24 December 2018, 12:14

starting ~ 2019


Starting 2019

It's that time of year when everyone starts to reflect on the previous year and set goals for the current one. In the spirit of jumping on bandwagons this is my note to self. I have been doing some thinking over the last few weeks and have tried to identify some things I would like to learn and participate in this year.

Looking back

2018 was my year as a professional developer and I have made some massive leaps in my practical knowledge and my ability to contribute to projects. This year:

  • I got to grips with React
  • Starting using TDD practices
  • Maintained my own code bases in work
  • Became a scrum master
  • Read over 10 books on both programming and other topics
  • Completed 5 programming courses
  • Raised a beautiful a little boy
  • Managed to work out at least twice a week

Many of the goals I set around this time last year have been achieved and now I am ready to adjust and get 2019 started.

Looking forward

This year I'm ready to move past a junior developer and make myself a key part of any team I find myself in. To do that I plan on learning some bigger concepts and really focus on design pattern and architecture. I will attempt to clone some popular websites to learn what it takes to make a successful app.

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it's also a really good way to hone skills and learn the process behind making some of the webs most popular apps.

The categories I will be exploring:

  • Crowdfunding
    
  • Classifieds and eCommerce
    
  • Jobs board
    
  • Multi-blogging
    
  • News: news blocks/portals, river of news, social news
    
  • Social photo sharing/ visual social networking/ image and video hosting
    
  • Q+A (question and answer)
    
  • Social bookmarking and visual social bookmarking
    
  • Real-world social discovery
    
  • Micro-blogging
    
  • URL shortening
    

They will be slimmed down a fair bit, but it will give me an idea of some of the problems that needed to be solved in order for the apps to work correctly. Hopefully combining this with learning some design patterns will give some more practical tools and techniques I can use in my day to day work.

I have chosen to pair down my goals and really just focus on these two things with the thought that deeper dives will give the most benefit to my current skill set.


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