

Ask HN: If you only had 40 hours to learn a new IT based skill what would it be? - codinguy


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arms
Python. IMO, it's so well designed that you can gain a comfortable (albeit
still beginner) grasp on it within 40 hours, especially if you have prior
programming experience.

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tonyoconnell
How to build a lean startup with Steve Blank
[https://www.udacity.com/course/ep245](https://www.udacity.com/course/ep245)

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rman666
There are many many IT skills you could learn in 40 hours. Assuming you are
not a complete n00b, how about learning Ruby and Sinatra (a "framework" for
rapidly creating web applications). You could easily make it through the book,
"Jump Start Sinatra," in less than 40 hours, for example.

Is this the type of response you're looking for? If not, please clarify. Good
luck!

~~~
codinguy
My wife and kids are away for a week in the near future, so I thought I would
take 40 hours and learn something new. I have no idea yet as to what that will
be, so I thought I would ask more intelligent people what they would do :)

Thank you for the suggestion though!

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bobf
Metrics measurement and tracking of some sort, depending on your area of
interest and existing expertise. That could be Graphite and statsd, or a
particular type of web analytics like Google Analytics or MixPanel. It takes
roughly 40 hours to get a good basic understanding, implement, test, and start
tracking useful things with each of those.

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caw
I'd go with NoSQL (any of them, overview of all of them?) or AWS/cloud stuff,
because I'm already familiar with Linux administration and RoR. In the
enterprise you don't get to work with that sort of technology, so that's where
I'd spend my time.

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varunkho
Web security and attack vectors, seriously. Will be helpful regardless of the
technology you'll choose to build web apps.

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wwwwww
what current skills do you have? I would pick a skill to compliment my current
skills.

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junto
Both Angular and Ember so I can at last make my _own_ mind up on which is
better!

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rootj
Linux servers administration.

~~~
codinguy
That was definitely on my list :)

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yulaow
Mh or ruby and rails (but 40h are not enough for both) or probably GO

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mknits
Either Python or Ruby. Photoshop is also a good choice.

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revorad
Graphic design.

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bennyg
State-of-the-art security and crypto.

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AznHisoka
I'd learn Chef or Puppet.

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dannytatom
AI (in games, mostly)

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toutouastro
node or basic sysadmin or django

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sachin0235
java script, node.js or PHP

