DEV Community: Kingsley Aguchibe

Project ideas for developers

Kingsley Aguchibe — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 17:32:46 +0000

Let's take few minutes to talk about project ideas. A lot of people seem to ask these kinds of question: "I've learned this, this, and that. What should I learn/do next?". And then people would tell them: "Build tons of projects". This time is usually the time they feel there is gap in their knowledge. I'm saying these from experience. It happens to most of us...

"Hey dude! Go build cool stuff!" That's what they would normally say to you. It's not that they are wrong. It is just that, you don't seem to know what to build.
And, the somewhat boring part is that when you search for project ideas (for what to build), you'll usually see something like todo list, calculator, pomodoro timer, see this one I've built 😄, and so on.

These things are not bad. But I guess you want something that is actually useful and more challenging maybe.
If that's what you want, don't worry. I've got something to tell you. But this thing I'm about to tell you, I feel you're not going to like it.
Okay, how about this? Imagine that you were with your friends and you said something they didn't like. And just like that, all of them removed their footwear and started hitting you with it.

That's what I imagine you're going to do when I tell you this - hit me with your footwear!

Alright. The thing is that you should not search for project ideas

Yeah. You should not search. The reason why I said this is because there are lots of project ideas only if we pay close attention to our environment.

https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/n4mh5ixeru4f6q3g8lsn.jpg

Take this as an example. There was this twit by Evan You, the man behind Vue.js. In the twit he said that "CSS is hard". Take a look at the bottom-right corner of the image above. You'd see better.

This is what I was saying - paying close attention to our environment. It's not that Google couldn't do this right. It's just that CSS codes work differently on different devices. This is my opinion though.

After seeing this twit, I decided to build something - a user feedback box. The idea was that since developers can't see the representation of their codes on different devices, it makes a lot of sense to integrate a feedback box into their websites/web apps.

With this feedback box users could anonymously share their experience with the use of the website/web app. Hey, this may sound dump to you but it made perfect sense to me the time I was thinking it.

In fact, I was seeing a great success in building the box (one of the simplest react applications 😆) Not until I decided to deploy it. I tried Netlify, gh-pages, none worked. I read lots of docs but I coudn't just get it right. So I gave up... ☹️

Oh no! I've gone too far. The main thing here is to share with you how to get project ideas.

You just need to think and ask yourself questions. Thanks to nature that humans are creative, unlike AIs. The project you think of may seem too big for you. But, you can always build it with someone else.

Pro tip: Build a blog/website first where you share what you've learned. Just like this one]

Think of something that might be useful to you or someone else - not boring todo lists all the time. No! Not again...
It's always a fun way to learn - challenging your abilities. So, don't overthink. You'd be marveled at how much you can do when you start asking questions and reading docs.

Hey awesome, don't be like me that gave up on my feedback box because I couldn't deploy it

"Hi guys! I've got this project idea where users of the app could do this and that. The only thing is that I don't think I can do it alone. Anybody willing to work with me?".

What it would take you is to explain your idea very well. And that's it. You'd get the chance to work with someone else. Codding needs lots of collaboration. You'd get the chance to learn from the person. Just don't hold back on big ideas.
Oh! Are you afraid that someone might steal your amazing idea? Me too! But what can we do about it? If we keep on holding back on it, waiting till we get ready to implement it, someone else might produce something that is even better. The game changes, a lot!

So, you may decide to think and ask yourself questions in order to come up with useful project ideas

Or, you may decide to remove your footwear in order to hit me with it. Unfortunately, you can't reach me 😝

Perhaps, you may keep on asking: "what are the best projects for beginner JavaScript developer?", "what project should I work on as an intermediate python developer?", and the question continues...

Whichever one you decide to do, I wish you good luck. Bye! 👋

Motivation to learn computer programming

Kingsley Aguchibe — Tue, 23 Oct 2018 19:53:43 +0000

Hi you there! How is it going? Tough? Yeah,it should be tough because programming is not for kids. No! I’m really sorry for saying that. Anybody can program. But if you’re not tough on your own to face the challenges… You know what? Let’s just forget about this stupid intro and dive right into the main business of the day. Shall we?

Alright, we’re here. Hey, in order for you to understand my point of view, you need to enter into my world for some minutes.

Let me just shift a little for you to enter into my world. With the snap of a finger, there you go…

You saw cool stuff that people are doing with codes. You too want to do cool stuff right? But the learning part is not moving smoothly. You constantly learn and you constantly forget as much as what you’ve learned. What a waste of time spent on tutorials?

Welcome to my world!

You heard that React is awesome, that you can do amazing things with it. You even heard that you can use it to build mobile apps. Wow! But then you want to learn it and the prerequisite is that you know HTML CSS and basic JavaScript. Those are pieces of cakes. And then you jumped into react. Holy cat! It is harder than you expected - “you don’t mutate states directly”, “you use props to pass data from parent to child”, “components’ life-cycle” … It seems like you’re not ready for all these.

Welcome to my world!

You decided to try other frameworks. Now you’re asking: “Which framework should I learn, react, vue or angular? And then, the guy from the other end was telling you “All the frameworks are good. React is awesome but you should go for vue if you’re a beginner. Angular is used by big companies. So if your plan is to get a job at a big company, you should go for angular”.

“Go for vue if you’re a beginner”. You’re a beginner, aren’t you? You decided to go for the vue. This time no more backing down, head-on encounter!

“v-key, v-on, v-bind: two way data binding”. No! How did you do that? Is that a magic? You just got tricked. Your eyes wide open - how does that happen?

Welcome to my world!

New version of create-react-app. Hey! Introducing Typescript to react. No! Why is everything in the JavaScript world changes so rapidly? You got tired and sick of everything. You decided to go for another language. Oh! You just saw from YouTube the other day that python is growing at a very fast rate. It might even become more popular than JavaScript in the next five years.

You’re going for python. Like, for real! You went there, and then you discovered that indentation could make you stay up all night trying to solve a bug that doesn’t even exist. What’s going on here? Hey, which python framework are you working with? Django or Flask? Now you feel like giving up on programming, don’t you?

Welcome to my world!

Okay. Enough of that. Now you can get off my world. My world where everything is scattered. I bet you didn’t understand everything while you were in my world. Did you?

How about going into other peoples’ world? People that think they can hack NASA using HTML

People that spend lots of time on tutorials. Though they might not have a project to put what they’ve learned from the tutorials into.

People that always ask which framework or library to learn first.

People that ask “I’ve learned HTML and CSS, what should I learn next?”

People with some other challenges. People that enjoy learning and tutorials more than getting their hands dirty with codes.

Do you know why these happen?
Because there are almost no bug-fixing in tutorials
Because learners would just sit down and consume a well prepared course - no errors, no challenges, just sit and consume.
Because people don’t want to suffer. Everybody wants quick results.
Because people waits on motivation before they can do programming stuff.
What should we do to solve these problems?
After going through those things (those things you saw while in my world), I’ve come to a realization that one of the best ways to learn is to actually do stuff. When you fix a bug, it would be hard for you to forget that concept again. Seriously. So, I encourage you to work on a project, you might think that you’re not ready yet. But your readiness is determined only when you start coding and asking for help. You can’t believe how ready you were since!

We should not do too much tutorials - trying to learn this framework or the other. Learning the core language makes everything easier. That means we should go back to learn the core language.

On the issue of people not wanting to suffer, it is seriously dealing with us. Not only in the tech world, but also in most areas of life. We like rewards. Sometimes we even reward ourselves for doing absolute nothing. Faping is an example of this These kinds of rewards are bad. Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m not going against the principle of “smart work is better than hard work”. You’re a programmer. I trust you understand where I’m heading for. Work smart and hard, then expect your reward. Don’t jump into abstractions(frameworks and libraries) if you’re not good enough with the core language.

Everybody else will always tell you this. So, this is the time for you to put it into use.

Finally, don’t wait to get motivated before you can do some coding. Motivations are like emotions, they are never stable. They come and go as they wish. So, don’t wait. Get some work done.

And remember, most of the things that are worth doing are not always enjoyable.

Hey you there! I hope you enjoyed the session. If you did, check out my book on Habit vs Self-Discipline: Life-Changing Evaluation of the Conflict that Defines Us. It’s fun and educating. Thank you and good luck.

Motivation to learn computer programming

Kingsley Aguchibe — Tue, 23 Oct 2018 19:49:42 +0000

Alright, we’re here. Hey, in order for you to understand my point of view, you need to enter into my world for some minutes.

Let me just shift a little for you to enter into my world. With the snap of a finger, there you go…

Welcome to my world!

“Go for vue if you’re a beginner”. You’re a beginner, aren’t you? You decided to go for the vue. This time no more backing down, head-on encounter!

“v-key, v-on, v-bind: two way data binding”. No! How did you do that? Is that a magic? You just got tricked. Your eyes wide open - how does that happen?

Welcome to my world!

New version of create-react-app. Hey! Introducing Typescript to react. No! Why is everything in the JavaScript world changes so rapidly? You got tired and sick of everything. You decided to go for another language. Oh! You just saw from YouTube the other day that python is growing at a very fast rate. It might even become more popular than JavaScript in the next five years.

Welcome to my world!

Okay. Enough of that. Now you can get off my world. My world where everything is scattered. I bet you didn’t understand everything while you were in my world. Did you?

How about going into other peoples’s world? People that think they can hack NASA using HTML

People that spend lots of time on tutorials. Though they might not have a project to put what they’ve learned from the tutorials into.

People that always ask which framework or library to learn first.

People that ask “I’ve learned HTML and CSS, what should I learn next?”

People with some other challenges. People that enjoy learning and tutorials more than getting their hands dirty with codes.

We should not do too much tutorials - trying to learn this framework or the other. Learning the core language makes everything easier. That means we should go back to learn the core language.

Everybody else will always tell you this. So, this is the time for you to put it into use.

Finally, don’t wait to get motivated before you can do some coding. Motivations are like emotions, they are never stable. They come and go as they wish. So, don’t wait. Get some work done.

And remember, most of the things that are worth doing are not always enjoyable.