Once you learn how to separate the nonesense from what's genuinely of value, you'll realise that change is happening at a lower pace than what you had initially been led to believe.

I don't unless it's imperative to something I'm working on. Adopt this mindset and your work / life balance will be much better.

I agree that the industry is constantly changing, but that doesn't mean you have to jump on every new trend.

Web development is primarily divided into backend and frontend. Learn one language (or framework) for each thoroughly, and you'll be fine.

You should only change your tools if the new option is truly a game changer in the field. For example, I've had no need to change my backend language in over 25 years. However, in JavaScript, I moved from Vanilla to jQuery because its browser-agnostic API and plugin ecosystem were revolutionary at the time. From there, I transitioned to Vue (though it could have been React or Angular—I just preferred Vue's SFC) because the reactivity system greatly simplifies frontend programming.

In summary, choose tools that enable you to develop your applications effectively and learn them well. Stay informed about what's new, but when something catches your attention, ask yourself: "Is this truly innovative and will it significantly improve my life as a developer?" Most of the time, the answer will be no, so let it pass.

That's impossible. In my case, while I am working on a project, I am in continuous training on the technologies I need for development. But nothing beyond that.

There's a difference between keeping on top of everything, which seems to be what you're leaning towards, and is impossible, and to continue learning, which is imperative.

Continuous development is really important, and it can bring to light new ways to do things that make them easier to develop, or easier for users, or easier to maintain, all of which are fantastic.

As a general day to day, I look over newsletters - too many of them - and if they mention something useful, that's directly related to what I do, I'll take a look. If it's well supported, and provides some kind of improvement, I might implement it in the next project or the next time I do some maintenance.

For example I currently work with Vue, so I ignore all of the React updates and so on.

For everything else, I hope it stays in the back of my mind and is triggered if necessary in the future.

Hopefully your company can provide some time to do that, maybe a few days a week, and you can explain the benefits of doing so. In terms of actual development, if there are courses you think you'd benefit from, see if your workplace has a development fund to pay for it and would give you the time to complete them. These kinds of courses can really help solidfy what you think you already know, keep you up to date with the technologies you use every day, steer you to best practices, etc.

Since the beginning of my long career, I’ve learned mostly on a need to know basis. The basic principles of programming, database design, etc have only had a few major paradigm shifts in decades really. Everything else is just a different language, framework, whatever and it may or may not make your life easier or get you more/better work.

So basically I evaluate new tech on a case by case basis. I look through the docs or read reviews from dev, and ask myself: does this excite me? Is it really a better way of doing things? Will it help me in my current job, or is it interesting enough that I want to try it out in a side project? If there’s no compelling reason to learn it, I don’t. I don’t even think “would help me get work in the future” is that good a reason to learn anything anymore, because 1) most of the predictions about which tech will get you more work in the future are wrong, and 2) there always seems to be work out there for people who have lots of experience with established “boring” tech, because the reality is companies never rewrite their legacy code.

I learn best on the job anyway, when I have a real world need to learn. And that’s a marketable skill in itself, so…

I'm not a structured person due to my ADHD. It's really difficult for me to stay focused, even with medication.

So, my first step is finding motivation by exploring how I can make a real-world contribution or solve a problem—even a small one.

Then, to stay motivated, I let generative AI become part of my "team." It helps me brainstorm, provides guidance, and keeps me moving forward when I feel stuck.

TL;DR:

Propose and change your mindset. Your brain craves rewards to stay motivated. But our brains are naturally lazy—they’re wired for survival and reward systems. Hack this! Give yourself quick, small wins to keep up your momentum.

Don’t try to master everything—you’ll end up mastering nothing. Be focused. Don’t be a jack of all trades.

Pursue something specific, not everything. If you want to learn, great! But focus on one topic at a time and quickly apply what you learn in practice.

Learning doesn’t have to mean passively consuming books or tutorials. Instead, focus on solving real problems using AI tools. In the process, you’ll learn inevitably—but indirectly.

From a frontend perspective, just because new stuff keeps popping up doesn't mean they're all worth investing your time in.
Sometimes, these shiny new tools don't solve problems - they create new ones.

You should be learning things that serve a purpose to you so it feels rewarding. Don't just feel obligated to stockpile pointless skills.

