DEV Community: Lewis Menelaws

Technologies in 2020 I would like to learn.

Lewis Menelaws — Sun, 05 Jan 2020 22:11:28 +0000

What programming tehcnologies should you learn in 2020?

2019 was a great year for me. I felt like it was my most productive year and I achieved a lot during it. I focused myself completely on the web. Whether that was websites or web applications. I had a lot of fun working in the frontend space.

The frontend space isn't slowing down, but I feel like it's at a good level where I can start branching out to things that I can improve on, or learn in 2020.

First... a reflection of 2019.

I will have write more about this soon, but for now. 2019 was a big year for JavaScript. Something I will include in this section but not in my list is TypeScript. I might give TypeScript a go, but for now, I want to acknowledge the adoption that developers had for it in 2019.

React also took the crown for satisfaction in 2019. I loved working with React throughout the entire year. This of course leads me to learning things to make React an even better experience.

I love working with Python, which is why I still continued to use it in 2019. I like working with Node as well, but Python will always be my go to. 87% of developers used Python3 instead of 2 in 2019 and now Python 2 has officially retired. Like a dog that ripped up your couch... I loved you, but sure as hell won't miss you. I continued to use Django throughout the year with Django Rest Framework. Amazing.

That's basically my 2019. Some WordPress still here and there.

What's inspiring my list?

I love working with frontend so much, that it has caused me to not focus on the backend (imaging only reading this part of the post and wondering what I was talking about). So this year, I want to focus on being a lot more well-rounded. So in my list, I have some needs, wants and maybes. They are fairly self explanatory. So let's start.

Needs

Nginx

I already "know" Nginx. As in, I have done a little bit of work to get it. Now the issue with this, is that I am too self-reliant on awesome technologies like Netlify to do the entire deployment process for me that it makes me scared to even touch Nginx.

Everyone knows the classic saying:

If you fear Nginx, just take some time to learn it. It's probably not that bad. - Lewis Menelaws

Nginx is just a piece of the deployment puzzle, so rather than just mentioning that, I will also say that I want to learn much better build processes to make my life a lot easier.

Webpack

This is a little embarrassing...

I barely know how to work with webpack...

Now, I know a lot of people are in the same shoes as me and they don't want to admit it. I see the benefits that Webpack provides... but just like with Nginx, I have been given a free pass with webpack config files that are included in web application. Which doesn't allow me to 100% understand what it's doing.

So of course, I want to thoroughly understand how Webpack works so I can include it in almost all of my projects that I work on. Developing for the web wouldnt be the same without some sort of build process. So it's time to understand the power and customization behind it.

Linux

Just like the other 2, I know Linux enough to do really well with it. However, I need a lot of training on it if I want to 100% be a full-stack developer. One of my goals is to get an AWS or Azure certificate and to not know Linux would be the first step on failing that goal.

I've used Ubuntu for all of my development work and love it. I've even used a Ubuntu desktop computer to do a lot of coding. I have now switched over to Mac OS X and love it.

For me, it's mostly about troubleshooting. I want to be able to understand a problem that is happening and be able to quickly attend to it, without first learning about how things work. A challenge for sure, but it's something I am ready for.

Wants

CSS-in-JS

The internet is very black or white when it comes to CSS in JS. Some say that it's blasphemy and that there is no room for it in the JavaScript ecosystem. Others, will say the opposite. I haven't dug deep enough into the matter and because of it, I am clearly behind in the discussion, meaning I can't have an opinion.

I was also late for SASS as well, and once I started using it, I fell in love immediately. Especially with the include syntax. There are lots of CSS in JS libraries to choose from as well.

Agreed.

Flask

I've sort of worked with Flask before when developing a chatbot that required serverless functions connected through AWS Lambda. It's similar to express but for Python. Super minimal and allows you to plugin whatever things you want. A non-opinionated framework you could say.

I use Django mixed with Django Rest Framework, but at times, I wish I could strip down a large part of the setup to just get the urls and views.

My goal is to try to use Flask so I can learn the bits and pieces of everything that I might be missing during the web development process.

NestJS

I am a big fan of Express, but NestJS looks like it takes it to another level. This project caught my eye at the beginning of the year and it looks extremely flexible.

The reason I put this on my list is because I am curious about switching from Python to full on JavaScript. I've seen some tutorials and I love the fact that it's super easy to read. It's something I have to look more into.

TypeScript

JavaScript developers have fallen in love with TypeScript. Again, I am behind. What is with all the hype behind TypeScript?

