
Ask HN: Getting back into Web-Dev after a few years – What to read? - codechoir
Hi,
years ago (6-8) I was a fairly confident web-developer.<p>Having diverted from that path, I have unfortunately lost touch with more recent developments and I&#x27;m absolutely overwhelmed by this &#x27;new&#x27; world of frameworks, languages, and practices.<p>I&#x27;m now looking to get back into web-development (both frondend and backend), and I&#x27;m keen to learn. I have a relatively strong background in HTML, CSS, JS, &#x27;oldschool&#x27; PHP, and relational databases.<p>My biggest concern is not knowing the current best practices. My search, so far, has only led to more confusion.<p>Hence, I&#x27;m looking for material that will get me up to speed, especially on a &#x27;meta-level&#x27;. What to learn? How to organize&#x2F;start modern web-development projects? What are current best practices of doing things?<p>I would really love your input on that!
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kevinsimper
I would be easy to give you a lot of references to things you could go and
read, but the real question is what do you want to archive? Programming is
only a means to an end, and you can do everything with the tools you already
know such as PHP, HTML & CSS.

React.js or the meta-level behind it, virtual DOM, has no doubt improved my
front-end skills 10-fold and together with Node.js where I can render all the
things in the backend and use the same code, but all that doesn't really
matter.

What are you doing currently? Maybe I can help you get started? What are your
interests?

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codechoir
Hey, thank you for your answer. Currently I'm doing a lot of scientific
computing in Python and R. I would love to get started with some smaller
(personal) web-projects because I always really enjoyed developing for the
web.

Given my background I thought about looking at Laravel more closely, however I
would also love to understand the whole JS/Node/X.js hype/world. As it looks,
we have moved towards an infrastructure that heavily relies on backend APIs.

~~~
kevinsimper
I would suggest you make a simple blog/twitter with node.js and mongo, that
would take you a couple of hours and you will have something quick to show!

If you want, you are very welcome to reach me on skype "kevinsimper"!

