Featured Mod of the Month: Thomas Bonnet

#interview #meta #moderation #community

In this series, we shine a spotlight on the different DEV moderators — Trusted Members and Tag Mods — who help to make DEV a kind, helpful place. Aside from spreading good vibes and helping fellow community members, these folks also assist us with removing spam and keeping posts well organized by adding and removing tags as necessary amongst other things.

If you want to learn more about what these awesome folks do, I recommend checking out our Trusted Member and Tag Moderation guides. There is information about how to apply in both guides if you're interested in joining up as a moderator.

Introducing Thomas Bonnet 🙌

This month, we're featuring Thomas Bonnet, a long-time DEV Community member and super kind, helpful member of our moderator team. In this interview, Thomas talks about how he got started in tech, his specialties as a developer, and what it's like to experience coding as a non-native English speaker. We're super lucky to have Thomas in our mod ranks and really grateful he took the time for this interview. Thank you, Thomas!

Thomas Bnt ☕

French web developer mainly but touches everything. Volunteer mod here at DEV. I learn Nuxt at this moment and databases. — Addict to Cappuccino and Music

Outside of DEV, you can find Thomas here on X and Mastodon.

The Interview

Michael Tharrington: Would you tell us about how you got started as a developer and how you progressed from a learner to working in the industry?

Thomas Bonnet: That’s a great question!

Computers and technology have fascinated me since I was child. I also love radios, and if you fuse the two together, you get web radios — a fascinating world where you can listen to music and navigate the Internet at the same time. I created my own web radio, and to share it, I thought of creating my own website using the built-in tools to “integrate” the player. I designed my very first website under… Wix. 😅

I spent so much time working on my website — editing JavaScript to animate cool texts with colors and showing real-time data. Not very useful I know, but I was just like a kid playing video games… I was enjoying myself. 🤩

After some months with Wix, I asked for advice on creating my very first page under HTML. I started to manually upload with FilleZilla and used Brackets. (The good old days!) Then I began with Bootstrap and other Material Design frameworks… I was really worried about how to create a good navbar using home-made CSS.

(I'll skip the coding and debugging errors 😐).

After a lot of tutorials and reading through blogs, I adventured into website creation without a CSS framework. It was one of my biggest challenges at the time, and you know what? I did it! 🥳

Since then, I've been doing everything homemade, not because I don't like frameworks like Material Design lite, but because I really like to know and understand what's in my source code.

Since 2017, I’ve been publishing my creations. Early on, I never really thought that this would be my future job. But this year, I’m officially a freelance web developer. And, I can honestly say, it's fabulous to have your hobby as a profession. 🌱

Michael: Where do you work and what is your day-to-day like?

Thomas: I've never been a big fan of offices, which is why I chose to work from home. I don’t really have a set pattern for my day, but I can give you an example…

I start off my day with small chores and other tasks, eat breakfast, and then get ready for work. When I open my computer, I check my emails and social networks, while trying to not spend too much time on it. 😶

After I’ve checked my to-dos, I prepare my day (and plan ahead for other days if possible) and then I start coding! Buuut… never without my music and something to drink (team cappuccino ☕).

Once everything is good to go, I push my code!

My hobbies outside of work/dev are watching series, going cycling or walking to get some fresh air, playing video games, giving many hugs to my dog, and completing as many things as possible from my personal to-do list.

Michael: What would you say your current focus or specialty is as a dev? And, what are you hoping to learn more about?

Thomas: I’m specialized in web development, specifically with JavaScript and HTML/Sass. I’m currently using Nuxt for most of my work and personal projects, and also Sass because it makes it simpler to maintain and beautify my beautiful source code. ✨

I learn something new every week — typically something about web development, SEO, and/or one of the most important topics: accessibility. I’ve got a few weaknesses in this area, but I strive to create quality content that can be accessed by everyone and I know it’s important to keep on improving my a11y skills.

Michael: How did you find DEV and what led you to become a moderator for the community?

Thomas: I honestly can’t remember how I found DEV. It could’ve been when I searched for a tutorial on web development. I know that at the time, I was going back’n’forth to DEV without necessarily having an account.

Then I took the step, registered, and began following good, interesting people and tags. And even now, I’m still reading posts here all the time!

Having already moderated in communities, I approached DEV to ask if I can help with moderation. I asked, they said “yes”, and now I’m here! Thanks a lot to the team for trusting me all these years. 💚

Michael: What is it like learning software development as a non-native English speaker? Are there specific challenges you face or resources you’re drawn to?

Thomas: I’m French and when I started to learn software development, it was a little complicated but not too hard. Because at school, we learn to speak, write, and read the English language, I felt pretty well prepared. I always loved this school subject, so that helped.

That said, I’m not great at English yet. Sometimes, I use software to help me translate (like in this case, some words and phrases were taken by DeepL 😄). Kind of funny though, I prefer to read documentation in English… I do this out of habit because once upon a time I ran into some content that was poorly translated. Also, it’s just another challenge and opportunity to learn more English!

Nowadays, many docs are well translated, as folks across the web are focused on wider language distribution — as on Astro for example, which I'm happy to help them with from time to time. 🌱