Well TypeScript makes the debugging process 1,000,000 times easier. It integrates really well with Visual Studio Code, so it makes it like a full IDE. You can define "types" for different variables or functions so that you can ensure that your data is consistent throughout.

I want to learn TypeScript in 2020, but I don't have a huge need for it at the moment. Then again, that's what everyone says.

Maybe

These technologies listed before look amazing. These ones also look amazing, but I just won't have a priority to dig deep into them unless it's a need or extra time.

Svelte

Svelte has been all over the internet in 2019. After watching this talk by Rich Harris, I understood why. Svelte takes a brand new approach to the frontend by removing the VirtualDOM and is instead, a compiler for JavaScript that runs without a VirtualDOM.

The benefits: extreme performance, writing less code and no managing state. It's an incredible piece of software. I know it will blow up even more than it has in years to come. For now, I want to continue focusing on React because of it's maturity and ecosystem. I will get around to Svelte, but currently I have no immediate choice to move over.

Postgres

I throw this under the "maybe" section because just like Svelte, I don't have an immediate choice to switch over. I currently use MySQL and use SQL somewhat frequently, so I know it's not an urgent choice to move over.

Conclusion

What technology do you guys want to learn in 2020? What kind of developer are you?

Follow me on Twitter and talk with me there as well.

Happy coding!

What is AWS? A Guide for Beginners.

Lewis Menelaws — Tue, 28 May 2019 20:58:04 +0000

If you are into business or technology, then you have definitely heard of Amazon Web Services. In terms of business, AWS business model is very revolutionary when it comes to lowering other businesses overhead for server costs by hosting almost all of the infrastructure on Amazon Data Centers.

For technology, AWS provides lots of different software for scaling your business as a startup vs enterprise.

If you are unfamiliar with AWS, understanding it will be pretty tough, considering their website is jam-packed full of a lot of different types of services… you’ll get lost.

Essentially, AWS provides services for many different types of companies and all of their products reflect that in their awesome: “Pay what you use” pricing model. I won’t go over every single service because then I would be here for hours. I will just go over the most popular services that AWS provides and give an easy explanation of each. That way, you can understand what AWS is and can get you thinking about how AWS can benefit your application or business.

Amazon EC2

What Amazon Says

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (See where the 2 comes in?) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers.

Let’s make this easier to understand

Cloud computers or cloud servers are not new. Let’s say that you have a database or software you need hosted on a machine. Back in the day, you would probably host this on an actual machine of some sort. Depending on your business, this setup could be pretty pricey or pretty risky. So software like Amazon EC2 allows you to rent a portion of a larger machine so that you can eliminate the risk of a disaster and lower the cost of hardware.

That’s the basics of it. It also comes with other great features that would eliminate the need for an infrastructure team to manage.

Let’s say I needed a dedicated server to put my WordPress installation on. I would easily be able to do this using AWS using an easy one-click install and then any other changes needed I could just SSH into my machine and have full access. All for the price of shared hosting like GoDaddy. Awesome.

Amazon S3

What Amazon Says

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance.

Let’s make this easier to understand

Amazon S3 provides a very fast and reliable way to store things. These “things” can be videos, images, documents, whatever you want. You create something called a “bucket” and you store the items in the bucket that you want to save.

This one is a little bit more straight forward. Let’s say I created an application that let you upload dog pictures and posted them randomly to other users throughout the site. When you first start your application, it’s probably just ok to have them hosted alongside your application. The problem with these “objects” (in this case images), they are very large in size. Even something like 10 images could be larger than your codebase itself. What happens on National Dog day when everyone wants to share pictures of their puppy? Your Amazon EC2 instance runs out of memory.

Your ideal solution is to upload the image directly to an S3 bucket and save the path of it in your database. That way, you can store a lot of objects without cramming up space for your database or server.

A really good example of Amazon S3 is on one of my favorite sites dev.to (which you are currently on), you can upload an image and immediately get back a URL with the image that was uploaded. Perhaps one of the most straight forward examples of how S3 works.

Oh DEV.to team. I love you.

Amazon Aurora

What Amazon Says

Amazon Aurora is a MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud, that combines the performance and availability of traditional enterprise databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases.

Let’s make this easier to understand

Amazon Aurora is a managed relational database alternative to MySQL and PostgreSQL. If you’re familiar with how relational databases work. Then you can skip over this part, but for anyone unaware, relational databases is how you store data using the Relational Model. In a nutshell, the database is organized into tables with rows and columns kind of like a spreadsheet. These tables can have relationships with other tables.

