DEV Community: Jeannie Nguyen

How We're Supporting Small Businesses

Jeannie Nguyen — Sat, 05 Dec 2020 21:20:35 +0000

I've put together a website that lists small businesses you can shop from this holiday for all your gifts - not to mention, each order really makes a difference. Supporting small businesses means supporting the the individuals and teams that put their whole heart into their craft.

On this site, you can also submit your own small business to be included. For my devs, you can submit a PR directly to the GitHub repo. If you have a small business or want to support your favorite smalls businesses, share them here!

Advice for Those Looking for Their First SWE Job

Jeannie Nguyen — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 16:45:21 +0000

More of us than ever are looking for jobs. Many are looking for their first SWE job.

I'm hoping between all of us here on dev.to, we can provide enough advice to help even just one person land their first SWE job.

To all software engineers, how did you land your first SWE job out of college or bootcamp? What did you feel the key factors were in landing that job? What do you know now that you wish you had known while you were job hunting?

Quick Resources for Developers

Jeannie Nguyen — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 17:23:23 +0000

This year, I wanted to participate in Hacktoberfest in a different way.

On top of contributing to open source code, I've created a list of shortcuts, tools, and free resources for new developers. This repo contains frontend "cheatsheets", interview prep, free APIs, and more.

If you have any resources you find useful or have used when you first started on your engineering journey, please share them!

This repo will be public and open for contributions. To encourage better contributions to open source, I'll only be accepting a max of one PR per person.

Happy hacking!

CSS, SCSS, or SASS?

Jeannie Nguyen — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 15:58:07 +0000

Do you have a favorite CSS preprocessor that you always use? Or do you choose one based on the situation?

Tips for Your First Tech Talk

Jeannie Nguyen — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 17:27:18 +0000

I just gave my first tech talk--and it went better than expected.

Since it was an internal tech talk, I can't share it here, but I spoke on and demoed how you can create a Twitter bot with Python and AWS Lambda to automate tweets in intervals for free. You can read more about it here. For those who are interested in building their own, I have included a template on my GitHub.

Here's what I learned from my first online tech talk:

Have a summary/breakdown available

I didn't have slides for my talk. If you don't have slides, make sure you have a summary of all your talking points handy. This will help you stay within time, while making sure you don't miss any important talking points.

Include code

Have your code ready! Go over your code and make sure you know what each line is doing. Make sure you don't have unnecessary code. Feel free to leave comments to break up sections you're going to talk about.

Show your completed work (if possible)

Showing the end product of the code you're speaking about is a nice way to start or end your talk. If you have it, show it!

Share your ideas

Tech talks aren't only about facts. Don't hesitate to share your ideas and lessons you've learned.

Public speaking isn't for everyone. For those who want to step out of their comfort zone and give a talk, I hope that these tips can help you reduce some stress and ensure you're ready for your talk.

What's the Latest Project You're Working On?

Jeannie Nguyen — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 15:54:54 +0000

If you haven't read my post about having your own website/portfolio, I've been looking for inspiration to build mine.

I'm currently finishing up my website and a music project right now! Side projects are fun, because I can build on any idea that I have.

I'm really curious to see what all the bright minds are up to! What's one project (feel free to share more than one) you're working on right now that you're really proud of? Which stack are you using to build it? What's the most difficult error or problem you've run into on that project?

If you've already launched your project, feel free to share it below too.

How to Check for Changes in Inline Styling

Jeannie Nguyen — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 16:04:05 +0000

I was looking through some code the other day and couldn't pinpoint where the inline styling was being set.

I wasn't able to follow the code back to the initial inline styling modification and doing a search through all the files for the inline styling wasn't helpful.

Here's one way to check for changes in your inline styling:

Find and select the element whose inline styling you're trying to check for.
Click on the ellipsis ... to the left of the element, scroll down to the Break on menu, and select attribute modifications.
Interact with what you think is causing the inline styling to be set (in my case, it was being set on load so I refreshed the page) and the code will break on your element and show you the file / line of code that's setting the inline style.

That's it! Let me know if this was helpful - feel free to drop a line below for other topics you'd like to see covered.

Workona Saved My Workspace

Jeannie Nguyen — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 02:52:40 +0000

I started using Workona recently to organize my tabs. If you're like me, you probably have multiple browsers open per project, each with over 10 tabs.

