logoalt Hacker News

SoftTalkerlast Saturday at 5:32 PM1 replyview on HN

I'd say focus on databases, especially as someone nearing middle age.

Front end/web work is a treadmill. Web frameworks come and go. SQL and relational databases have been a foundation for applications since the 1980 and that is still the case today. The investment you make in learning something like Postgres won't be something you have to throw away in 5 years when the next hype cycle around a new framework comes around. Basically after 30+ years in software, the one thing that is still relevant and that I can still do well today is work with relational databases. I got tired of running the web framework treadmill and am now years behind whatever people are using these days.

Edit: also linux/unix shell utilities. Awk, sed, grep, xargs, and others form a surprisingly capable toolbox for filtering and shaping data, and they all date back many decades. I've never had to throw away my experience using these tools.


Replies

kmoseryesterday at 2:36 AM

Second your recommendation to learn Linux/Unix command line tools. I learned them decades ago so they come naturally to me but for somebody new them, in addition to plain old RTFM, I'd recommend also using AI/LLMs to learn to build the right command line args for certain tasks, then study its explanations.