Here’s a good way of explaining it:

Let’s say I wanted to store the data of my customers and their pets at my Pet Store. Well, this example is pretty straight forward. I can just add the persons name, address, email and their pet. Of course, I want to be able to add in more information like their name, animal, breed etc.

We would create a “Customer” Table that we can take all information relating to that customer.

Then, we create a “Pets” Table that has a “Foreign Key” column that we can relate this data back to (in this case the customer). This way, if I wanted to find all pets that belong to “Sally Smith” I can get that or if I wanted to count the amount of cats that “Sammy Salads” has… well, I think it’s best if we don’t find that out.

There are lots of open source methods available for relational databases but just like your room, managing a database can get extremely messy. Aurora takes all of the pains of hosting, managing and securing a database off your hands.

Amazon DynamoDB

What Amazon Says

Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value and document database that delivers single-digit millisecond performance at any scale.

Let’s make this easier to understand

DynamoDB is a no-sql database that scales with the amount of data coming in. What makes a no-sql database different from a SQL database is that it doesn’t use SQL and doesn’t have relational features. The benefits for this is how lightweight the database can be in result of not having these features.

Continuing with our dog database thing or whatever, I implemented a like button. Now, I want to create a database of likes so that my users can see what posts they liked at that time. We could do this to a relational database but because our users will probably be liking 100x more than they will be creating, I think it’s best we use DynamoDB to quickly insert this data into a database so we don’t overpower our traditional database when users are trying to create things.

Since it’s also a “Key”: “Pair” system, this makes it easy if you are doing “serverless” applications that allow you to receive data in a similar JSON format. DynamoDB makes it easy to just store data in seconds. You also get 25GB free. That’s a lot of storage.

Amazon Lambda

What Amazon Says

*AWS Lambda lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. *

Let’s make this easier to understand

AWS Lambda lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers… (oh wait that’s what Amazon said).

Ok, so if you are developing for the web, you will run into running things client and server side. Client will deal with most things UI/UX etc and the server would manage any big or private operation needing to be run. In the age of “microservices”, what happens if you wanted to add on a simple private function without having to deploy an entire server for it? Say:

A donation widget that requires Stripe authentication
An email to be sent
A large calculation or API call that would require a modest amount of computing power.

Lambda allows you to do this easily without having to deploy anything. Just create an instance and insert your Node, Python code etc and you will have the functionality of a server to return the results of your code for you. What makes this great is that it charges you on a usage basis. Only pay what you have to.

This means you can create your applications using your frontend frameworks and not have to worry about setting up your server. Maybe this is the perfect time to give the JAMstack a try ;).

What was your last dev related Google Search?

Lewis Menelaws ・ Jan 3 '19

#discuss #productivity #beginners #career

Amazon Lightsail

What Amazon Says

Lightsail is an easy-to-use cloud platform that offers you everything needed to build an application or website, plus a cost-effective, monthly plan. Whether you’re new to the cloud or looking to get on the cloud quickly with AWS infrastructure you trust, we’ve got you covered.

Let’s make this easier to understand

This one is more straightforward than the other ones. Essentially, it takes all different types of application you would need (Database, server, etc) and puts it in an easy to use a container for you to use.

Amazon SageMaker

What Amazon Says

Amazon SageMaker provides every developer and data scientist with the ability to build, train, and deploy machine learning models quickly. Amazon SageMaker is a fully-managed service that covers the entire machine learning workflow to label and prepare your data, choose an algorithm, train the model, tune and optimize it for deployment, make predictions, and take action. Your models get to production faster with much less effort and lower cost.

Let’s make this easier to understand

This one requires a lot more context. In today’s age of “Machine Learning”, Amazon’s SageMaker does the whole process of it. Meaning that for people who have a large dataset and wants to find actionable insights based on the data they have. They would use SageMaker to make that process much easier.

First, we need to understand how Machine Learning works:

You have a dataset (Database, csv file, JSON, etc) and you want to get some insights on it. Let’s say I have a dataset that 1,000,000 images of dogs and cats. I want to be able to build a system that can identify if the image is a cat or dog.
We first get initial data that we need to label so that we can give the machine an understanding of what we are working with. Let’s say I help label 500 images of what is a dog or cat.
Using this info, the machine does it’s best to either classify if it’s a dog or a cat. Anything that gets confused is resent to classify which further improves the machine of understanding if it’s a dog or cat.
The year is now 2088. The dog versus cat machine is now understanding that mankind must be exterminated to preserve its lifecycle.

