- Resources To Help You Learn CSS Chris Bongers curated a list of 10 games to help you learn CSS Flexbox and Grid. I’m a huge gamer and I’ll jump at any chance to game and learn at the same time. I can give Flexbox Froggy and Flexbox Zombie my seal of approval because I’ve played and enjoyed them. I stopped playing the Flexbox games because I felt I understood the concept enough to build on my own.
Are You an Aspiring Web Developer? Don’t Miss Out on These Resources
I Feel Confident in My CSS Skills After a Week of Practicing
I’ve been practicing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for an hour every day for the past week.
It’s been fun. I create a Pen on CodePen and I build away. Sometimes, it’s something super simple because I don’t know what I’m doing. Other times, I get ambitious and build something more involved like a todo app.
It’s only been a week and I feel like I’ve grown so much.
I’m excited to see how much my abilities will grow in a month I’m a firm believer in doing small things consistently over a long period of time.
Opportunities for Aspiring Indie Hackers
I’m a wannabe indie hacker, but I struggle to find ideas that are worth building.
So I’ve been reading Indie Opportunities to find some spark of inspiration. The articles are worth the read. Some of the opportunities aren’t within my interests, but they still provide a ton of value. For example, you can apply the frameworks to any business or category you’re interested in.
When you pay for the premium version, the value jumps dramatically Indie Opportunities is the definition of undervalued.
This Software Developer Deserves More Recognition From the Community
His name is Cesar Aguirre.
Do I know Cesar personally? Nope. Does the developer community need to know Cesar? YES.
I have never met Cesar or spoken to him via DMs. That’s the beauty of the internet. You find people you would have never thought existed.
If I didn’t publish to dev.to, then I would have not known of Cesar’s existence.
He liked my post and I got curious to learn more about the person behind the like I clicked on his profile and I saw a link to his website.
Let’s Try Out This No-Code Solution to Stay in Touch With People
I suck at staying in touch with people.
Or do humans in general suck at maintaining social relationships? That’s a deeper philosophical question I’d like to answer in the future.
Anyways…
I’ve made so many social relationships in the past 3 years, but I’ve taken no action to maintain them. I’m not saying I want to invite people to weekly dinners. I’m suggesting a simple text or email message saying “Hey, how are you?
Vim Taught Me an Important Life Lesson
I learned Vim back in 2015.
I didn’t choose to learn Vim. Heck I didn’t even know it existed. I learned it because I wanted a passing grade in one of my computer science courses. The final exam had questions about Vim commands and keystrokes, and it was worth a lot of my grade.
I’ve been using Vim ever since.
Fast forward to 2022, my Vim knowledge hasn’t grown much Before today, I thought I was efficient with Vim.
How the Resonance Calendar Helps Me and Other Things I’m Doing
I’ve been trying out the Resonance Calendar for a week.
I have to admit I really enjoy it. Every morning I pick out an article that resonates with me, and I recite (summarize) the main points. Then I reflect on why I thought it resonated with me.
It takes about 30 minutes of my time.
But it’s solving my problem of not having anything to write.
When it’s time for me to write my daily blog post, I already know what I’m going to write about.
3 Things I’ve Learned From Coding an Hour a Day
For the past 11 days I’ve been working on a small project. I do one hour coding sessions after work to focus on something I’m passionate about. The current project I’m working on is nearing its completion, and I’ve learned a lot. But there are things I wish I did differently. Here are three things I want to do for my next project:
- Identify the primary goal of the project I don’t want to be stuck in development hell.
Don’t Be Afraid to Write Sht Code. Here Are 4 Things I Learned About My Sht Code Yesterday
Originally published on Typeshare
I love writing sht code.
Yesterday I wrote the most mom’s spaghetti looking code I had ever seen. It was the great. I couldn’t believe how productive and creative I was being.
Here’s what I learned about my sht code:
Writing sh*t code helped me understand third-party tools faster Are you learning a new third-party tool like an API wrapper for your favorite language?
Read the documentation and start coding something.
Studying for a Software Developer Interview? Here Are 4 Tips to Help You Prepare
Originally published on Typeshare
In 2020, I spent 5 months studying data structures and algorithms.
Within that time-frame, I learned 4 valuable tips that could have reduced my study time down to a month.
Here are the 4 tips I wish I knew before I started studying for interviews:
Mentally prepare yourself for a difficult interview The interview will be hard.
You’ll have 40-50 minutes to provide a working solution. And on top of that, you have someone evaluating your work in real-time.
3 Tips on How to Learn More From Tutorials
Originally published on Typeshare
How much are you actually learning from tutorials?
