

5 years away from programming, boy have things changed - fellars
http://dannydo.es/5-years-away-from-programming/

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zalew
While he drops a lot of names in there (php, mongo, rails, etc.) I'd summarize
it in a more general way - in the last 5 years the entry barrier to building
highly functionable online apps has been lowered due to the rise of quality
opensource abstraction layers and frameworks, and rapid exchange of
knowledge/solutions through online hacker comunities.

What makes me happy is he's a proof that a programmer can spend 5 years under
the ice and his programming skills are still valid, he just has to learn new
toolsets. Also, I like how he quickly decided to _skip the whole
Objective-C/Android Java scene and jump straight to HTML5/Javascript for
making mobile applications, which I believe makes sense for the type of apps
I’m working on._ , looks like taking a break from the market isn't that bad
after all.

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ht_th
Yes, this seems to be a good case of the Law of the handicap of a head
start([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_handicap_of_a_head_s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_handicap_of_a_head_start)),
as we call it in Dutch. By not having invested in technology over the last
five years, he is not burdened by that investment as others in the business
will be.

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gaius
The buzzwords might have changed but for the last 40 or 50 years software has
mainly been about forms (getting data into databases) and reports (getting
data out of databases and formatting it for the user). 99% of the web falls
into this category. Once you have been in the industry a while you see history
repeat again and again. COBOL back in the day was a sexy as RoR is now...

~~~
fellars
Op here. Very true, which is why I didn't feel like I was a fish completely
out of water when returning, but that my tools were outdated and I had to go
out and buy new tools.

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conradfr
I had to select all the text to be able to read it.

Contrast please !

~~~
matthewking
You may find this useful: <http://www.readability.com>

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exolab
I never use it, but Safari's Reader will actually make the text readable with
no need for an additional tool.