Now, my example is fairly simple (and quite scary) but when you are an organization like Intuit and have billions of data points being generated at times, it’s good to be able to get results from this information to further better your products or understand your customer base.

For civilized people like myself though, I will aim to achieve this 2088 goal of world domination.

Conclusion

AWS seems tough and overwhelming at first, however, it allows you to choose what kind of software makes sense for your scenario. Trust me, whatever situation you are in is a scenario you could apply on AWS. They reported almost 26 Billion (that’s right... with a B) dollars in 2018. You can get started in the ecosystem whenever using their free-tier. Once you understand what some of the services are, you can then start to understand most of them and how they can apply to what you want to use for your world domination.

Thanks for the read. If you found this post valuable. Feel free to give me a follow here or on Twitter :)

What was your last dev related Google Search?

Lewis Menelaws — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 23:33:18 +0000

Ah, Google... Imagine a world of being a developer without you. Google and Stack Overflow are like my mom and dad helping me through my silly mistakes as a developer.

I'm not new either. I have been a developer for almost over 5 years now... and I am not afraid to admit that some of my Google searches would look silly.

I know, I am a horrible developer that has no idea what he is doing.

Wrong.

As a developer of 1 year to 20 years of experience. Getting a quick reference to something is arguably what our job is all about.

Devs, what was your last dev related Google Search?

Reflecting On the Biggest Trends on the Web in 2018

Lewis Menelaws — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 23:49:18 +0000

2018 was an awesome year for the web. I learned a lot and was able to translate that knowledge into the real world. Time sure flies!

I looked back at Antoni Zolciak's article that he wrote at the beginning of the year to compare how his predicted trends would stack up. The results are interesting and I have to honor him for his predictions.

My only wish now is to remove the excess clutter of some modern web browsers...

...Christmas came early.

Accelerated Mobile Pages

If I were to look back in 2018, it seems like there was a gigantic push in creating things much more accessible. And thank god there was one, because websites are getting way too bloated.

Google AMP is an open-source technology by Google that turns content driven web pages into extremely fast to load websites, mostly for mobile. There is a lot of things it does to do this but the important thing to take away from this is that it powers a lot of the internet.

Of course, this has come with a lot of critism. Especially since it follows Google's aggressive business practices.

Regardless of any political or business incentives, Google AMP has skyrocketed in popularity and continues to push it's mission of better performance on mobile devices.

Progressive Web Applications (PWA)

If you are a web developer than you for sure know what a Progressive Web Application is.

Progressive web applications are fast, reliable and engaging web experiences that feel like native applications. A great example of this is this website here. Dev.to.

In this tweet I download a pokedex app that felt like a native application.

Google has also been making a huge push for PWA's with its new Lighthouse service that determines where you can improve your website. Again, Google is making a huge effort in web performance which is a highlight of this year.

A lot of different companies will vouch for PWA implementation as some has seen it do a lot of good for their business.

The future of PWA's looks great and I am looking forward to ways we can keep going.

Single Page Application Frameworks

Single page applications are constantly getting bigger. JavaScript frameworks to build these applications are also getting a lot more popular. Why wouldn't they? They provide a lot of amazing features for developers.

We can't talk about JavaScript without JavaScript Fatigue. How often do you see people wondering which one to start with?

All of them are extremely popular and you won't lose choosing any of them.

What can we take away from all of the JavaScript frameworks in 2018?

Well, the ecosystem is huge. Even if you go with Vue, Angular, React or Bottle.js (I made that one up), you'll be in an ecosystem where you can find the right packages and solutions that fit your problem.

This is why Single Page Applications were so powerful in 2018. The ecosystem's rapid growth allowed all of these frameworks to really excel with experienced and new developers and it's only growing from here.

Static Websites

Static site generators have been really popular the last couple of years but have skyrocketed in 2018.

You might know of such static site generators like:

Hugo
Jekyll
Nuxt
Next
Gatsby

Personally, I gave Gatsby my favorite development tool of 2018 on Emma Wedekind's tweet.

So what makes static site generators so great? Well it's the performance and the ability to create many pages fast. If you are creating a website that requires minimal maintenance (like a blog) this is the right step for you.

It isn't just the static site generators itself that have become really popular, but the services that go alongside of it as well. Services like Netlify allow you to host websites for free while including cloud features to add dynamic abilities to it.

It really is awesome.

Static site generators have been very popular with the release of Nuxt and Gatsby that are powered by server-side rendered JavaScript. Netlify just made it grow even faster.

