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Ask HN: Self-learning new languages for a future job?

by xook on 9/22/21, 10:04 PM with 1 comments

What was your primary motivation?

Many of my days are busy with little things (around the house, family), but I can never put in the time to learn a new language that may (or may not!) lead to a better job.

What was your "overcoming the difficulty" moment between life and current job, if any?

  • by BazookaMusic on 9/22/21, 11:13 PM

    For me, it's really hard to learn a new language without a purpose for it. Even more so when languages do not get you jobs. Employers are looking for demonstrable experience in X and not just knowing it.

    For this reason I've found that only two things motivate me to learn a new language and not give up due to boredom:

    1) A project where the language makes sense. When I was in my second year of university, I started making a dumb fb messenger bot to scrape goodreads and answer with relevant quotes to my friends. That's how I learned Python.

    I've found that I prefer fun and gamey rather than serious projects to learn as expectations make me more bored.

    2) Read a good book about it. I can consume a book without pressure in my downtime, eg. commute and it usually gets me to a point where I'm comfortable with reading and understanding a language. Then I go to (1) to be effective about it.