is Web Development moving too fast?

Question

I find myself constantly learning new things in web development and there is always soo much to learn in general. Currently i work with PHP and have tried to keep up with Ruby on Rails(RoR) but it's moving so fast i'm not sure i can keep up with the latest changes.

Does anyone else have trouble keeping up with so much innovation in web development or is it just me? And how do you guys cope with the never ending learning process especially with Rails? Just looking for tips Tricks and personal experiences really

Thanks in advance;-)

Answer 1

It's not you at all. Obviously, there are always going to be new things to learn and do, and that's a good thing.

But Ruby has a bad habit of breaking backwards compatibility in minor versions. And not because there's a security risk or another unavoidable reason. Just because, "Ah, I wish we did it differently last time." An example would be removing String.each because they didn't like the behavior of iterating by line by default.

Answer 2

Thing is, old options did not go away. If you really want to, you can still build perfectly fine websites with PHP, with no frameworks. But new things come and people learn them because they are easier to use and easier to maintain, and because it's a challenge and fun to learn new things. So ultimately it depends on you (or your employer), whether you wish to invest in a new set of tools or not.

My second point is, it's not just web development, it's everything having to do with computers. Knowledge of Commodore 64 peeks and pokes is quite useless today, I wouldn't touch Fortran with a ten-foot pole again, and Java 1.6 is quite different from 1.3 when I started messing with it. My first PC had 1Mb of memory (I was lucky, my friends had 640Kb), and it was quite important to know the difference between extended and expanded memory. No more. And knowing how to draw something on a monochrome Hercules card has absolutely no bearing in the world of OpenGL 4.0.

The only thing I can tell you is, pick what interests you, or pick something you think will come in handy, and have fun with it. If new things come along, be happy that you'll have a new toy. Anything else, and you'll be stuck in the past, doing things the stone age way.

@Coronatus: Why do you think Rails sucks? I found it quite pleasant to work with; and given choice of Ruby framework and PHP framework, I'll always pick Ruby... Of course, that's subjective, but I found your categorical statement a bit... ridiculous.

Answer 3

The thing that you must learn is that you don't need to be on the bleeding edge of every technology. In fact I would recommend not learning any new technology until it's been out(and mainstream-ish) for at least a year.

Things do move quickly but the amazing thing is that just because a new version is released of Rails or PHP doesn't mean the old version is removed from all eternity. Learn at your own pace. It's ok that you're not compiling Rails3 from source with Ruby 1.9.3-head even though some people are off bragging about all the awesome features.

Answer 4

Rails does tend to move quickly but if you read a few books and watch some railscasts you'll have a good foundation to build on. Having a good understanding of the language (Ruby) and the framework (Rails) will help you deal when the framework changes.

Answer 5

Web development isn't really moving THAT fast. If you pick one language and one framework, and stick to it, you can easily learn it faster that it grows. Now, you should always keep your options open and not put all your eggs in 1 basket, but most existing web frameworks allow you to accomplish the same things with varying amounts of automation, abstraction, and convention.

As for front-end innovations... HTML5 has been 10 years in the making and is just starting to see use, while CSS3 is still not fully supported 12 years after its conception. Front-end technologies move incredibly slow because the non-savvy users need time to adapt them, instead of the developers. JavaScript is more or less at a standstill, and JS frameworks are the new way to innovate as far as client-side scripting is concerned.

Answer 6

Sometimes I just want to see something "complete", which is virtually non-existent. It's quite the same with web development.

All you can do is: choose some technologies that you like, perhaps one that can be used for getting some cash. And play with it. First of all: as you advance, do not forget the things that you have already learned. Getting some new and shiny technology doesn't really mean that you should use it. In fact, you should be really cautious.

Just a quick tip:

• try refactoring as much as you can;
• write down what you did to your own code;
• check what people in bigger projects are doing;
• talk about code and best practices;
• try to use new technologies to get things work better.

It seriously helps if you can get the mindset of "Code is Poetry".

It's really nice to have a chance to see thing on a higher level. But please, don't be scared about the pace of changes. You know, we have a lot of people trying to do something; many passionate people, many really talented ones. So it's kind of natural that we have to test a lot of new things: good things, bad things and things that you will have to avoid.