What can we take away from 2018?

Simple. In 2018, the web focused on performance and accessibility. I gave a brief history of the web and how it became increasingly bloated here.

With big tech companies big push in faster content, it seems like technologies like AMP, Static Site Generators and Progressive Web Apps are here to stay.

What do you guys think was a huge trend in 2018? Let me know in the comments!

Brutalist Web Design. A Breath of Fresh Air in the Modern Web

Lewis Menelaws — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 04:19:16 +0000

When I was 10-11 years old, I was isolated and timid so expressing myself creatively was often hard and I usually just resorted to video games to pass my time.

Until I discovered the world wide web. Then everything about me changed.

My first big break was on community forums such as GameTrailers.com, Newgrounds and basically any forum I could get my hands on. All the trolls and mean spirited people didn’t bother me. I just loved being online.

I used to run my own website using this free web builder where I would review games. Then, I discovered Piczo.

Piczo was a website builder where you can publish your own websites. They gave you all of the “Web 2.0” tools and widgets to make a really awesome website. There was one problem though.

They didn’t age well.

Looking at any piczo site would make anyone cringe. That didn’t matter though. It was all about simplicity and getting your stuff out there. It truly was an awesome time in life.

Where we are now

Oh 11 year old Lewis. The look of shock you would have if you find out that after 13 years this is what you do for a living. The web is a giant saturated playground.

I sometimes wonder where I even found enjoyment in the web as it has turned out to be corporate and big money.

That’s not a bad thing. As the human race evolved, we have found better ways to receive information and get access to the services that better our life. Modern day web is amazing and to be pessimistic about it would be silly.

…that being said, I get really nostalgic about how the web used to be.

Brutalist Web Design

Then, I discovered brutalist web design.

At first glance, it just looks like an homage to the old days of the web where you can have really silly looking pages. Some even use the old widgets that you would see on an old website. You look at the websites and you think that it's some sort of joke or someone has really poor taste...

...but I was wrong. So so wrong.

I was almost immediately addicted. What was this trend of web design that was just so engaging? If anything, this should make a web designer pass out on sight.

It was the underlying message that brutalism promotes in the first place. brutalistwebsites.com explains it best:

In its ruggedness and lack of concern to look comfortable or easy, Brutalism can be seen as a reaction by a younger generation to the lightness, optimism, and frivolity of today's web design.

It's true.

Web design is extremely optimistic in every way. How many times have you rolled your eyes at the new startup that will "change the way you see things" while having the same click funnel landing page.

Brutalism is a rebellion against the modern web.

Where Brutalism Excels

Brutalist web design is very addictive to look at. I love looking at the personality that comes with the brutalist look. Just like any design, you can find lots of websites that come off pretentious rather than "brutalist".

If you have ever heard of "minimalism", it's a way of life that allows you to strip off anything that is not important to you and only focus on the essentials (to the extreme). This is where brutalism falls into.

Brutalism is amazing for content creators.

The Irony that strikes Brutalism

The irony of brutalism falls in between it's edgy design and response to modern day corporate web.

Brutalist strips everything down to it's essentials while also grabbing inspiration to the old web (which is full of non-essential items). Because of this, you will go on lots of "brutalist" websites that either are too edgy and distracting or something extremely non-engaging.

In the end, that's what makes brutalism so engaging. A way to just execute ideas without having to worry about how it looks. A way to just put things out to the world and have no worries about it. Like how the web used to be.

Here are some goodies for devs to play around with and get inspired!

While you are at it, give me a follow on Twitter :)

What almost made you give up programming?

Lewis Menelaws — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 02:49:29 +0000

Programming is so rewarding.

Sometimes though, you run into times where you just say: "Is this even worth it?" or "I should be doing something else with my life."

What made you get to that point and how did you recover?

For me, I became stressed out about how clients weren't as enthused as I was when I would show them my projects. I would look at their reactions at the designers' product and be amazed... but when they saw what I did it was either not good or just what they were looking for.

I overcame this when I took some time for myself and started communicating with other devs. I learned that I only needed to be proud of myself otherwise I would never be happy.

What almost made you give up programming? How did you recover?

JAMstack. How sites are becoming even faster in a bloated web.

Lewis Menelaws — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 23:20:23 +0000

If you are involved in the world of websites, you've probably heard of JAMstack. JAMstack stands for:

JavaScript
API's
Markup

Together, this is to help speed up the web by removing all of the unnecessary components that can slow down the content you are looking for. With the web being so JavaScript intensive, it's understandable why people are choosing performance over a better visual style.

