How to learn technology not to become its hostage?

Question

Ruby on Rails

Hello dear ladies and gentlemen!
I am a graduate of the Polytechnic University and in programming my level is somewhere a little lower than junior'a.
Actually my question - how studying technology not to become its hostage?
Now a little more.
I don’t want to re-start a song that they say they don’t really teach anywhere. This topic has already been discussed many times. So in connection with this, it remains, like everyone else, in principle, to learn on their own.
I have not yet found my "corner" in it, but for a long-term study I chose Ruby and Rails. Now I am studying the latter and everything would be fine, but just yesterday I was talking with a friend and he noticed that starting from a ready-made framework (technology, library, etc.) is not the right way. As an argument, he noted that technology quickly becomes obsolete and leaves the it scene, and with it our precious time and skills. And as a result, we will have to retrain in the future. On my own behalf, I want to note that the use of a rather large-scale framework, a library, or something else does not allow you to fully understand all the subtleties of the language and the area in which the language is used - the knowledge is very superficial.
On the other hand, a well-written framework teaches us to be more focused, sets the right programming tone, introduces different concepts, allows us to look at the code written professionally. With the framework, a beginner like me can quickly find an order or a job in a small project, but for a deep study of the area, I will have to resort to additional. efforts.
I would like to hear your opinion, because if not a framework, then bicycles, but I have an ambivalent attitude towards them.
Thank you for your attention!

Answer 1

Learning by trial and error - as humanity and science have been doing for thousands of years, despite any achievements and occasional exceptions - is also a terrible way to develop. However, unfortunately, it hasn't been better yet.
Let's start with the fact that the rails appeared in 2004, when everything was different. And they are quite successfully developing and adapting to modern requirements, no matter what they say.
Well, actually, frameworks (rails, in particular) are not WordPress, so the skills that you will get when working with it (framework) will be more extensive. And even if the technology dies (note that ruby ​​appeared in 1995, like Java, and rails are supported, for example, by github), then the values ​​obtained in the process (necessary when working with the framework) will easily be transferred to other technologies. On the example of the rail, in many cases they will pass as best practices.
In short, the most normal way of learning is on real problems. Today, at least, all real serious tasks (we don’t take rare exceptions like FB and VK, where it would also be possible not to fence, by the way) are done on frameworks. Conclusion: checkers or go?

Answer 2

Your friend tells nonsense, algorithms are algorithms, the mass change of algorithms in the last century was only in the form of moving away from punched cards and strange disks, to RAM and a magnetic disk, but the algorithms changed significantly there, it was not necessary to spin in a kilobyte of memory.
And so you are not an old man, well, a new ruby ​​came out, bought a book in a week, read the knowledge, updated it.

Answer 3

And what's wrong with being a "hostage of technology"? The main thing is that there is a demand for your specialized knowledge in some kind of framework, you are at work and you are satisfied with the salary. When something changes, you have to learn something new.
Just accept the fact that by choosing the IT field you will have to study all your life.

Answer 4

There is nothing wrong with that. Your task is to learn how to program, in Ruby, Python or Erlang - it doesn't matter, learning a new programming language, a framework is not difficult if you have experience with similar technologies.
But still, when there is time, I recommend playing around with C / C ++ or Java. Just to broaden my horizons.