Tutorials are a great way to learn new things. But you need to balance guided learning with unguided learning, or you won’t learn anything at all.
Here are 3 tips on how to get the most out of tutorials:
Re-create the tutorial in a different context Let’s say you’ve created a Facebook clone by following a tutorial.
You can use what you’ve learned to build a Twitter clone.
The 4 Keys to Successful Commitments
Originally Published on Typeshare
I started reading through The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington.
So far it’s ok. The book should cut out content because there’s a lot of fluff. But there’s one thing I found worth sharing.
The 4 keys to successful commitments:
Have a strong desire for the end result Do you have a strong desire for the end result of your commitment?
WTF Git?! 3 Things That Confused Me When I Started Using Git
When I was a university student, whenever I fucked up my local repository I instantly deleted it and re-cloned it.
I hated git as a student. But once I started investing time to learn git, things finally clicked. I was no longer blowing up my local repository to fix my dumb mistakes.
Here are 3 things that confused me as a newbie:
WTF does origin mean? You’ve probably seen the word origin frequently when working with git.
Bob Nystrom’s Four Rules for Better Naming in Programming
Yesterday, I re-discovered Bob Nystrom’s Long Names Are Long blog post. When he was doing code reviews at Google, he noticed a lot of code creating “identifiers that were too damn long.” So he wrote this blog post to provide guidelines on how to create better identifiers. Here’s my summary of Bob’s four rules:
- Omit words that describe the variable’s type or the method’s parameters It’s redundant to put the type in the variable’s name.
The Coolest Things I Learned This Week
Originally published on Typeshare
How to minimize context switching at work I’m spending too much time to complete tasks at work. Why?
I’m not doing a good job of avoiding distractions. By distractions, I mean the ones that I can control. Distractions such as phone notifications, emails, Webex messages, and unnessarcy meetings. Each one saps the focus out of me, and it takes tremendous effort to get it back.
This week, Maria Romanenko Vexlard published tips on how to minimize context switching at work.
Interested in Learning Web Development and Golang? Here’s 4 Reasons Why You Should Purchase This Course
Originally published on Typeshare
Jon Calhoun’s Web Development with Go is one of best courses for learning Golang and Web Development.
I had zero programming experience in Golang when I joined Cisco. At Cisco, Golang powers SaaS applications, microservices, and tons of other applications. And I wanted to be a contributor to these projects as fast as possible. I needed a resource to teach me Golang outside of work hours.
3 Tools Programmers Should Install to Modernize Their Command Line
Do you ever get the feeling that your command line shell feels outdated? Is it slowing you down? The initial release date of the Bash shell was 1989. The Unix commands? Even older, the 1970s. They’re old, but they’re not obsolete. There exists, however, alternatives that can increase productivity. Alternatives for the modern software development era. These are the 3 tools programmers should install to modernize their command line.
- The Smart And User-Friendly Command Line Shell The modern alternative to the Bash shell is Fish shell.
The Coolest Things I Learned This Week
Originally published on Typeshare
I Finally Understand The CSS Box Model I love Josh Comeau’s content. He’s built up a strong mastery in front-end development. It clearly shows when reading his blog posts. Take, for example, his latest post on making beautiful gradients. When I found out that he had a course on learning CSS, I knew I had to buy it. I haven’t finished the course yet, but so far I recommend it.
Common Code Review Mistakes
Originally published on Typeshare
In a previous post, I talked about practicing code reviews with empathy. This time I wanted to share three common code review mistakes I made in the past:
Assuming Senior Devs Are Above Code Reviews Senior devs have mastered the craft, right? After thousands of hours of practice, they’ve reached the final form–the perfect programmer. But senior devs are humans. Humans make mistakes, and code reviews are the perfect tool for catching mistakes early.
My Favorite Amazon Leadership Principle
Originally published on Typeshare
No, it’s not customer obsession.
Customer obsession is still in my top five, but bias for action claims the throne for me. Amazon employees use the leadership principles to guide their decisions in every situation. But they’re useful for non-Amazon employees too.
Bias for action is my favorite because it helps me do everything faster. I can learn faster, make decisions faster, and grow faster.
How Do I Practice Bias for Action?
The Empathetic Code Reviewer
Originally published on Typeshare
There is nothing more humiliating than publishing a code review only to receive nonconstructive feedback.
“Why didn’t you…”
“This is wrong…”
“This won’t work…”
These types of comments are toxic. Toxicity negatively impacts team morale and creates a hostile work environment. But there’s an antidote to counteract the toxicity. Empathy. Here are some ideas to help you become The Empathetic Code Reviewer:
Communicate Positive Intent Directives and criticisms produce one-way conversations.
