DEV Community: Judith

Angular Signals

Judith — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 19:51:36 +0000

Angular Framework's Signals is a new reactive mechanism that allows components to share data without the need for explicit bindings. Signals are zero-argument functions that return a value, and they can be used to create observable data streams. When a signal is changed, all of the components that are subscribed to it will be notified of the change. This makes signals a powerful tool for decoupling components and making your application more reactive.

    This addition will roll out in Angular 16
    Current @latest stable is Angular 15

Here are some of the benefits of using Angular Framework Signals:

Decoupling components: Signals can be used to decouple components from each other. This means that components can share data without having to be directly connected to each other. This makes your application more modular and easier to maintain.
Making your application more reactive: Signals can be used to make your application more reactive. This means that components will be able to react to changes in data in real time. This can improve the user experience of your application.
Making your application more efficient: Signals can be used to make your application more efficient. This is because they only notify components that are subscribed to them of changes. This can reduce the number of updates that your application needs to perform.

This is a good way to decouple components, make your application more reactive, and make your application more efficient. It is expected to roll out with Angular 16.

Demo
many thanks to Enea Jahollari @eneajaho

demo

How Did I Get Here?

Judith — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 18:38:03 +0000

Reflections on my journey as a woman software engineer
Recently I became a Women TechMakers Ambassador and it made me think “how did I get here”? Thinking about where I’ve been in my career and how I got here is not something I’ve had time to reflect on until now. I’ve been working, raising kids, helping husbands on the road to their success and always frantically trying to keep up with my own life. (Oh, I think I forgot also being a Dog mommy, too.)

I’m a software engineer for almost 15 years now. When I started I took any job I could get because I had no confidence in my skills and felt like I needed to pay some dues. If I had it to do over again I’d toss caution to the wind, and go for the best job I could get, instead of less than I deserved.

Reaching out was a real problem for me. I had to learn that It’s faster to get help by asking a colleague than trying to dig through documentation for the answer. Stuff that ego in your pocket - you’re going to need a lot of help over an entire career. Here’s the catch: getting the help, in a way you can understand is harder than you think.

I’m going to be bold here and give an opinion. Men and women have different ways of communicating. This makes communicating technical information difficult. It’s already hard to talk tech; but I’ve found my conversations with male engineers seem less focused and less clear, than with my female colleagues. The real problem is not the quality of information; but, again, the fact that men and women communicate in different ways.

My comfort level was never very high to begin with so asking questions made me feel like I was going to say something so stupid I would be the laughing stock of the engineering profession.

Well, that never happened. In fact I think my male colleagues really tried hard to give me solutions when I did ask questions; but I didn’t dig hard enough. Again, I was afraid to sound stupid.

This was a ‘me’ problem. My colleagues did their best. I wasn’t aware of how much it would affect the rest of my career. And it wasn’t imposter syndrome. I was just plain scared.

So, the road I took was a bumpy journey through massive amounts of videos and tutorials. If there is a dev community out there anywhere I became a member! Really, like at least a hundred of them.

I found answers in those communities. Learned about the tools I needed to do my job. I met women online who straight up told me what my problem was. They helped me dig out the answers I needed by learning to ask better questions. And also showed me tools that made the most scary tasks way easier than I thought!

That’s how I became an evangelist about tools and workflow. It made sense because I could learn and mentor at the same time.

Once I did an “ask me anything” (AMA) on my favorite dev community, dev.to, where I’m still a moderator. The dev.to community is big for newbies so the AMA was commented on and bookmarked a lot.

The best part was that I reviewed my own workflow and tools at the time and learned new things from the generous thread of comments from other users. I mean, who doesn’t want to learn new tricks in chrome dev tools? Or best the set up in Webstorm or VS Code? I could go on and about this but it’s better if you read the post yourself here:

Link to dev.to AMA.

So, to answer my original question, “‘how did I get here?”. The hard way, that’s how. It shouldn’t have to be hard or uncomfortable. For me, my technical skills really benefited from improving my soft skills. Good communication skills makes teamwork so much easier.

So, let’s not try to hide the “elephant in the room”. Speak up. Ask questions. If the answer isn’t clear ask more questions. Still not clear? Ask again!

