Ask HN: What are you looking forward to learn in 2020?

Hi everyone,

With the holiday break coming up, many of us take advantage of the time to catch up on our professional or personal interests, plan out the coming year, etc.

What are you going to be learning/playing with during the break and in the coming year?

27 points | by Anon84 1590 days ago

15 comments

  • diehunde 1589 days ago
    Started to learn Go this month. Turns out if you have been programming for a while you just need to jump into coding challenges and surf the documentation. No need to read giant books or 10 hr courses to get started. I've really enjoyed the language so far. Next year I want to start learning more Go for developing web services and also more complex topics such as concurrency.
  • thoughtpalette 1590 days ago
    React. 80%+ of the job postings I'm seeing for Front-end or Full stack include React in some way shape or form.

    As an Angular dev (6+ years) it's clear the broader market is looking for something different.

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  • codegeek 1589 days ago
    Learn to Swim. My 5 and 6 year olds can swim but I can't. It's time for me.
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    • 147 1587 days ago
      Me too, I’ve been putting it off for too long.
  • whateveracct 1590 days ago
    Haskell gamedev. It can be used for most _everything_ .. game logic, graphics, art & animation pipeline, sound effect generation, music composition, etc.
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    • jolmg 1590 days ago
      Wouldn't the garbage collector be a problem?
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      • WorldMaker 1589 days ago
        Performance tuning in a garbage collected language is a slightly different skillset, but a lot of tools are the same (knowing how/when/why you allocate memory, the space complexity of your algorithms, etc). Sometimes it is easier, because generally a good GC wants to help, and isn't just an opaque black box but full of information about the memory usage of your app. There are fewer "knobs" to tweak in a GC language, but that doesn't mean "no knobs", and the focus on data structures, data usage, and (space complexity of) algorithms is a shared problem in the performance world, GC language or not. It seems well past time to stop thinking of GC languages as a "problem".
      • whateveracct 1590 days ago
        You can hit 60fps without too much difficulty with GHC's default GC. You just have to take some care about allocations and working set (maybe do some work to move stuff into compact regions or off-heap via FFI) and maybe write some critical path stuff in C.

        And the new latency-optimized GC landing in GHC 8.10 will help as well.

        No different than gamedev on the JVM or other GCed runtimes.

      • flafla2 1590 days ago
        Not really. Minecraft, Unity engine, anything in Lua/python etc uses a GC.
  • marpstar 1590 days ago
    Getting back into audio production (which was my main hobby before starting my career) by way of solidifying my understanding of music theory and piano technique. I've "played piano" for years, but have never really studied it.
  • markus_zhang 1587 days ago
    Spark and do some data engineering projects on my own. I want to transfer to BI and that's part of their job to maintain data pipelines. Plus it's further from business which is a huge advantage to me. Going to spend rest of my career life figuring out how to stay as far from core business as possible while still making enough money.
  • arya-k 1590 days ago
    Learning vim and reading "Competitive Programmer’s Handbook" by Antti Laaksonen in preparation for programming interviews next year!
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    • theSealedTanker 1589 days ago
      you are going to have a lot of fun with vim. Check out drew neil vim materials, if you haven't.
  • peruvian 1590 days ago
    Go and React (re-learning, haven't dome frontend in a few years). Definitely a career-focused choice, but not unhappy or dreading it.
  • balladeer 1590 days ago
    Go.

    Carpentry (get back at it).

    Drawing/sketching (I’m planning to take classes).

    And learn about fields of work, or higher education options that can help me get into a mix of product and UX and slowly move out of full time coding. This bit seems the toughest.

  • grafelic 1590 days ago
    Feeling at ease being myself.
  • blendo 1590 days ago
    I'd like to "gain" some knowledge of opamps.
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  • lmiller1990 1588 days ago
    Some biology and genetics. I’m interested in bioinformatics, and need to get a grip on the sciencey stuff.
  • karmakaze 1590 days ago
    Bass guitar. I rented one for $20/mo as a test and it's the most fun instrument I've ever tried with drums in second.
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    • thorin 1590 days ago
      Interesting that you rented it first. I just got into playing the bass guitar more seriously this year ( had played a little bit previously ). If you actually play an instrument it is such good value for money. My main guitar (maybe £150) was bought for me as a teenager over 25 years ago and still sounds fine.

      I'm also learning the piano and got a really good digital upright second hand for around £400. This time I'm getting lessons after years of self teaching the guitar. It's a very fun experience.

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      • karmakaze 1586 days ago
        In the past I've started with buying before learning instruments (and sporting equipment) with often goes unused after a season. This time I knew I didn't know so I can learn if I like it and have a sense of what to buy for the long term. The bonus is that even a small monthly amount is a reminder to use or cancel (like Netflix).
  • tmaly 1589 days ago
    I would really like to learn how to make good video, the kind that people cannot stop watching.

    I just finished teaching two elementary classes the basics of programming in Scratch.

    I created video so the kids could review it at home. But when I am watching it, I realize it is super dry and boring.

    I am not really where to start to find a way to learn this.

  • PascLeRasc 1590 days ago
    I'm taking an EMT training class as part of my transition out of software into medicine. I'm very excited for it!