| Like pjc50, for the most part I don't. Last year was the exception. I've been making web apps since 1998. Last year I learned how to use CouchDB and PouchDB. Before that I used a flat file database and the built-in filesystem to manage data. I used Perl on the backend with just a bit of JS on the front end to run the apps. I never did learn how to use MySQL/PHP. I looked at it, decided it was a butt ugly way to make websites, and apps and admitted to myself that I wasn't qualified to design secure SQL apps and didn't want to learn because that is a career all by itself. So I waited for something better to come along and last year CouchDB along with PouchDB hit the mark so I spent the year learning and using them. It was worth it. With those tools I am faster and better. The years in-between were spent getting stuff done with the tools I was good at using, not trying to learn how to use a zillion other tools to do the same things. I looked at a lot of newer tools again last year with an eye towards what was "best". There is a lot of cool stuff out there that does some really jazzy stuff, but in the end I decided to take another look at what was "easiest". I ended up with CouchDB, PouchDB, and JQuery. Easy to learn and incredibly rich APIs with lots of support and example code. There's more than enough in those to learn and keep up with and if I need to add something I'll look for easy ways to do that too. The truth is, it takes time to be productive with any language or tool or framework you use. It's a scatterbrained approach to try to build software with something new every time you start a new job. Right now there are tools being built that will make "AI/VR" easier to implement. Wait for the tools. |