levels, light schedules, pump schedules, heaps of environmental sensors, sensor calibration routines, etc), a mushroom fruiting chamber (way dumber than the hydroponic system), weather station, and I’d like to start getting into the basics of robotics next. An IK algorithm would be very gratifying to implement.

It’s so cool to use programming to make real things that interact with the world. I learn so many new skills, get better at programming, and actually make useful stuff. I haven’t been so excited about a new skill in a long time.

Part of me wonders if I might need more education to pursue a new branch in my career, but another part of me is pretty sure I don’t have any special talents and it’s probably best left as a hobby.

saasxyz
Writing + speaking skills.
yakubin
I’m going to try migrating to Scotland. Skill-wise: I want to get better at spoken English. I’m pretty fluent, but from time to time I forget a word and it’s still a bit more stressful to speak English than my native language, even if more than 50% of words going through my head are usually English.

More techy stuff:

- learn iOS programming;

- learn more about compiler development;

- FreeBSD;

- Windows from developer’s POV and internals.

Hobby: get better at photographing wild animals. Main obstacle here currently is lack of a fast long lens, but I’m probably going to fix that by the end of 2023. When I get better at it, I want to go on a safari and photograph a couple wild cats: lions, leopards. Alternatively lynxes in Sweden/Estonia and snow leopards in Himalayas. But that’s getting into a much longer plan than just 2023.

ralusek
Your desire to speak English and choice of Scotland are incompatible.
yakubin
Lol. :)

In Glasgow and the Highlands maybe. But not in Edinburgh.

Maybe that’s a weird thing to do, but I’m probably going to take private English lessons… while in UK. That’s because I don’t expect people in normal conversations to correct me on a day to day basis, but I’m going to need it nonetheless.

isaac-sway
If you're interested in finding a native speaker to chat with, or activities in Scotland, feel free to reach out!
oweiler
I've ran 240km per year and plan to double that amount next year (I've never ran more than 20km the years before).
iunia
That was exactly what i had in mind for this year, 20km a month, however i failed :( any trick that worked for you? Being focused? Having an atomic habbit?
matanrubin
All the comments here are great, but how is it that in such an inspiring and intellectual community such as HN there are so few dreamers who actually have "big" goals (for some definition of "big")?

Keeping fit and learning some programming language are great goals, don't get me wrong, but in trying to think about my own goals for 2023 I can't help but thinking "really? Are these really my goals? Running 5k or whatever? When I'm on my deathbed, would I care that I achieved that goal?"

I wish I could come up with something more ambitious and memorable, and was hoping this thread would have some exciting ideas.

Then again, maybe dreamers prefer to remain silent and just work on their goals...

incompleteCode
Maybe try being the change you wish to see and post an ambitious, or memorable, goal to inspire the rest of us. :)
yakubin
I can tell you that on my death bed I’ll be proud I successfully migrated to Scotland and assimilated there, if I manage that. Getting a good photo of a lynx and a snow leopard in Himalayas are definitely going to be unforgettable too. Though the latter ones are probably going to happen later than 2023. :)

If anything, I’m wondering if I’m not wishing for too much.

metabro
There’s plenty of “big goals” on ig, Twitter and tiktok. It also has a very grifter vibe but it’s hard to separate the 2.

I find this community to be one of the few places where people aren’t trying to constantly up sell themselves and that’s refreshing.

On my deathbed I’d probably wish I enjoyed the simple things that this world provided more - laughter, human companionship , raising a child.

tsingy
I'm learning programming and computer science. I made my own small bootcamp that I follow full time, linked [here] (https://github.com/woadray/cs-bootcamp) if interested. I come from accounting / management, I'm hoping to switch career and will start applying January 1st 2023. I'm from a third world country, my goal is to find a remote software development job from here. Does not have to be FAANG level, cost of living is pretty low.

Secondly, I like to improve my English, which proves to be complicated when living in a country where it's not the main language. So if anyone would like to chat about Programming, Linux, Stable Diffusion or whatever, hit me up.

imranq
Get better at writing+filmmaking about science and publishing my work
mrtrombone
I want to learn about quantum mechanics. 10 year old me is pretty bummed I haven't invented a teleporter yet and ChatGPT said this is a pretty good place to start :)