It's beautiful

Compared to what? Ruby mostly powers web apps, and those web apps run just as well as other infrastructures. The RoR community also has put together vast amounts of matured frameworks to make building complex apps quite easily. The "new kids on the block" languages have a long way to go to have comparable tooling to that of the Ruby community.

I'd suggest looking into open source web scrapers. That said archiving the results via a crawler over time, with versioned instances of the site, is going to take significant database and programming strategy.

Javascript execution in the DOM is insanely complex. There is no way you can achieve archiving the level and timing of Javascript executed by the site, the site's possible subdomains, the sites possible reference to cookies, localstorage, or indexedDB, or it's cross-domain dependencies. (i.e. you're right, you can't really do JS unless you're a top-tier engineer with a team, or the site is just small business, maybe Wordpress).

I'd try out basic scraping and storing that data in a database, then presenting it, and get a gut check how deep the rabbit hole is.

I use algebra frequently when doing data visualization work and features like drag & drop interactions. That said I still need to search for some of the concepts because if I'm not using it every week it tends to fade away.

I got tired of Lingo a long time ago...

OK, so Javascript it is. it's free and available if you simply search for it. Good luck.

Javascript guy chiming in. My career was dramatically awesome after riding the Javascript wave. JS isn't much on it's own though, most JS people know about HTML, CSS, servers, HTTP requests, website build software & tooling, perhaps SEO, and more languages.

Then, I work with really smart people doing work in Ruby, Python, and Go. These guys are truly the sharpest of the bunch, and they have Computer Science degrees or the intelligence to mind those concerns.

Any programming language is good for a beginner. Find something creative to solve for, and pick the best one. Personally I liked @Gargilius who said get a Raspberry Pi. If you don't want to work on hardware, consider building a website for yourself, friends, family, or a small business you may be familiar with who needs the help (build the resume).

Turbolinks are gay. And Rails 5 simply adds an API mode so you don't need to prop up a bunch of HTML shit, if that's your thing. You can research elsewhere for more info.

could be. there's plenty of room in /v/javascript for this.

Yep, us UIEs are salivating for HTTP/2 to become viable for large projects (maybe it is?). As soon as NGINX or AWS API Gateway have demonstrated support we'll surely start adopting it, and it will be great.

I feel like this was recently submitted, but apparently is a different article.

Prove you can build a framework or technology stack that is just as useful. This would re-position your value and confidence if you're able to do so... or just take your skill to lower hanging fruit in the web world (i.e. less money).

I'm in charge of large frontend stacks, it's very, very difficult to get quality code to publish for large clients who depend on virtually perfect launches. That said, there's a bunch of web frameworks I hate, but the ones I choose to use have allowed our Company to host enterprise applications in a stable fashion, for many years.

The technology changes fast, so you have all the time & opportunity to propose alternatives to your barriers, or learn to master that setup and become a priceless contractor.

edit: And yes I've been in the pits, I've worked on half-a-dozen stacks and most are not ideal. I make my contributions shine and furthered my career by breaking patterns I hated. I would never get hired for a big company, I work in small software.

I've done tree traversal for a flat array of nodes with only parent_id references as the main association across thousands of objects. This was based on the linux inode pattern.

My first draft of building the tree was shit, 10s of thousands of computations. My boss showed me that a dictionary (or literally a JS data object that saved some IDs) would solve almost all of that performance. We ended up looping the nodes twice, which took the feature from factorial complexity (something like N^n, to 2N, and I don't know big-O notation at all).

So I have respect for that skill, but as a standard frontend dev it's mostly irrelevant. Such a frontend dev will be already employed at a major performance shop. e.g. Google.

It is. Logically, as the biggest names in tech are mostly on the west coast. That's a sweeping statement, of course there are big companies to the east, but they're not as hungry for C.S. geniuses, they want production. I gotta think 95% of frontend producers out there, with legitimately valued jobs, can't pass C.S. questions @ Google/BigName.

You mean in the context of an elite Company/Role. I don't know any frontend devs who can answer C.S. algorithm questions, and that's around a dozen of mixed skilled frontend devs.

But yea if you interview for the best, expect the best, or join the less.

Yep, I just avoid the big corps. There's 10s of thousands of companies seeking less-than-elite frontend talent. The market is huge.

It bothers me that tech elite companies like Google are the example. Try interviewing at a place which doesn't have a preference for young MIT graduates fresh and ready to commit their lives to making someone else a multi-billionaire.

I don't know shit about algorithms, but I'm a Lead UIE because I can build shit. When I get contract work sometimes I can tell they're just testing the water and planning to put up an offer in 3 weeks. I've based my entire success on proving I can build complex features without having a C.S. degree whatsoever, hell I was a graphic designer (really just a production artist) prior to getting into heavy JS programming.

The interview questions for a frontend, if you want someone who can produce, should really be about pre-processors, CSS/JS technical, HTML accessibility, RESPONSIVE experience and practices, maybe some SVG data charts, ask them what their opinion on jshint or semicolons are (frankly they don't result in higher quality UI code, but "feel" like that's the case).

