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.

Having diverted from that path, I have unfortunately lost touch with more recent developments and I'm absolutely overwhelmed by this 'new' world of frameworks, languages, and practices.

I'm now looking to get back into web-development (both frondend and backend), and I'm keen to learn. I have a relatively strong background in HTML, CSS, JS, 'oldschool' PHP, and relational databases.

My biggest concern is not knowing the current best practices. My search, so far, has only led to more confusion.

Hence, I'm looking for material that will get me up to speed, especially on a 'meta-level'. What to learn? How to organize/start modern web-development projects? What are current best practices of doing things?

I would really love your input on that!

[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?

[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"!