Re:Ask HN: I need advice, Mid-life crisis
by afarrell on Tuesday November 08, 2016 @05:09AM
(#12898989)
I would agree that JavaScript is better than php at this point. The problem with that suggestion is that the JS world is so fragmented and to be successful, you need to exercise judgement to decide what the right tool for the job is. OP is too new to have that judgement, so he needs a clear path to follow. Do you happen to know what a good path to learning nodejs from scratch is nowadays? I suspect that picking up either Learn JavaScript the Hard Way or an Egghead.io course on redux/react would be a good idea...maybe?
Re:Ask HN: I need advice, Mid-life crisis
by alexhakawy on Tuesday November 08, 2016 @12:54AM
(#12898006)
I've been learning HTML5 lately and CSS3
So what have you been doing since leaving school? 8+ years of doing _____ ?
Becoming a developer is not easy nor quick. The bootcamps only promise otherwise because they want gullible people to hand over a bunch of money. Being a freelancer is like having several bosses, besides you would still need to be able to to deliver in order to get paid.
Perhaps the best strategy is to get a job that you can do right now. Then in your free time you teach yourself a language for which there are lots of jobs in your area. Personally, I would think PHP is not a very good choice. I would suggest that JavaScript is a better choice since it is widely used on both the front-end and back-end. You can start learning it with nothing more than a good book and a recent browser with DevTools.