DEV Community: khulyso John

✨ My 15 Years of Learning, Exploring, and Finding My True Calling ✨

khulyso John — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 06:11:03 +0000

2010 – I matriculated at the top of my class with 73% in Mathematics. A proud moment, but life had other plans.

2011 – I returned to school after not applying to any university. The principal advised me to enroll at a TVET college, which initially felt like a setback.

2012 – I completed my N4-N6 in Electrical Engineering, building a solid technical foundation.

2013 – I obtained my driver’s license and started my first part-time job as a merchandiser at Superspar.

2014 – I volunteered in electrical engineering contract to gain hands-on experience. During this time, I was advised to return to school to study N2 and N3 in Electrical Engineering.

2015 – I returned to school and completed N2 and N3 in Electrical Engineering, further strengthening my technical skills.

2016 – I was employed by Light fibre infrastructure as a civil work casual, gaining valuable work experience.

2017 – I resigned due to a lack of growth, wanting more of technical experience that civil work.

2018 – I was back home in Venda, taking on random jobs for survival, learning resilience and adaptability along the way.

2019 – I secured a job at Baby Boom as a Store Assistant.

2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic struck, and I was retrenched.

2021 – I discovered my passion for coding and started learning at freeCodeCamp .

2022 – I paused coding to focus on running my mathematics tutoring academy, helping students and giving back to my community.

2023 – I joined my local high school as an Educator Assistant, continuing to help student with academic support .

2024 – I returned fully to FreeCodeCamp and coding, dedicating myself to becoming a software developer.

2025 – I joined Techbridle Foundation , where I'm receiving mentorship and structured learning in software development. I am now fully focused in software development, working on projects, and honing my skills in React, and C#, actively building my career as a software developer.

Looking back, my journey wasn’t linear. Each detour—every job, course, volunteer experience, and project—taught me resilience, adaptability, and self-discovery. Today, I can proudly say I am a Aspiring software developer every second of the day, fully aligned with my passion.

🙏 Special gratitude to Techbridle Foundation for believing in me and giving me the tools and guidance to succeed. I may have started later than some, but I’m glad I did—it wasn’t a waste of time. Every experience shaped me into who I am today.

🌟 One day, I will be the person I’ve always looked up to—a software developer making an impact, inspiring others, and proving that persistence pays off.

💡Key takeaway: Life’s path isn’t always straight. Every experience matters. Keep learning, keep moving, and follow what excites you.

✨ Bridging Technical Skills and Soft Skills ✨

khulyso John — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 11:41:01 +0000

In today’s world, it’s not enough to only sharpen our technical skills — soft skills are just as critical in shaping our professional journeys.
Yesterday evening’s training session reminded us of the importance of:

🗣️ Effective Communication – because ideas only create impact when shared clearly and confidently.
🌟 Positive Attitude – the mindset that helps us push through challenges and inspire those around us.
🧩 Problem Solving & Critical Thinking – the foundation of innovation and decision-making in any field.
💡 Creativity – the spark that allows us to build, adapt, and find unique solutions in a fast-changing world.

Every tech journey is strengthened by these skills. They turn knowledge into influence, teamwork into results, and challenges into opportunities.

A huge shout-out to Lindy and the Techbridle Foundation for leading the way in bridging the gap between technical skills and soft skills. You’re equipping us not just to code or build, but to lead, collaborate, and thrive.

The Paper Problem at Taxi Ranks – And Why It’s Time We Fix It Digitally

khulyso John — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 06:06:42 +0000

Every day, thousands of taxi marshals across South Africa are responsible for organizing the chaos of commuter traffic. Their job is critical: keeping order, managing queues, tracking routes, and ensuring taxis leave full and on time.

But here's the catch:
They do all this with a piece of paper and a pen.

📝 The Current Reality:

Passenger names and destinations are handwritten on paper.
If it rains? The paper is ruined.
If the paper is lost? That’s hours of work gone.
If a dispute arises? No real backup or trace.
At peak hours? It’s chaos. Sorting long queues manually leads to delays and frustrated commuters.
There's zero data collected for analysis or planning. Everything is gone at the end of the day.

It’s 2025. Our taxi industry deserves better.

