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I need help getting back into development (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/programming

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A little background: Through my teens in the 90's I did a lot of the things you may expect. I was a script kiddie on mIRC, made a tank game in Unreal Engine, and did some Quake modding. From 2002-2004 I landed a job doing Java web dev, SQL, and overall database administration because my father's friend needed someone that could do that. I was ok at the job, but not great. Being young, my hobby that turned into a 9-5 made me want to stab my eyes out and I quit.

With that said, I can understand a lot of what's going on, but it doesn't "click" anymore. I spent 20 years as a career machinist, but I physically can't do that anymore. Here's the rub - my twin brother is a brittle diabetic and can't work (lots of other stuff going on as well), and our mother is getting old (father passed this year). The only reasonable way forward that I can see in order to be able to support my brother is trying to get back into development.

When I stopped, subversion was what we used. I'm trying to understand Git, but it's a giant conceptual leap. I guess, what I'd like to hear from you all is a way to jump back in as quickly as possible in such a way that it may be a career.

Thanks

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My personal recommendation:

Pick up Python, it's easy to learn and highly productive. If you also learn fastAPI, you can benefit from highly validated, declarative models to build REST APIs in the backend, well fast. It will yield quick results, you won't become demotivated and you can pick up a paid project soon.
Pick up Rust. It's "in" right now and I get requests from marketing people that know nothing about programming, asking if their project could be implemented in Rust
Go with memorizing the shell commands first, try to understand git later. Get productive, try to get where you were with e. g. svn or cvs. If you are comfortable, look at something in depth if you have a problem that you can't solve with the knowledge you have.
Fuck Java, seriously.
You have commercial interests, so it is probably wise to look into becoming a fullstack dev to maximize the kind of projects you can do. Look into React, vue.js, svelte. React is probably still the most widely used framework, you'll quickly do a project with vue.js and svelte is a super interesting look into things to come.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Fuck Java, seriously

Toxic...

You can find a lot of good work doing Java.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I was going to say this. I hate Java as much as the next dev, but everything runs on Java. If it’s web -> Spring, DevOps -> Jenkins, Event Streams -> Kafka, Big Data -> Spark, Logging & SRE -> Flink. All of these are built on JVM based languages. I am fortunate enough to program Rust daily at my job, but my options for getting another Rust job are severely limited. Everybody always wants Java or Go. They always ask for C++ , but I’m convinced that day 1 they would have you switch to Java.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Java have had very bad press lately (since the log4j fiasco I guess? maybe since before).

IDK why people blame Java for any issues with any library/project written in it... it's as dumb as blaming C/C++ for all the windows fuckups, and nobody blames php for the various cpanel vulnerabilities or python for all the shit people write in it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Side note: please don't abuse the word "toxic" until it becomes absolutely meaningless. Let's keep that to a more fitting context, having a

I was expressing an obviously personal opinion about the language itself, which is objectively a dull, barren wasteland that sucks out your soul while you walk it. That is precisely the reason why it's so widespread and loved by business entities and managers - there is no excitement, no surprises, just an everlasting monotony of keys clicking produced by a horde of clones wearing button-down shirts while sitting in absolute identical cubicles, creating yet another instance of FactoryProducer. It's very easy to plan and schedule for, while at the same time being unnecessarily verbose and mildly unproductive (compared to other languages).

Look, the JVM is fine, just pick another language. There is plenty of work doing Kotlin. But yes, if you're doing this only for the money, go ahead. I've always been unable to separate my job fromy personal life and my other interests, I couldn't imagine being cursed by Java again.

If you can sit somewhere for 8 to 10 hours each day, doing something that isn't fun and separate yourself from it, not going insane, all the power to you. I also get that not everyone has the luxury of picking their favorite toy and making it their job, but I firmly believe there are options that are not Java.

Now, if you're one of the rare types that actually enjoys Java, meet me in the closest Denny's parking lot, I need your cranial measurements.

Please note: this post contains hyperbole and humor. I don't hate any of you, I just hate Java

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

"Toxic" was the correct word choice, thanks.