Technologies evolve quicker than we can imagine. As soon as we think, we have mastered one web technology, a new better, expanded, and more flexible version or technology releases that switches the demand of the market to it, making you start learning the new technology as if you have never known it before. To many of us, including myself, it seems frustrating to have known one technology or version of technology very well to having to relearn most of it over a routinely based time frame.

For example, many have mastered HTML and CSS and felt confident enough to expand out onto new hacks and workaround methods that they completely forgot about the new technology that has recently arisen: HTML5 and CSS3. As HTML5 and CSS3 hit the market, they felt behind as web designers and developers as everyone around them understands the new technology while they have no idea what it may be about, and what is so great about the new versions or updates.

In order to avoid such results and to keep one-step ahead in the ever-evolving industry, we discuss several methods and techniques to keep up with the evolving technologies.

Technology Blogs

One of the easiest ways to keep up with the news on evolving technologies is to follow blogs that cover exactly that. Save the blog as a bookmark, have email notifications or RSS feeds setup, that way whenever new web technologies are announced, you will be one of the first to know about it.

This helps you understand the evolving market better, as well as keeps you in the loop ready to answer any questions clients may have about these new technologies. The worst to happen to you is to have clients ask you about the new web technologies when you have no idea whether they are available or not or how they work or affect the industry. Therefore, staying on top of the game is very important.

Official Sites

If technology blogs do not suit you well and are too slow for you to keep up with the industry, the best method you can follow is to keep updated with the official websites of the technologies you need to follow. This way, whenever any of these web technologies are changed, enhanced, or updated, you will know straight away as well as learn how to work with the new changes immediately by following through with their provided documentation.

Act on It

Keeping up to date with the new evolving web technologies is not enough to understand them and act on it. Instead, as they introduce new elements to these technologies reading about them then diving right into working with the new additions or changes actually helps you improve your skills along the way, and when these evolving technologies release mainstream as a whole, you will have a much better understanding about the changes and additions more than anyone else as you have constantly expanded on your skill set by expanding step by step into the changes and or additions.

For example, taking a look at CSS3, we realize that we were not following it as much as we should have, and we are now understanding what is new to it by following blogs that also just found out about certain additions. What this does is, you will be behind on months of information provided to the industry, and your learning process by expanding into the new version is slowed down greatly, always limiting what you can do and what you know about it. Therefore, always follow new information provided to the industry, and act on it accordingly.

Play with Delicious Samples

When you walk into a candy store or a bakery, you are always surprised by delicious samples they throw at you hoping you would enjoy what you just ate, and become a full time buyer of those products you sampled. Similarly, by not just getting hands on through tutorials or information, but rather by downloading working samples to play with you will be able to understand the technologies used a lot better than just theory.

Take the samples modify them, take them apart, break them, and make them work again. This allows you to fully understand what each element does and how it affects things overall, and what happens when you cause it to fail or break. This not only makes you a better developer, but it also helps you dive head first into the evolving technologies giving you a better understanding of how things actually work, and what type of effect they have, and how effective they are.

Watch Them Evolve

Sometimes getting hands on is not generally what you want but rather something overkill for the current time being. If that is the case for you, a better idea to keep up with the evolving technologies is to watch them evolve and transition into what they are today. Think of it as a bird’s eye view overlooking the landscape, watching animals flock, vehicles cross roads, and masses move. Using that concept, by watching the technologies evolve, you can better understand how they are moving to forecast how they will move in the future to better prepare you for what might be coming rather than what has already arrived.

The advantage of having the bird’s eye view is that you can prepare yourself or your firm for a transition into the future before the future arrives. This provides you and or your firm a running start to what can be done with these new technologies, keeping you and or your firm ahead of competitors in the industry and making you a leader instead of a follower.

To conclude, keeping up with the evolving technologies really depends on your motive and or current career. If you career or business depends on keeping up to date with evolving technologies, then it is in your best interest to acquire the information on new technologies the minute they are available. While there may be other methods out there to keep you following with evolving technologies, we hope the methods mentioned will help you get your ideas and methods formulated to work best for you.