
Ask HN: I need to specialize.  Web, or iOS? - esob3
I&#x27;m a software engineer, with equal years web, equal years iOS.  I&#x27;ve decided, I need to specialize, and that means choosing either:<p>-  Web 
-  iOS
-  something else?<p>In the opinion of the wise technologists of this forum, given equal interest in the aforementioned fields, what is the &quot;best career move&quot;<p>In other words, whats going to be more valuable in 10 years?
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pedalpete
I vote web, not because I'm not an iOS user, but I see the opportunities if
you're familiar with web languages to be larger.

When I say 'web', I don't mean just a front-ender, though there will continue
to be large opportunity for great front-end devs on the web. To be a great
front-ender, you need mad css and javascript skills. Those javascript skills
can lead you into back-end web dev with node.js or desktop apps with
electron/node-webkit, etc. While you're doing that back-end stuff, does some
algorithm stuff catch your fancy? There's some node stuff there too, but maybe
you start toying with Python or who knows what language? Want to develop
mobile apps, there's phonegap. IoT (going to plug my own library here
[http://getfavor.net](http://getfavor.net)), real-time coms, there's webrtc...

So, you could focus on learning Objective-C/Swift and become great at
developing apps for Apple products (don't forget within their walled garden),
or you can focus on javascript and whatever new platform comes out, you'll
likely get a seat at the table and be hated by all your peers who are 'real
programmers'.

I don't mind a bit of disdain, but I clearly <3 js.

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bikamonki
Neither, bots will develop apps in 10 years. Now, assuming AI does not take
over our jobs, I'd say it depends on the kind of apps that you develop. The
current state of technology allows for web apps to perform very close to
native and browsers are ever more willing to let web apps access phone
features. However, for some apps like games, image manipulation, etc. native
code is a better choice. I am a specialized web developer, I do mostly
'business-type apps' and so far I have managed to run in the phone's browser
or on top of a layer like Apache Cordova.

~~~
esob3
So from the sounds of it your vote is:

Web.

And your reasoning is:

Web could replace native Obj-C / Java, on mobile platforms, in the future.

My response is:

That makes sense. I don't have much experience building a mobile app with web
technology, but it seems to be more and more common, especially in the startup
space (because you can kill 2 birds with one stone).

~~~
bikamonki
You kill 4 birds not 2. Your clients/employer will appreciate a single
codebase that costs much less, both to develop and maintain.

There are drawbacks though. For instance, Android is very limited when
handling images taken from a camera activity which was called by a browser, in
fact this is a documented still unsolved bug. But Google itself is promoting
the concept of 'progressive web apps' so one would safely assume that the end
goal is to allow web apps to be as feature rich (and as performant) as native
apps.

------
moshiasri
well for the start, no body can predict what will be more valuable in 10 years
down the road, and who ever says so, it is just mere speculation.

The best road to take for you will be the one which is paying you more right
now, personally me being a CS graduate degree and a CFA, i would advise you to
weight in scale what will be more full filling to your needs at present.

the best course of action will be the web instead the ios, and the argument
here is pretty simple one, first there was ios, then there was android, then
came windows, what do you know will come next, but web has been the web, no
matter if the bots make it or the AI takes it over, all of those things will
also require skilled and smart people to make all the things happen.

We do not yet live in the terminator age (as i like to call it). yes the
technology has advanced, and the advancing of it also need specially skilled
smart people. iOS or android are just a piece of the pie, why settle for it,
when you can have the bigger bite or even the whole.

------
nness
A. Do you work with either at the moment? B. Will your current employment give
you the opportunity to switch?

~~~
esob3
A. I currently professionally do iOS. But, I also work on side projects using
modern web technologies (React, Angular, CSS3, HTML5, etc.)

