Ask HN: If you had 3 month to program for fun, what would you learn?

[jaddison]

As a Django dev (currently, anyhow - formerly was largely Windows software dev), I think I would investigate Go, if we're talking purely from a 'fun' perspective.

From a professional perspective, I've been dabbling in Objective-C/Cocoa and the Android SDK (trying to dredge up old Java knowledge) - but for something 'new' I think I'd take a closer look at Ruby on Rails.

[holgersindbaek]

Thanks for the advice. I come from a RoR background and I want to go into something a bit more "new age" or low level. Also digging a bit into iOS development now, just for fun.

[aleprok]

Absolutely nothing, because I would use that time to use the skills I already have to build some of my small ideas just for fun.

[dougbarrett]

I would master* Node.js as much as possible, and along with Twitter Bootstrap start developing "real-time RAD (Rapid Application Development) for Web".

I'm learning Node.js, and I'm excited, but my time is extremely limited...so for the time being my RAD is limited to PHP.

*If to "master" was even possible

[holgersindbaek]

Yuk... PHP. Sounds icky. Hehe. I've also been thinking of going into Node.js, but the advantages of Node compared to RoR is just not that big. The only big difference is the real-time aspect, which is relatively easy to implement with Pusher in RoR.

What do you say?

[abhijat]

I would like to learn to write games for the desktop and then try to write one, one of the traditional desktop games using C++ and something like SFML. The game development field has always intrigued me.

[gadders]

I think Javascript, tbh.

It covers quite a wide range of things you can do with it these days - regular web stuff, applications that run in the browser, and even server-side with Node.js.

[mgallivan]

If you want to go a bit lower level you can always try to write a debugger.

[holgersindbaek]

A debugger. Sounds interesting. What exactly would that be doing? How would you use it in a product?

[dotborg]

Current DirectX/OpenGL API and I would try to build a renderer in C++.

[geekam]

I have a few things on my list. I am inclined towards -

* Going through Webkit's source

* Node

* iOS development

[holgersindbaek]

What if you where to go deeper into some low level programming?

[onitica]

Top of my list are Node.js and Clojure.

[holgersindbaek]

Why those two? Why clojure? I kind of know the advantage of Node.js (real-time).