I didn't like having multiple browsers open across my screens or minimized in the Dock. With Workona, there's no more having to organize links in bookmarks or saving them in a document you're going to lose track of.

With Workona, I now only have 1-2 browsers open at a time, organized by workspace/project. I can easily switch between projects without losing any tabs or adding more browsers.

Does anyone use Workona? Or have any other tech productivity tools they really like and use often?

How to Install Java JDK and Maven on Mac OS

Jeannie Nguyen — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 16:52:05 +0000

I've needed to set up Java and Maven enough times that I figured I should write about it so that it's an easier setup for at least one other person.

You can skip the first half if you already have Java JDK installed.

How to set up Java JDK:

Open a new terminal and run java -version. If you don't have a JDK installed, you can download it here.
You can check the installed Java path by going to your Mac's Settings > Java > Java (within the Java Control Panel) > Path.
In your terminal, if you run java -version again now, it should return details of the installed JDK.
Next, you'll need to add the $JAVA_HOME variable in your .bash_profile (if you have a .bash_profile, you can skip the next step). If you run echo $JAVA_HOME and it returns blank, it means you haven't set the variable yet.
If you don't have a .bash_profile, go ahead and create one with touch .bash_profile.
Open your .bash_profile by running open -e .bash_profile.
Add export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home) to the file and save it.

How to set up Maven:

Download Maven here. This tutorial follows downloading the binary zip archive file.
Once it's downloaded, move it into your Applications folder and unzip it (unzip apache-maven-3.6.3-bin.zip).
Open your .bash_profile again and add these two variables. Version number will vary based on when you're reading this. The latest version as of 08/26/20 is 3.6.3.

export M2_HOME=/Applications/apache-maven-3.6.3 export PATH=$PATH:$M2_HOME/bin
If you're using the same terminal, go ahead and clear it with CMD + K. Run source .bash_profile to refresh it and then run mvn -version.
If successful, mvn -version will return info on what was just installed.

That's it - happy coding!

How to Deal With Imposter Syndrome

Jeannie Nguyen — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 15:57:53 +0000

When I first started writing code, none of it felt like it was good enough for me to consider myself a developer. When I started my first job at a big company, it didn't feel like I belonged there. I thought every other developer was smarter and more talented that I was.

One of the biggest problems with imposter syndrome is that it never really goes away. Since software development never stops evolving, there will always be more that I don't know.

I've come to realize that when I'm working on something that's outside of my comfort zone, that's when imposter syndrome creeps up on me. After almost two years of coding, here's how I've been dealing with imposter syndrome:

Remember that it's okay to feel like this as long as you're learning, growing, and contributing.
Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. It means that you're working on something outside your comfort zone and you're learning.
Adopt a growth mindset. Acknowledging that you don't know everything means you're willing to improve your skills, which is far better than believing you know it all. Take on new opportunities and challenge yourself.
It's okay to ask for help! No individual developer knows everything. Talk to your seniors and ask questions when you don't understand something.
Keep track of your accomplishments. Being able to reflect on your successes will remind you of how far you've come. That goal isn't to be perfect, or even the best, just a little bit better every day.
Write down your career goals. By knowing what you want to do down the line, you're setting yourself up for success. Knowing what you want will help you plan out the steps to get there.

Imposter syndrome is very much still a thing for me. Instead of fighting it, I've learned to embrace it. Feeling imposter syndrome is just a reminder that I'm learning something new and expanding my knowledge and skills as a developer.

Hope this helps! If you have other ways of dealing with imposter syndrome, share them below in the comments!

What Book(s) Are You Currently Reading To Be a Better Programmer?

Jeannie Nguyen — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 17:26:56 +0000

I just started The Pragmatic Programmer by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas.

You can view the list of tips to become a better programmer from The Pragmatic Programmer here.

What book(s) are you reading right now?

How Do You Avoid Burnout?

Jeannie Nguyen — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 16:12:18 +0000

Whether you have over a decade of experience as a software engineer or you've just started your career as one, how do you avoid burnout?

How do you manage work, side projects, family and friends, and more?

To the engineers with many years of experience, do you have any advice for those just starting their careers?