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Ask HN: As a web developer, should I learn mobile development?

12 points by wz3chen ↗ HN
I'm a student with a year of web development experience (Rails/PHP).

I've been thinking about learning mobile development in order to jump on the mobile bandwagon. Maybe even taking 4 months off school, take a mobile development bootcamp and pursue other interests as well.

Do you think it would be worth it? Or should I not bother and simply specialize in web jobs?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

10 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 38.4 ms ] thread
yunyeng
Yes I would think you should learn mobile development but you don't have to take off school, If you know the basic programming you should learn iOS or Android in few months after school and weekends. Consider College courses first maybe at Coursera.org they have few Android Courses, I learned Android in a month with also going to school but I knew Java. If you want to learn iOS Development, start with Objective-C I think in Itunes there are Stanford Courses about iOS Development, that should do it. If you want a career in Web / Mobile Development you should learn a lot of platforms, Because it is an incredible fast growing sector, I am sorry but it is I cannot catch it too. Before you jump off to mobile development, my advice learn the mobile website basics HTML5, javascript apps etc. Then the mobile development is another platform and you have to be really ready for it. Last of all, you don't have to break off school at any circumstances at all. Keep it going...
rbonhardt
Do you know responsive design?

Also there is a growing trend of people, or should I say major companies, using frameworks that can take html5 and javascript and deploy them as mobile apps such as PhoneGap and Ludei. After all that is the goal of html5.

I think Paper53 was built on one of these platforms.

wz3chen
I don't this counts as responsive design but I`ve used responsive frameworks e.g. Twitter`s bootstrap.

I think I`d learn iOS first though since the general consensus seems to be Native > Web.

rrrx3
Yes. No question.
snowwrestler
"Mobile Development" is too vague. Do you mean responsive web design? Touch-optimized HTML5? iOS? Android? Windows Phone? (Ok, probably not Windows Phone.) Or a cross-platform toolset like Titanium or PhoneGap?

As a student, the act of learning on your own is probably worth it regardless of which direction you choose. But if you're thinking career, you should prioritize with a little more specificity.

Edit: wrong word

wz3chen
Native mobile development, iOS most likely.
kingdm
> Do you think it would be worth it?

Yes, it's worth it.

> Or should I not bother and simply specialize in web jobs?

IMHO, if you really do want to specialize in web jobs, then perhaps mobile development is part of it.

karishmasibal
You should not bother about mobile development if you know logic you can do any coding in any language.
tpae
I've been building hybrid apps (HTML/CSS/Javascript) for quite some time now. It's getting better and better, and there are quite a few resources available.

Just follow these simple steps:

- Get Apache Cordova (https://cordova.apache.org/)

- Try Ionic Framework (http://ionicframework.com/)

- Try Ratchet (http://goratchet.com/)

- jQuery Mobile, obviously (http://jquerymobile.com/)

- If you need more help, try Codiqa (https://codiqa.com/)

- Try Trigger.io (http://trigger.io)

Cordova makes it super simple to deploy to app stores, and it's awesome. I make mobile apps all the time. Though not as good as native, it certainly has been improving, especially in the recent years.

talhoo
Hi, I am basically trying to convert my Photography and clothing website onto an IOS App. I dont mind building it but i seem lost on where to start or how about to do this. What would you recommend?