Why I Uninstalled Social Media Apps on My Phone
Originally published on Typeshare
That’s a lie. I still have Twitter installed on my phone. But I promise you I restrict my Twitter usage to 30 - 60 minutes a day.
Social media was my addiction in 2021. Last December, I decided to become an active creator and not a passive consumer. Here are my reasons for (mostly) abandoning social media:
Constant Distraction “Unlock me Mauricio,” my phone said. “Browse Reddit for five minutes.
The Coolest Things I Learned This Week
Originally published on Typeshare
Inspired by David Perell’s newsletter, I wanted to share the things I learned this week. The learnings aren’t about a specific topic. It’s more of a random mess of things I learned this week. Things I thought were cool, and I hope you find them cool as well.
Notion I learned of Notion through the Ship 30 for 30 community. I saw references to Notion templates and links, and naturally I was curious.
Python for Beginners: Numeric Types
Python, like most programming languages, has built-in numeric data types. Integers and floats are the two common numeric types in Python. Python supports other types of numbers such as Decimal, Fraction, and complex numbers. But in this mini-tutorial, we’ll focus on learning about integers and floats.
Number values help us represent all kinds of information. Numbers can be data from a visualization, the score in a video game, web application data, and so on.
The Biggest Mistake I Made in 2021
In 2021, I spent an absurd amount of time consuming “junk content.”
“Junk content” is information we feed our brains that has no beneficial value. On average, I would spend 1-3 hours every day watching a TV series on Netflix, HBO Max, or Disney+. If I wasn’t watching TV, then I was browsing Reddit or watching YouTube videos on my phone. I didn’t feel guilty doing this until the end of 2021.
How To Generate Ideas For Writing
You can’t write essays or articles without generating ideas first. The is no shortcut around this fact. That’s why Dickie Bush and Nicolas Cole created the Endless Idea Generator. It’s a framework designed to help you generate an endless stream of ideas. Dickie and Nicolas explain the framework in greater detail in their Ship 30 for 30 course.
In this post, I wanted to give an overview of the framework for anyone struggling to generate ideas.
Read-it-later Apps Saved Me
For years, I used my web browser to save articles I wanted to read later. It was dumb. I opened articles in new tabs, and made a mental reminder to read them later. But it rarely worked.
The web browser is not a good place to manage articles. There are too many distractions–Reddit, YouTube, Gmail. My machine’s resources get taxed the more tabs I have open. I could get careless and lose a tab with an accidental click.
You Should Be Using Hugo Archetypes
I hate repetitve tasks. They make me bored and vulernable to human error. If I can find a solution to automate repetitive tasks, I will.
If you stop being boring and repetitive, that will be the end of it - I will not look for you, I will not pursue you… but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you… and I will automate you. – Liam Neeson, probably
Writing is Hard
It’s been seven days of continuous blog posts, and my biggest takeaway is writing is hard.
“If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.” – William Zinsser, On Writing Well
Putting thoughts into words is a challenge. Even writing short blog posts is a struggle. I spend anywhere between 1 - 1.5 hours getting a 200 word draft out. My problem is I’m writing and editing in parallel, and it bottlenecks my speed to produce a draft.
Add Google Analytics to Your Hugo Site
This tutorial is for setting up Google analytics v4 on your Hugo site. Previous versions of Google Analytics used Tracking ID rather than Measurement ID.
Prerequisites Before we get started, go to https://analytics.google.com/ and create an account (or use your Google account).
Sign-in to your account before proceeding.
Step 1. Generate the Measurement ID Click on “Start measuring” to get started.
Fill out the Account, Property, and About your business forms.
My Two Values
Here’s an interesting quote from Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead.
Your values can act as a compass in life. They can help you move in the direction that you know in your heart you want to move in. Imagine that you are on a boat in the sea of life. North is toward your values. South is toward perfectionism and avoidance. When you move south, you may feel safer, but you will not end up where you truly want to go.
How to Write a Binary Heap in Golang
The heap data structure is commonly used to implement a priority queue. The are many heap variants, but in this blog post we’ll focus on the binary heap. Our implemention will specifically be a min heap, and it’ll only work for integer values.
Side note: we’ll be able to adapt this to work for any value when Golang officially releases generics!
Definitions Binary Heap
A complete binary tree that adheres to the heap property.
One Resource I Found the Most Impactful
The year is almost ending and I wanted to reflect on a life-changing resource for me. Mike Crittenden’s blog. I named dropped him in my previous post, but I neglected to mention how much of an impact he’s had on me.
I was casually browsing HackerNews when I came across one of his posts. I don’t remember the specific post, but I know it was enough to pull me into the rabbit hole.