That said if I interviewed at Google I would expect to hear performance questions which could be very difficult to answer (I'd point to Matt Bynens, Nick Zakas, JD Dalton blogs).

As far as inverted binary trees go, I'm sure someone has a job to handle that already.

Many of the big recruiters reach out to me (Amazon, Imgur, Microsoft, Adobe, etc) but I don't bother because I know their interviews aren't for me. Just have me prototype something and you'll probably want me on your team. And yes, it doesn't have to be my niche (Angular on Rails), ask me to prototype something that's not my niche and the result should still be strong. I've worked on a dozen platforms (PHP CMS, proprietary CMS ~x3), .NET CMS, Rails CMS, Phonegap), and delivered every time. You'd think the ability to ship features over multiple years and systems has value...

I'm far from a database expert, but a co-worker shared this excellent read about Postgres' JSONB database column that could help reduce our query complexities a great amount.

fuck indents, especially four of them

It is after all, Hitler's birthday today.

Anyone know what program that is? It looks like a mashup of Sublime with an integrated terminal, custom theme, git plugin and all.

I used to have my mom prepare an interview, and on the day of the interview I'd call her an hour before and she could ask anything she wanted. Answering tech and non-tech questions to someone who might not even understand what they're asking will prepare you a great deal in terms of soft skills and critical thinking, which is most of the battle.

The exception being if you're interviewing somewhere with heavy talent, then you better know your technical shit to the bone.

I've been learning about web development

Consider doing whatever you can to get a junior position at a reputable digital/ad agency. They'll give you plenty to do and probably burn you out after years, but the web industry experience should be substantial (otherwise, quit).

Wordpress plugins

Since WordPress is free to begin with, I don't see much money in this. But do explore and enjoy creating features people want.

I've done heavy freelance and heavy full-time development.

If you go freelance, remember that you are the: account representative, project manager, designer, developer, [possibly] copywriter and more. You're responsible for all your bug fixes and sick days don't exactly exist. You're also your own tax rep, as even if you hire one you'll most certainly need to be on top of your taxes.

If you go full-time, even with "junior" status at a web, software, or digital agency with a team of 10+ to share and learn from you could gain a lot of momentum in the industry versus knocking out some 1099 (misc income) cash gigs.

If it wasn't obvious, I'd suggest interviewing at places which can move your career, and building followup projects if you get rejected.

I'm excited about this, I'll plan to have some questions ready. I'm not sure how much the one hour time window will matter - as I suspect questions/replies will trickle in much longer than that. Some threads move a bit slower...

Looks cool. I haven't VPN'd yet but know some things in the digital world at least.

With reverse proxy the communication goes like this instead.

YOUR COMPUTER communicate with the PROXY SERVER which then communicates with an anonymous, always changing SECOND PROXY SERVER which then communicates with the website you are trying to access. YOUR COMPUTER and the PROXY SERVER are in communication, and the PROXY SERVER and the SECOND PROXY SERVER are in communication, but the second proxy doesn’t have any idea what is on the other side of that original proxy server. That means that you are completely untraceable.

While it's described as "reverse proxy", when I read the explanation as to what happens it feels more like a rotating random proxy with an anonymous anchor server (I don't know the best technical way to say that).

Maybe that's the case - or I'm confused - but that makes me think about my machines interaction with the base proxy servers more than the second randomized layer. Are the base servers just as random as the secondary layer - maybe you could speak to it a bit?

Glad I've never even heard of The Verge - and I'm in my 30s!

Pretty dull major release in my opinion. I mean, I love rails, but this release is just merging in some popular API tools (JSON/WebSocket). As a JS guy, I didn't like TurboLinks from the get go. The Rails team has chosen to allow CoffeeScript to remain as the default JS transpiler. I think that is a mistake considering the rise of BabelJs and Typescript.

For CodePen, might be worth adding a note that it supports HTML, CSS & JS preprocessors.

I remember reading the alt+f4 jokes back when 56k dialup and Starcraft 1 were a thing... and 56k was fast.

Hack - in the context of code it usually means applying some non-standard or ungraceful solution to solve a problem.

Spaghetti - code that is difficult to maintain because it executes through unorganized and duplicated portions of business logic.

Magic - when there's so much abstraction the code executes and works "like magic".

Bug - cmon you know what this is!

Recursion - typically used when a function calls itself repeatedly to complete a task (this is actually the real meaning, though).

Hook - this could mean a ton of things, but it's basically when one thing "hooks in [or into]" another thing.

Bang - exclamation mark.

Pipe - vertical line.

User - some dumbass whose actions break the application.

Edit: Additions.

Handshake - The data exchange between two or more servers to authenticate the credentials (aka log in) a user.

Endpoint - An individual HTTP or other access protocol on a server, an example being when a browser uses Javascript to request data from a server to update the user interface.

