undefined | Better HN

0 pointsmkozlows10y ago0 comments

Three points to that:

1. This differs more from workplace to workplace than industry to industry. Many dev workplaces will give developers a week or two of official "training time." Many other industries have workplaces that don't do that.

2. The reality is, training on new technologies has more value to you than it does to your employer. If your employer uses J2EE, Subversion, and Oracle, there's little benefit to them sending you off to learn Node, git, and Mongo. But there's a big benefit to you in knowing that, potentially. If the benefits of learning flow more to you than to your employer, you shouldn't be surprised if the burden of learning falls onto you.

3. But mostly, if you're a person who finds software development genuinely interesting (the hobbyist-type), you'll keep up on stuff basically recreationally. When you read about the latest whatever, you'll be curious and want to try it out and learn how it works because you're interested in that. You don't need any formal training to learn new technologies, just a little motivation and time. An hour spent not watching TV can get you a long way in understanding a new technology.

0 comments

RabidSquirrel10y ago

On point 3 I'd say yes, enthusiastic people learn new stuff, but it has limits. There is too much technology for any one person to master, but I also think it's a trap to spend too much time constantly learning the latest technology, at the expense of actually building stuff (and learning from the experience).

At least I found myself falling into that the last time I was between jobs -- constantly watching beginner videos on new thing X, Y, Z instead of actually doing something useful in one of them.

Back in employed world of course it can be the opposite -- you become a master of whatever tech your company is using but get little exposure outside that. It is however often possible to guide the company into a new technology and get the best of both worlds.

phamilton10y ago

2. The same could be said about any compensation. It generally benefits you, not your employer. That doesn't mean there's no incentive to pay you.

Training should be seen as a part of compensation. While there's some alignment with the employers needs, giving employees a training budget shoulder be seen as a cheap way to provide more compensation and they should be able to use it to hone their skills in whatever area they want, regardless of its utility to employers.

chii10y ago

the question isn't whether a training budget is bad, but whether the company accounted for it when they computed your salary. Would you have swapped a training budget in lieu of some of your current salary? I think most people would say no to that.

sharemywin10y ago

But if you choose wrong sorry about your luck. I've been working on a mobile app using corona on my own. I also was involved in a giant $20 million dollar project that was in an obscure platform. so, haven't keep up on the latest .net technology. so, too bad for me.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse