The latest articles on DEV Community by Patrick Smith (@concreteniche). https://dev.to/concreteniche https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F138509%2Fdbd2254a-c755-4d99-9839-8a95e2b8f975.jpg https://dev.to/concreteniche en Patrick Smith Wed, 20 Feb 2019 12:22:46 +0000 https://dev.to/concreteniche/what-i-plan-to-learn-in-2019-59i https://dev.to/concreteniche/what-i-plan-to-learn-in-2019-59i <p>Another year, another set of new shiny technologies to entice you! At Cogent, we recently asked each other what we were planning to learn in 2019. Below is my list: you’ll find a mix of front-end and back-end technologies, as well as some marketing related one.</p> <p>It’s tempting to learn anything that looks compelling and interesting in any way. I am trying to be a little more particular and choose things that have some maturity. Or things if new, that I think will be here to stay. </p> <p>One thing I’m keen to learn through is by teaching. To finally have a proper somewhat regular blog and make screencasts. I would start with a blog post, get feedback from people, then record a lesson or walkthrough to share on YouTube. </p> <p>When I was teaching junior programmers I felt like lots of my knowledge was strengthened by having to articulate concepts that I just took for granted. I’m curious how things work generally so will want to know, but there’s always something that I gloss over — “yep this just works, and I don’t care why or how to do my job”. So it was great to sit down and study these concepts and then explain them in a way that didn’t lead to 35 confused faces.</p> <p>After wondering if I should focus a blog on a particular topic, I’m thinking I’ll just write about what I’m working on and not worry about if I’m not satisfying ‘web developers’ or whoever with every single post.</p> <h2> What I plan to learn </h2> <ul> <li>Cloudflare Workers and what they best suit</li> <li>Architecting apps well with the next-gen React</li> <li>Optimising web apps to be faster and leaner</li> <li>GraphQL</li> <li>Golang and what it best suits, maybe compiling it to Webassembly</li> <li>Google App Engine and Datastore</li> <li>Elixir and what it best suits</li> <li>Whether Gigalixir is worthwhile</li> <li>Maybe Websockets and what they best suit</li> <li>Will try CSS Grid again</li> <li>Probably more iOS App development</li> <li>Latest Swift changes</li> <li>Possibly machine learning</li> <li>How to run and launch open source projects</li> <li>Marketing</li> <li>How to plan and write and record screencasts — after teaching I find presenting to a group of people much easier and engaging for me than sitting down and cranking out words</li> <li>How to not over engineer my blog and use something boring like Wordpress</li> </ul> <h2> What I plan to <em>not</em> learn </h2> <p>I find it helpful to have a <strong>no</strong> list too:</p> <ul> <li>Not Reason</li> <li>Not Rust</li> <li>Not Android</li> <li>Probably not React Native unless for a project, then yes</li> <li>Less Node.js</li> <li>Not Electron</li> </ul> <p>I often made ‘no’ lists when teaching for what would <em>not</em> be covered, as it helped to focus the lesson.</p> <p>What are you planning on learning in 2019? Let me know via comments or Twitter!</p> typescript react cloudflareworkers cssgrid