What do you want to learn in 2015?

I spent some of Christmas topping up my knowledge of several programming languages and techniques and am keen to take them further.

What do you want to learn in 2015? Be that a programming language, technique, skill or something else…

I did Learnable’s course in Ruby. Just basic stuff, of course but I’m sure at will dig a bit deeper this year :smiley:

I’ve done a lot of reading about PHP OOP, but books are mostly theory and none of my work was large enough to make OOP a feasible solution. In 2015 I want to learn how to plan and build an actual medium to large project using PHP OOP.

I also haven’t done much JavaScript for a long time, so I want to review JS, learn the latest techniques, and make more use of it in my projects.

I have seen the PHP changes that are finally coming and very welcome! Just as I’m starting to do less work with PHP!

I have started learning Ruby finally, also AngularJS and more Swift and Java/Android. Trying to top up my coding skills for a new job in 2015 :smile:

Swift has been the most interesting challenge as it’s constantly evolving. Tutorials you find (including our own) can stop being applicable months later…

1 Like

For me, it’s mainly updating my current skills. For example, Spring Framework 3 to 4, ExtJS 4 to 5. New stuff I’m looking forward to is
Node.js

Utilizing WebSockets better is probably my #1 thing on my “To Learn” list.

Followed by Node.js (probably #2) and maybe a couple of the frontend JS MV* frameworks.

Then Ruby and Python are somewhere on the list, like they have been for the past 2 or 3 years. :slight_smile: I picked up Scala in 2014 and I can’t say I’m a fan of that. Now that I learned it I’m really regretting using it a personal project that I’m fairly serious about.

I’d like to get really good at javascript. It’s the one aspect of front end where I rely on taking scripts and modifying them for my use. It just seems like the Javascript world is even bigger than the CSS world - and that is scary. It’s daunting.

2 Likes

One thing I noticed is that I do 90% Javascript and about 10% back-end coding on daily basis. My guess is that the demand for Javascript developer will be much more than back-end. Which means more $$$$$$,

2 Likes

I’m contracted as a front end developer (they know I can do full-stack basically but they use my HTML/CSS mainly since it’s my strength.)

Though being a full front end developer (HTML/CSS/JS) is only a plus. I know ENOUGH backend to make crap work. Being an expert in all front-end areas is my goal. I only have HTML/CSS mastered (or well enough)

Yup same. I can spend 15 minutes on the backend because all the data structures are there and I can just print a JSON object, then spend the rest of the day working in JS on the frontend making something functional.

That’s not every day, but it’s getting there.

1 Like

continue learning RoR and Angular as well as develop better workflows with things like Grunt.

For me it’s learning Javascript (proper Javascript, not any framework like mootools, prototype, node, jquery, etc)

1 Like

I think for me, it’s also JavaScript. I need to get better at JavaScript - really truly comfortable, as well as better with jQuery, and perhaps even delve a bit into Node.js.

2 Likes

I’m surprised at the number of people that want to learn javascript.

I’m not a web designer guru; I just dabble here and there. But I am a user (i.e., a potential customer) who wonders if all you people realize that some customers “turn off” javascript, especially after some US government entity “told” me that “Java” is unsafe and warned me to “turn it off.” …which I do, with a couple rare exceptions (this forum being one.)

This is probably off-topic, but it makes me wonder about all that flash player stuff out there. (I flushed that down the toilet too) so websites that use flash, javascript, etc. …when they send me a message saying I’m not ‘up to snuff’ …well like all impatient customers everywhere, I clickety-click and leave.

Just saying; just wondering.

@AngC Don’t be confused
JavaScript is NOT Java
Though there may be reasons people disable JavaScript the main concern with Java is that it might affect your OS

Yup. I know the difference between Java and Javascript. (I genuinely forget which government entity warned against “Java.”)

But you missed my point.

I’m a user. I’m your potential customer. I’m dumb. …java, javascript, they all sound the same, so some users might be “not quite so dumb” and can figure out how to turn it off. There goes your customer. (Personally I turn it off because I find many applications-like ads-are annoying. Same reason the flash people lose me.)

Customers don’t complain, they just leave. On the web, it’s even easier: click, click, clickety, click.

Maybe I’m harsh, and I am admittedly “old school”, but IMHO if a site can’t at least provide reasonable “graceful degradation” then, Oh well.

For me it’s so that I can add enhancements to my site for anyone with javascript enabled (it’ll still be usable just might need a click or 2 extra to do stuff), for example as someone starts typing a username on member search use ajax to display a list of current matches to what they’ve typed and update that list each character that they enter

That doesn’t really matter, the end user shouldn’t care what is or isn’t enabled.

Java applets are bad bad bad. Super bad. They should be disabled everywhere, no exceptions.
JavaScript should be enabled everywhere, no exceptions.

Luckily, those who disabled JavaScript are far less than <1% of users. I personally don’t even take those users into account. I build functional web apps, that’s my job and that’s what I do. I can’t do this in a way that is nice and intuitive and interactive, without JavaScript. It’s just not possible. And to support the <1% of users, I would have to pretty much completely rebuild and redesign everything on every page a second time to take those users into account. I don’t want to do that for both my professional and personal projects and I have yet to find an employer who wants to pay me to do that.

Expect this trend to get stronger in the future. Even major sites like MSNBC.com barely work without JavaScript enabled. Especially given that there is a new version of JavaScript on the horizon which will be much more powerful and allow programmers to design much better programs.

If you hook the >99% of people, the other people will eventually allow it for your site. I mean, you probably wouldn’t be reading this right now if you didn’t trust Sitepoint enough to turn JS back on.

If you come to things I’ve had major influence on, you’re likely to just get a big red screen that tells you to enable JavaScript. Or you can click away. It’s 2015, not 1998.

One of the creators of the software used here has what’s called “Atwoods Law”:

It states that any application that can be written in JavaScript will eventually be written in JavaScript.

It’s more satirical than serious, but it still holds true for the trends that have been happening in this industry over the past few years… and it’s only show signs of speeding up, not slowing down.

I mean, glove makers don’t make 6 finger gloves. But 0.2% of people are born with polydactyly.

3 Likes

I was given a WebGL JavaScript book for Christmas, so I’ll be looking more into programming for 3D, so maybe make my own game.