🔧 "So What’s the Solution?*
A Simple Digital Platform for Taxi Marshals

We’re not talking about building another Uber.
We’re talking about a local, affordable, mobile-first solution — designed for marshals on the ground, in the real South African context.

🛠️ What it could do:

Let marshals register passengers quickly with a tap

Organize queues digitally by route, time, and taxi availability

Save data automatically, even offline (sync later)

Generate reports for association transparency

Track trends: peak hours, route demand, even revenue estimation

Eventually? Enable route planning, alerts, and commuter SMS updates

💥 Why It Matters:

Speed & Efficiency:
No more delays flipping through papers. Load taxis faster.
Dignity & Empowerment:
Marshals are workers with real responsibilities — let’s equip them like professionals.
Data = Power:
Associations and city planners can use the data to understand commuter patterns and improve transport services.
Transparency & Trust:
Digital records reduce manipulation, corruption, and disputes.
Future Integration:
Payments, bookings, GPS mapping — this opens doors for future innovation.

🎯 My Vision:
Build something simple but powerful that works on a basic smartphone, uses little data, and respects the way the taxi industry actually operates.

Let’s not wait for Silicon Valley to come "disrupt" this space.
Let’s build for our people, with our people, and create technology that respects the hustle.

📣 Call to Action:
If you’re a dev, designer, stakeholder in public transport, or just passionate about township innovation — let’s chat.
This isn’t just a tech idea.
It’s a practical step toward upgrading one of the most important informal systems in our country.

🚀 Web API Module ✅ | Database Management Loading...

khulyso John — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 05:24:30 +0000

Just wrapped up our Web API module using ASP.NET Core at the Techbridle Foundation ! 💻 From routing to controllers, dependency injection to CRUD operations – we dug deep, got our hands dirty, and came out sharper.

Now we’re stepping into Database Management – time to learn how to structure, secure, and scale data the right way. Think Entity Framework Core, migrations, seed data, and writing clean, efficient queries.

Every module is another brick laid toward becoming a solid backend engineer. Grateful for the journey, hungry for more. Let's build 💪

AspNetCore #WebAPI #DatabaseManagement #EntityFrameworkCore #TechBridleFoundation #LearningInPublic #CodeHardStayHumble #FutureEngineer

Debbuging session

khulyso John — Wed, 21 May 2025 04:39:42 +0000

Day in Review , What I Learned

Today was one of those level-up days, not because everything worked perfectly, but because I stayed in it, kept asking the right questions, and solved real problems from the ground up. Here's what I tackled:

Networking: Static IP Struggles
Started the day debugging why my Windows machine wasn't connecting to the static IP I configured for local development. Turns out:

You can't just set a static IP and expect everything to sync,your DNS, gateway, and subnet mask also need to be aligned.
If the IP clashes with the router's DHCP range or the network itself, you get that weird connected but no internet behavior.

Lesson:

Networking is part of backend dev whether I like it or not. I'm now more comfortable troubleshooting IP configs.
ASP.NET MVC Debugging Masterclass
Jumped back into my StudentPortal project, where 24 of my MVC routes/pages were't displaying.
Cleaned up my routing, confirmed the controllers and views were wired properly.
Ensured my DbContext was seeding data correctly and used Include() wisely to avoid null navigation props.
Fixed foreign key issues like the one where Book.CourseId was breaking due to a missing Course (foreign key violation).
Rewrote the full Book model with proper data annotations, nullable relationships, and FK navigation.

By the end, only two routes remain to debug, huge win. I've learned to break down route errors from the controller layer down to model binding and view validation.

Entity Framework Relationships Deep Dive
Spent time clarifying how EF Core handles relationships:

ICollection on the parent (e.g., Course) represents the many-side of a 1-to-many or many-to-many.
Nullable foreign keys give flexibility but still require valid IDs when FK constraints exist.
If the related entity isn't seeded or added (like a Course), expect insert errors like FK_Books_Courses_CourseId.

Validation:
More Than Meets the Eye
One issue hit harder than expected:

Even though I was inputting the Course Title, validation was still failing.

Lesson:

Razor views only
bind input if field names match the model exactly (asp-for="Title" matters).
The model can be perfect, but if your form doesn't post what EF expects, you're stuck.
ModelState.IsValid is my new best friend, use it as the first line of defense.

