[wizard_2]

Just make little things. Backbone is fun, make some little backbone views/models, they'll work perfectly with any other JS you have. Want to try rails? Do another little project in rails. Is it too much? try the next one but only use sinatra. Like javascript? Do your next project in Node.js. (and remember jifasnif!) Felt like you're in callback hell? (remember use flow control and streams!) Try out gevent in python on the next project.

See my point? It doesn't mater what you use as long as you're making things. Pick something and do something. Iteration can only come after you've completed projects. Eventually you'll figure out what you prefer, and even then it wont hold a candle to what you've made.

[Raphael_Amiard]

I respect the sentiment, but for me, this is literally the worst advice i could get, and i suspect it is for other people too.

Your whole comment is centered on the technology you use, not what you're doing with it. Also you're talking about every of those piece of tech like it's easy to do something in it. But see, when you switch technology with every project, even if you learn plenty of things, you :

1. Prevent yourself from becoming really fluent in one piece of technology. 2.Force yourself to learn a myriad of details that are really useless to what you ultimately want to do.

Ultimately you can burn yourself out, learning 1000 things, and all you have to show for it at the end is a collection of unfinished crap projects.

My advice for somebody who feels like this would be quite the opposite :

- Find what you want to do

- Think about it, in a technology agnostic way

- Pick your technology, pick the technology you're the most familiar with at the moment you start realizing the project, even if it seems dull to you, if you're sensible to the kind of syndrome outlined in the OP, it probably isn't :)

- Do it. Don't switch techs.

[hobonumber1]

Completely agree with this. However, when I talk to developers who aren't based in tech hotspots, they often tell me they are lost because they dont know what they should learn, because there's so much out there. The side effect of this (which I have seen) is that people write off every new OS project that comes out, because they feel by the time they learn it, something new will be out there. I don't agree with this philosophy but it's something that I have seen with my own eyes.

[einhverfr]

One of my views is that you should figure out what you want to make before you figure out what you want to learn. Once you have a functional idea of what you are doing, then it is easier to pick something similar, or look to library repositories (CPAN, gems, etc) and decide what you want to do.

If you aren't in a tech hotspot and you aren't chasing jobs, it doesn't matter what you learn. It matters what you make and how you can sell yourself.

[Tichy]

While I tend to do it like that, the recent post by Marco about using PHP made me doubt it. For me starting a new project tends to be a little bit painful, because I use the opportunity to learn new stuff. But I never become a full grown specialist in any of these tools. Maybe it would be better to become expert at one tool, so that you can use it by heart.