DEV Community: Alexander Tarler

O portfolio, portfolio, wherefor art thou portfolio?

Alexander Tarler — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 15:16:25 +0000

In the world of the eager job-hunting developer a portfolio is a must-have. It needs to be great to look at and should showcase your skills, putting a lot of weight on your eye for design. My designing-eye is still in development, and after getting some feedback on my old portfolio website I have decided to create a new one. This is the first of (hopefully) a few posts about my process.

Before I start with the actual work - let me show you my old portfolio website. I don't think it's bad per se - but it doesn't pop, it doesn't really grab you. It's okay. It's fine, and when you're looking for a job you want to be more than fine - you want to shine.

I'm not going to drag this post out with more images, but it's safe to say that there are definitely more exciting and better-looking websites out there, and I aim to have a website that could mingle with them.

I intend to document this process, both for my own sake as it allows me to look back and reflect but also for the sake of other junior developers who might feel as lost as I did (and still are, at times - I know enough to know that I don't know anything) and would like some encouragement in their own process.

In the next post I'm going to try to figure out three things:

My target audience.
What makes other developer websites great
Which tech-stacks to go with

Wish me luck!

Personal Space Invaders

Alexander Tarler — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 09:44:29 +0000

Here we go, gang. Here's my first project in my recreate-retro-games-plan. I was juggling a few ideas on which game to start with, but after the title "Personal Space Invaders" popped up in my mind I could not not choose it!

My plan is to recreate the classic game "Space Invaders", but adding on my own silly take on it. I aim to make the game about a person who is VERY keen on keeping people away from their personal space, and I think the creative process (and hopefully the end result) could be very fun!

It's my first time documenting my progress on a site like this one, so please keep in mind that I might forget to mention a few things. I anyone is following this guide/tutorial/chaos and you feel as if I've confused you, please feel free to reach out to me and I'll do my best to clear things up!

Now that that's over with - let's go!

I'm using Unity for creating this game, and I've chosen to go with the "2D URP" setting when I set up the game . I have also moved around the UI for the Unity Editor a bit. So far, this is all I have:

I have also made a quick and simple sketch of how the game should look like:

I'm going to try and keep my posts somewhat structured in order to make them more readable, so the process will be divided up into different posts. If you want to follow my process I'd suggest you keep an eye out for more posts, and I welcome constructive criticism, tips and discussions.

Have a lovely day and take care,

Alex

Episode IV: A New Hope

Alexander Tarler — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 09:17:30 +0000

Hey there, you!

Ever since I can remember I've been a master at starting up projects with a burning passion. I would get an idea for a game, or a story, a video or basically anything, and then hook my brain-teeth straight into that idea. I would set up everything I needed to start, wear my favorite pair of pyjamas pants, grab a cup of coffee, sit down in front of my new projects and...

Nothing. I would stare at the screen, not knowing where to start, while also cursing myself out for not doing anything. I would attempt to achieve perfection from the start, and when this impossible task turned out to be just that, I would give up. I would feel as if I was incapable of even having good ideas, and I would marinate in these negative thoughts until I had yet another idea. Rince and repeat the process, over and over again, until I would feel as if I was not meant to create, or be creative. To express myself.

It's a depressing thought, but one that I very much realize that I want to escape. I know I'm not the only one, and I'm willing to bet that you, my dear reader, can recognize this.

It's time for a change, I think. I have decided to grab my ideas by the neck, and then work them down into manageable, fun projects that will at least be achieveable. I'm starting with game development, and even though I've started a few game projects I've yet to properly finish one. I've decided to go "start over" by recreating classic/retro games for a while, just to have an easy goal, produce something and hopefully learn a lesson or two on the way. I'm going to document and share my progress, and hopefully someone in need might find something that helps them with their own projects.

I hope that your summer is great, dear reader, and that you are able to work on your passion projects.

Take care of yourself,

Alex

Resume, resuyou

Alexander Tarler — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 09:59:00 +0000

Writing your first post anywhere can feel harder to do than it should be. Right now, for instance, I feel as if I -really- need to get the right words in the right order, lest my future of dev.to-blogposting will start off with a flop. I want my post to be confident yet humble, funny yet serious. Readable without being clever about it.

I get the same feeling when I apply to jobs. I want the recruiter, client, or whoever is reading my application to find it interesting, just like everybody else. I want to stand out, but not too much. I want to be remembered.

I have just graduated from a coding bootcamp called in Stockholm, Sweden. 3 tough, intense months of tapping away at a keyboard to go from barely knowing what HTML is to making a fullstack application - and deploying it! We coded using mob programming, and at the end we got to decide on what our final project would be. We landed, after a moment of voting, on a cv-creator.

The project needed to be fullstack, meaning that frontend, backend and a database was needed. We wrote it using TypeScript, NextJS 13, MongoDb among other things. We had roughly 1.5 weeks to do it, going from nothing to a finished product that we could present not only to our fellow mobs but to the clients of that came to visit.

Our result was this -> https://cv-creator-three.vercel.app/

I can, without a shred of doubt, say that I am so, so proud of my mob. We have worked hard these 3 months, and the effort, strength, smarts and skills I've seen from my team has been inspiring and impressive. "Plan-B", as our mob is called, will always have a place in my heart (and LinkedIn/GitHub, of course).

In our project a user can log in using either GitHub or Google. They can then create a CV, saving that info, then choose a template/theme and download it as a pdf. We added a "helper" (read: chatGPT) that we named "Ceve" that can help the user write a good introduction. We even added a job-search-API that will allow the user to look for jobs.

1.5 weeks. 11 days. 264 hours of going from scratch to an application that I want to, and am going to, use myself. My passion for coding has only grown since I entered the bootcamp, and now at the end I feel it growing for every day.

Our application was made to make the process of searching for a job just a bit easier. A smidge, a crumb more fun. A modicum of relief in the jungle that is job searching. Hopefully it can help people stand out, allow users to send out our (beautiful!) CV's and help them find a job.

With a little luck my first post is as good as our project is, but truthfully, I am so proud of my mob (my friends!) and what we have achieved that even if my first post is read by no one I will still feel bliss thinking of the whole process. However, if you've read this far I thank you, and hope to see you out there. If you ever need a CV, you know where to go. Take care, double-check your commit-messages and have a lovely spring.