Debugging Mindset
What I really learned today:
Debugging isn't just trial and error, it's investigation.
Follow the stack trace, read the exception, and isolate the root cause.
Stay calm. Let the app tell you what it needs.

Confidence Boost: Local Dev Setup

Running my own database and full backend felt like a real power move. I still need to solve:

Setting up a static IP without constantly resetting env variables.
Making my development environment stable, portable, and reliable.
But this is real growth. I'm doing backend dev like a pro now and I'm proud of that.

Looking forward to picking up the last two bugs tomorrow and pushing ahead.

Leveling Up in .NET, Exploring Classes & Methods!

khulyso John — Sat, 03 May 2025 02:58:30 +0000

been diving deep into the world of .NET classes and methods, sharpening my backend skills and learning how real-world C# applications are structured and executed.

Here's what I've been working through:

Calling methods from .NET classes with purpose
Understanding the difference between stateful and stateless methods
Using return values, parameters, and arguments effectively in method calls
Breaking down method signatures and experimenting with overloaded methods
Making the most of IntelliSense for smarter coding
Built a hands-on console app to generate larger numbers using System.Math

This phase has been all about writing clean, reusable, and scalable code, not just to make it work, but to make it right.
I'm staying consistent and focused brick by brick, skill by skill. Let's keep building!

👨🏽‍💻 Exploring Escape Sequences in C#

khulyso John — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 11:04:01 +0000

Today I practiced using escape sequences like \n, \t, \", and Unicode (\uXXXX) in C#. I also played with verbatim string literals using @ to cleanly format file paths and multi-line strings.

Small things, but they make a big difference in console app output and formatting.

📸 Check out the screenshot — feedback is welcome!

Fountain of fire ministry

khulyso John — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 05:09:26 +0000

🚀 Reflecting on the First Quarter at Techbridle Foundation 🚀

The first quarter of my journey at Techbridle Foundation has officially come to an end! It has been an exciting, challenging, and rewarding experience, filled with continuous learning and growth.

💡 What I’ve Learned So Far:
Over the past few months, I’ve built a solid foundation in web development, progressing through structured modules:

✅ Module 1: Web Development Fundamentals – Learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and how to build well-structured, responsive, and interactive web pages.

✅ Module 2: Advanced JavaScript – Explored asynchronous programming (Promises, Async/Await), the DOM, event handling, and functional programming concepts.

✅ Module 3: React – Gained insights into components, props, state management, hooks, and reusable UI patterns for building scalable frontend applications.

✅ Bonus: TypeScript – Just started exploring static typing, interfaces, and type safety, and I can already see how it improves JavaScript codebases.

💻 Applying My Skills – Church Website Project
To reinforce my learning, I worked on a side project—building a website for my local church. I used HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Bootstrap to create a clean and responsive platform where visitors can access information, updates, and engage with the church online.

🔗 Check it out here: https://fountainministrysa.netlify.app/

This project was a great opportunity to apply my front-end skills, especially in:
✔️ Structuring content with HTML
✔️ Designing a responsive layout with CSS & Bootstrap
✔️ Adding interactivity using JavaScript
✔️ Enhancing the user experience with Bootstrap components

It wasn’t all smooth sailing—I encountered challenges with layout responsiveness, JavaScript functionality, and optimizing performance—but overcoming them made the process even more rewarding.

🌟 Looking Ahead
This quarter has laid a strong foundation, and I’m excited to build on it by:
🔹 Diving deeper into TypeScript
🔹 Exploring backend development (Node.js, databases, APIs)
🔹 Building more real-world projects
🔹 Collaborating and contributing to open-source projects

🚀 Final Thoughts
Learning web development is an ongoing journey, and this is just the beginning. The past few months have reinforced my passion for solving problems with code and creating meaningful digital experiences.

A huge thank you to my mentors and peers at Techbridle Foundation for their support, guidance, and encouragement. Looking forward to what’s next!

recormanded javascript framework for front-end developer

khulyso John — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 06:17:53 +0000

good day community, started my journey in javascript this week, as a newbae i would like to which framework should i reconsider for front-end and which one are highly in demand.

JavaScript library

khulyso John — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 06:29:41 +0000

For front-end developer, which library is best to choose from React+redux and jQuery?

Greetings

khulyso John — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 22:48:46 +0000

Hello everyone, is good to be part of this community