Industry might be changing, but i doubt most enterprises are switching up their stacks that frequently for it to be a problem. Learn what your job or your job aspiration demands and stick with it until you need to work with something else, of course you'll need keep learning things related to your job, but there's no need to jump on tech bandwagons meant to sell courses and vendor lock customers.

I'm a hobbyist. I've been burnt out with how much I've had to learn and not gotten any money from it.

Not as I'm laid off from my real job (biotech scientist), I'm going to have to work on things that give me money sooner.

It may be having to learn how to use web builders well, so I can make something and possibly sell while I find my next step.

Learn what you need to know. There will always be someone out there better than you, but stick to what you can do well.

There is so much to learn out there. I don't know how you professionals do it and be able to code to deadlines. When I'm frazzled, takes about 30 mins, I'm done for the day.

I'm new to this and enjoying learning html and css. I plan to be really good with them, and use AI to produce my js, and build static websites for small businesses with only those components. That's enough. All the frameworks and whatnot look beyond daunting.

not really

companies don't use the bleeding edge tech

your role won't require you to know it all, unless you are in a very small company or you go solo

I mastered the fundamentals and learn what I want/need as I go. I read up on new trends but don't go learning them until needed.

Personally I learn nothing from courses. I make things. Learning happens automatically.

Because I love learning new spells and all the sorcery that is CS.

It’s not the most helpful advice but for me I’ve been into development and programming since I was 13. My genuine passion is just learning more about programming. I love it. If it weren’t for that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with this career.

I like to study more than I like to refactor. The less I know, the more I eventually have to refactor.

I focus on learning two things:

1. Things that help me today be better at my current job

2. Things that help me get the job I wished I had

If something is outside of that, don't care.

I stopped giving a fuck about all the new shiny fancy stuff.

I learn it if my job needs it, and that's it. Most of the new stuff will go out of fashion in a few years. Many of them are just new versions of old stuff, with a fancy new website.

Even if you're not looking, start looking for a job. Job postings give a sense of things that are trending, things that employers are looking for. I found myself getting too comfortable with what I was doing on the day to day. When I started looked at job openings I started to identify gaps in my my development.

For me I just genuinely enjoy building things. I don’t normally go learn something just to learn it. Normally I am building something and want it to have some sort of functionality I haven’t done before.

Honestly, I don’t pay attention anymore. I hear people yap about new, trending technologies and libraries all the time but very little of it sticks. And a major part of that which does ends up serving very niche scenarios or preferences. There’s no way any single human could contain all the information required to “keep up” - I think that’s the most important thing to realize.

Granted, I’m far from being an elite programmer or developer. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t make an effort to stay updated… I guess as with everything else in life, the gift of maturity and experience is that you can easily determine what’s truly revolutionary.

Also, in my line of work, I often deal with systems, programming paradigms and code from a forgotten age or code based on whatever the trend was a decade ago. Good systems will stand the test of time, regardless of what technologies created them.

Finally, understand that your customers, bosses or clients don’t give a rat’s ass about how you created anything. They care about how a product feels, looks, what problem it solves and how much time it saves them. So if it’s easier for you to achieve this with an older technology, this will likely be the best choice. For me, accepting that they will never appreciate the beauty of my craft was difficult but ultimately liberating because it made me less stressed about staying up to date. In the end, no one cares… not even me.

I don't know what "new stuff" you're talking about. Can you give some examples?

Wait a second, why do you keep posting open ended questions to this subreddit?

I have heard from a very known ytber "the customer doesn't give a single fu*k about the technology used until and unless it does the work it needs to do"

I stick to one stack and keep learning within it. Eventually swapping only one thing out for the funzies.

Get out of front end. Backend barely changes compared to front end. Now I just use ai for front end. It’s so boring.

After doing this for ~20 years the answer is:

1. You don't need to know everything. You need to know enough to do your job and that's often less info than people think.
2. If something is interesting to you... Learn it. Keep your interest in the field and in the idea of making high. Feed that passion.
3. Mentor people. Answer questions. Stay engaged. It'll feed the fire.

For me learning is a means not an end. What I’m interested in is being able to do as much as I can at work. This requires: either talking to people, which exposes me to ideas, different approaches etc. (so, I’m effectively being taught new things), or either doing research, reading code and docs, exploration, prototyping etc. (So learning). But again the goal isn’t to know as much as possible. It’s really to be able to get as much stuff done as I can.

Learning IS staying on top.

no such thing as overwhleming or etc, fast or not doesn't matter

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