Turns out OP meant Network Security Administrator... yea I interpreted it wrong too, and it's amusing.

A caveat, if you do go to for-profit universities – which I did, like an idiot – you can still be successful but the college experience will be just that. An experience that is hardly relevant to entering the workforce. I got a job right out of college by spending a lot of time on my portfolio after college and having killer interview skills by doing mock interviews. Also freelancing for dirt cheap to get that needed experience to land an entry-level job.

That's a bit brief when describing a good developer. But I agree there's a million paths and none are correct. If OP wonders what makes a good developer, here's a couple extra resources.

• http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/5-virtues-good-software-developer
• http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240644

Sure they're kinda mainstream but I spared the comprehensive stuff since OP is a beginner.

You weren't the only one who mentally jumped to the conclusion you did.

I've used Google Docs with Google Drive's file system for that kind of planning. Can keep documents, graphics, spreadsheets organized in folders. Of course there are those who want nothing to do with Google.

I work hard for my points!

I've seen many projects crash and burn at a digital agency. Including large ones where much money and reputations were on the line. Though I have not been part of a startup Company whose primary product failed.

What are your experiences with it?

It sucks. Tensions run high, people carefully determine the cause of the failure while assigning blame in different directions yet trying not to be offensive.

Could it have been prevented?

In my case, absolutely. A lot problems [including my own] were the result of being overconfident in ones ability to build a large feature in one huge sprint / development pass. Bugs slowly stack up but are dismissed early on, requirements begin changing, it turns out you badly misunderstood the scope of the project. Now half the timeline is gone and every meeting the heat is turning up, until it's become clear the deadline will be missed and the client won't be happy.

Can the same mistake be prevented in the future?

Most of the time yes. But it's usually not that simple. A decent team will try very hard to cover all their bases when planning the project. Nobody goes into a project thinking they overlooked a preventable mistake. But understanding the scope of the project's requirements and desired timeline is usually a big factor. Having developers who think critically about the state of development and where it sits in the context of the project timeline and client expectations is also important. But really a project can fail at any level on the team.

Do projects be destined to fail over and over again?

In some cases at the digital agency I worked at, the answer was yes. There were too many people in the process, all representing they're knowledgable in their respective fields, all with different assertions and expectations. Budgets would get blown too early as the project moved through different silos in the agency (planning, ux design, graphic design, copywriting, media/seo/social). When the project would be ready for the developers to start their work, many times they'd be under pressure and tight deadlines because the budget was already burnt up.

What saves a project?

That's a tough one. People will to stick they're heads out of the weeds when they see potential problems. Even if it might not be their specialty or possibly spread judgement onto other parts of the team. People who are diplomatic about this, and not everyone can do that. Some people just go heads down and rogue, and don't really care about the big picture.

Having a smart team who trusts eachother and watches eachothers back is huge, but that still won't prevent all forces of failure. Clients can certainly throw a wrench in the project too, by changing requirements or setting unrealistic expectations on their vendors.

I feel like I just read the best recursive joke on Voat.

Can you pleases tell me when this is going to stop?

No idea. Maybe when Ecmascript finally hits a release that satisfies the programming community? That might be ES7, which might land late 2016 (last I checked). Maybe when the W3C stops releasing new specifications (no end in sight, the web still lacks in tons of features not implemented in browsers). Maybe when people are satisfied with the CSS specification (no end in sight).

As far as copying Google, obviously 99% is an exaggeration. When I'm on major websites there's more Backbone and old jQuery than angular, maybe some KnockoutJs and Ember here and there too. imo Yeoman wasn't interesting at all. Where I'm at, we're not copying Google's style guide(s), we're not using Yeoman, we're a deep Rails stack (Google favors Python & Java), we're not using Twitter's Bootstrap (which personally I dis-like), we're not doing a lot of things that would be copying the big Companies.

It's tough that the environment changes rapidly, but frontend job salaries have skyrocketed because of it. You could still be a static HTML/CSS template developer and make 40-50k... but if you can handle the changing JS environment and author good single page apps you can double those numbers. And I'm not saying that's an easy skill to achieve, it's hard work.

PRO: If you come across obscure bugs or the necessity of a function you don't know how to write, SO usually has that.

As a Sr. Dev I agree... I usually Google Stack a few times a week, for either a reference gut check or obscure browser/JS bugs.

On that note you're describing all the skills that separate the top brass from the mid-level developers. I'm not knocking that, but I've seen some really shitty code/digital products shipped at the mid-level (including work of my own) and there is plenty of job demand for them right now.

Once you move past Stack as a crutch, it's about paying attention to the constantly changing web landscape. A lot of people don't have that energy but will remain gainfully employed.

That's interesting, I had a feeling Javascript would be involved. Although it makes me wonder if there's a sliver of people out their with JS disabled that can't access Voat as a result. Of course, that's going to be true for most websites if that's the case.

In addition, when I checked a couple weeks back, it appeared Voat uses the SignalR stack.