With the ever changing trends in programming what are some of the ways to keep up with the race so one is not left antiquated
For me, it is to subscribe to a couple of good sources of information and read (or skim through) what they post (that should not take more than one or two hours per week). Then, choose the new things you want to learn and allocate some hours each week to level-up. I block one hour and a half of study time per day, and sometimes a couple of extra hours on the weekend.
for me, i always try to read about something new every day. I also try to visit technical sites (such as HN, StackOverFlow, ExpertsExchange etc) and read through different discussions, whether it's a specific programming obstacle someone is working through, or find different discussions to browse through. One final activity I partake in is signing up for different curation lists (such as Hacker News), I find these help stay up to date on different technologies.
To sum it up, never stop trying to consume information, not only does it keep you up to date, but it will benefit you in the long run when learning new concepts.
I don't know if it's a good way, but I just do this:
On average, I find more than 1 interesting link per page, so I end up with an ever-growing list of interesting things to read.
I also send some RSS feeds to Pocket.
Cecil Phillip
.NET Software Developer, Podcaster, Educator & Mentor
Personally, I don't try to keep up. There's too many topics and tons of information in each. I focus on keeping up with topics I care about, topics that help me be productive. If you're a developer, focus on web things. If you're a data person, focus on that.
I couldn't tell you anything about Blockchain or data science. Not that their not interesting. I just had so many other things to focus on but for work and personal projects. My advice is find the things you care about, find the things that you enjoy and focus on that. Get with your friends and let them tell you about their cool projects in other technologies. That way you get the high level from people you know.
It's easy to get into the habit of chasing topics. They'll always be new things to learn. At some point you have to pick something to focus on and go deep into that.