K16 is hiring, remote app devs

Judith — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:20:38 +0000

Friends!
If you’re looking for a great job, with great teammates and room to grow, please read this and tell Mary I sent you!
#Devjobs #jobhiring #greatplacetowork
K16 Solutions is seeking a back-end developer role to join our growing team. We are a completely remote team...by design. Our tech stack is AWS with Node.js, Postgres, and other JavaScript frameworks.
Here is the position in LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/eBKSZ5Bj
If you're interested in exploring the opportunity, Mary Ritter (VP of HR) will be happy to speak with you this week.

I’ve definitely coded… and coded…and still hung in there and coded..,

Judith — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 23:10:40 +0000

I’ve been a member of the dev community since its beginning and I’ve been a part of #shecoded since it began as well and I wanted to share a great story about the company that I work for: K16 Solutions.
For the first time in many years believe that I am in a company that is open to everything and everyone. Their focus is on the talent that every person has without judging their gender (or their age for that matter) or anything else about them other than the fact that they have skills to contribute on the team. It is the most honest employee - employer relationship I’ve ever had and I just want to send kudos out to K16 because they’ve worked really hard to make the company what it is but above and beyond that they are looking after the people who are a part of what they are.

A little history

Judith — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 01:25:04 +0000

I'm proud to be a woman who grew up in the 80s when we had to dodge rocks, eggs and worse, marching in The gay pride parade and parading at Fantasy Fest. We were beautiful inside and out! Sadly, I buried many friends from 1985 to 1995, who died of AIDS. I’m so proud of our community for the genuine love you give to the LGBTQIA community. Blessings 🙏

Together We Can Change the World

It's the holidays. Here is a gift you can pass along..

Judith — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 16:40:12 +0000

Every year at Christmas time I think about how important it is to reach out to family and friends who need to hear a friendly voice. The truth is , you never know what someone else is going through and your call or text, or card might be one thing that brightens their day. Especially if someone is used to being home alone, maybe they're shy and introverted and this time of year can be especially difficult for them.

This last year has been tough and there are even more people who feel forgotten and alone then ever before. We all can help each other one person at a time.

I commit to at least one phone call, card or text every day up to January 2 that will hopefully make someone else feel cared for, cared about, thought about, remembered -- call it whatever..

Put aside old grudges, prejudices and pre-conceived notions.
Spread the love -- because we are all being human together.

I commit to reaching out..
Hope my changes get merged and go live...

Too Old To Be In Tech?

Judith — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 15:42:03 +0000

I’m in my 50’s and have been working as a software engineer for 11+ years now. I believe you can do anything if you have a passion for it.

Let's talk about ageism in tech ; it’s rampant among hiring managers, recruiters and team leaders. That being said, I know many people in tech who focus on getting the job done - not how old their teammates are.

I’ve been out of work since this pandemic started and interviewing has been a nightmare.
Here are some of the red flags of ageism I've seen in the interview process:

First interview is a video interview
The focus is on regurgitating algorithmic computations - not on the technologies you will work with
They request a photo
The job description asks for “recent graduates”
Requesting graduation dates in the education section of the application
Its a start-up and they ask you if late night office parties will be a problem
They ask you how old your children are
The video interview includes the entire team and one person who is your age & gender

Here are a few that are out and out illegal:
Are you married?
How old are you?
Are you healthy?
When did you graduate?
When do you expect to retire?

If this sounds like I know a bit about this, its because I’ve been looking for a job for 8 months now and I’ve experienced all of it.

I have thought about consulting and freelancing as an alternative and that may be the direction I have to go in now. I’ve been successfully contributing to software development for more than a decade with some great work especially in online education and accessibility platforms.

It seems like no one values my experience. The attitude is what work did you do today? Which is fine, if you ask me to make an app; but if you want me to whiteboard some nebulous code to show you I understand a binary search - its not going to be a barometer to show what I can do as an employee.

Okay, rant over.

I love my work and as messed up as this issue is for people in my age group, I don’t let anyone tell me what I can do with my life. If I want to stick with it I will because it’s my life. No one tells me when it's time for me to quit except me. Opportunities are out there and I will find the right ones for me.

