1 reply to this topic

[njr1489]

I have a lot of skills under my belt, but I could definitely use a lot more. The thing is, I'm not exactly sure how to keep up with all these trends or how to find them at all. By this I mean practical open source libraries/frameworks/utilities/etc, things that people use in everyday business (on the Linux/PHP side at least). It wasn't until recently I found about things such as CodeIgniter/MongoDB/SOLR/JS Ext.

How do you find out about these things? I know there's mailing lists and forums, but it only goes so far. I've also been to meet-ups/seminars before, but those are very costly if you're not a student anymore. I think that being aware of what's out there for use is what separates the level of an experienced programmer to a senior programmer and it shows when you see job postings. Does anyone else understand what I mean?

[WingedPanther]

For me, the hard thing is filtering out the nonsense that quickly passes from the stuff that actually becomes solid. I remember when Web 2.0 was all the buzz. It was just a few technologies that people were using without purpose.

I think I heard of CodeIgniter once, and none of the others. From my experience, if you spend a lot of time reading technology news sites (digg, redit, slashdot, etc) you'll manage to stay aware of what's out there, and whether it's worth being worried about.