Can Grep Be Funny?

Judith — Sun, 16 Aug 2020 16:15:46 +0000

These comics are great for learning and reference.

The EU Court of Justice invalidated the EU-US Data Protection Shield decision. Why is this important?

Judith — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 20:15:49 +0000

Essentially, The Court is allowing third parties (in this case 'countries as a third party') to provide a contract with users that is supposed to afford the same protections as the GDPR but here in the US and other countries.

Really?

My interpretation of this new decision is that they are now creating a loophole to allow the "Terms of Agreement" to function as a "privacy shield".

Does this really sound like data protection?

My experience with the terms of agreement is that users don't read them and website owners use the terms to hide protection for themselves. How will relaxing the privacy shield policy make a user's data more safe?

I think we're headed for trouble by turning over the power to create individual, contractural agreements for users that come from website owners (whether they are tech giants or small businesses).

The good, the bad and the sleazy

Generally, I believe most websites will try their best to comply with GDPR and provide their users with the information they need regarding the transfer of their data.

It's also possible that some websites won't know what they are supposed to do; or how to provide the necessary information to their users. This begs the question: Should service providers rely on the site owners to comply or are they ultimately responsible?

And I also believe there are those companies that will throw in some legal gymnastics into the "terms" and then we will be right back where we started before GDPR.

This is only an opinion

There is a lot of room for interpretation of this decision and how it will affect users in the future. My hope is that, those of us in the software development community will see this as a potential red flag. We ultimately represent the users - especially those users who don't know they have rights regarding their data; or how to protect their data even when notified through a 'terms of agreement contract'.

Here is a link to the EU court's decision

Command Line Snippets do you keep handy?

Judith — Tue, 12 May 2020 16:14:26 +0000

Here are a few commands I keep handy:

Bash
// root login ssh
ssh root@my-ip-here

// find PID
sudo lsof -i :

// kill port
sudo kill -9

// To remove a directory that contains other files or directories
rm -r mydir

// don't receive a prompt for each file being removed
rm -rf mydir

Brew
brew update && brew upgrade && brew cleanup && brew doctor

Git
// remove a repo
find . -type f | grep -i ".git" | xargs rm
cd ..
rm -rf

//sets your name and email for commit messages
git config --global user.name 'John Doe'
git config --global user.email johndoe@example.com

// helps recover from mess ups! a log of your last few actions

git reflog

Free Frontend NanoDegree for 30 days

Judith — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 16:23:00 +0000

Nano Degree Udacity

I found this recently and its free for 30 days.

Program Overview
The goal of the Front End Web Developer Nanodegree program is to equip learners with the unique skills
they need to build and develop a variety of websites and applications. A graduate of this Nanodegree
program will be able to:
● Construct responsive websites using CSS, Flexbox and CSS Grid
● Develop interactive websites and UI (User Interface) applications using JavaScript and HTML
● Connect a web application to backend server data using JavaScript
● Automate application build and deployment using Webpack
● Improve offline performance of websites using Service Worker
This program includes 4 courses and 5 projects. Each project you build will be an opportunity to
demonstrate your growing web development skills and will help you demonstrate those skills to potential
employers or customers.
Estimated Length of Program: 4 months
Frequency of Classes: Self-paced
Prerequisite Knowledge: A well-prepared learner is able to:
● Layout a simple webpage using HTML
● Style a website element using CSS
● Write and test software with JavaScript
● Inspect websites using Developer Tools on a modern web browser (Chrome, Firefox, or Edge)
● Debug and troubleshoot errors and failures in JavaScript programs
Here is a link to online syllabus
Hope this helps!

Nevertheless, JR Coded

Judith — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 22:46:07 +0000

Equality for women in any job is important. It’s an uphill battle in any industry.

But in tech it’s a mountainous climb for women to thrive. 4% of the technology workforce are woman. The only way to survive is to stick together. We can be stronger together with a connected philosophy about what women want in tech and what we should change internally.

I’m a Senior Frontend Software Engineer with a speciality in Frontend JavaScript libraries, HTML5, CSS, Sass, SCSS, etc

My advice for allies to support self-identifying women and non-binary folks who code is be authentic. We can tell if your interest is a marketing effort.