When the web first came about

In the 90's, web pages didn't look that spectacular. HTML was used to store documents and send them across the World Wide Web. They look exactly like a Word Document would.

Considering the time, this was huge. You were able to send documents over at light speed. This was revolutionary and even websites like Wikipedia share this "minimal" look to it as if you were reading it off of a piece of paper.

As the web grew, developers wanted to have more control of how they can make their documents look. CSS was proposed on October 10th 1994 and released in 1996. It wasn't picked up that fast since Internet Explorer 3 had limited support for it. Either way, the web was evolving and so was the tools behind it. Some gems are still view-able online now that were made with such ancient technologies, yet still had great performances and allowed for a great User Interface.

After JavaScript was introduced to the World Wide Web, JavaScript was used to make the web a lot more dynamic.

As the World Wide Web grew, so did the businesses that operated on the Internet. With the evolving web, there were many ways to try and sell products and information. Since a lot of code is open sourced, a lot of developers would throw on JavaScript libraries, uncompressed images, video and other things that will slow websites down. Even with technologies like WordPress that do most of the work on the server-side, things get so bloated after a while that it starts to effect performance. Funny enough, the World Wide Web was created to get information at great speeds but has now become a marketplace filled with "Wows and cheap thrills".

Static Site Generators

Static Site Generators are very popular in 2018. People say they are a trend web developers should look out for this year and it's understandable why. For most cases, it's the right solution and it does it well. Here are a couple of the most popular static site generators build comparison.

Chris Macrae of Forestry compares the two static site generators and finds Hugo to be faster in almost every scenario when it comes to building each page out. Here is a better diagram.

Now, let's not get this twisted. It may seem like Jekyll is completely being blown out of the water but building 1000 pages in ~14.5 seconds isn't bad at all. In fact, it's really quick if you compare it to most sites that require a database of some sorts. Hugo and Jekyll both are great ways you can get started in static site generators. A lot of people use them as their primary methods of blogging and page management. The problem now, is you have to decide if you are able switch your current system (Wordpress, Joomla, etc) for it (more on that soon).

The Modern Web

How often have you heard the words: "The Modern Web" and just assumed negative connotation towards it? Don't worry, I am not here to talk bad about the web. If anything, I adore it. Modern day web applications are focused more on creating great experiences using more robust JavaScript libraries and RESTful API's to make things much more smoother and faster. This is why I love React/Vue/Angular because it makes the web a much faster and accessible place.

JAM Stack

Which is where we are now.

GatsbyJS is a newcomer in the world of JavaScript and Static Site Generators. It uses modern day technologies like GraphQL and React to create extremely fast websites. You can use it with any CMS that has a RESTful API (which is most. If yours doesn't, then it's time to switch). Gatsby is very powerful and has had a very successful run in the Open Source community and in Venture Capital.

The Future of the Web

A lot of people have been predicting the future of the web to be an immersive world where we can enter a Matrix-like area. To me, I picture it being accessible for everyone that might have a crappy computer or not have access to extremely fast internet. With the way things are in the world wide web, it's making it harder for people to access information without it being cluttered with unnecessary CSS and JavaScript.

The irony behind this all... to eliminate unnecessary, we must rewrite everything in JavaScript.

Interesting.

Thanks for reading DEV community!

Give me a follow on Twitter! I post dev related things there and would love to meet you all!

How do you feel about changing naming terms?

Lewis Menelaws — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 15:21:22 +0000

Here is something that has been controversial in the Open Source community this week.

A pull request to the main cpython library that proposes to change the master/slave terms used in the repository.

What are your thoughts?

Bad Habits Developers Should Fix

Lewis Menelaws — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 02:36:44 +0000

What are bad habits?

A bad habit is a habitual behavior considered to be detrimental to one's physical or mental health and often linked to a lack of self-control.

I am still fairly new to this field. I started coding in 2013 in College and have been coding professionally for the last 3 years. Just like any profession, it comes with a bunch of nasty habits that develop over the years. Just like any desk job, programmers must make an effort to prevent these.

Not going outside during breaks.

It's always a funny joke to say to people that you don't go outside ever. Maybe it's funny because it's partially true.

One of the biggest things that contributed to my burnout was a lack of sun. For context, I am self-employed so I can make up my own hours and didn't have an excuse to not go outside but I always stayed inside and worked my life away. There is lots of reasons why this behaviour is bad for your physical and mental health. Some of them being:

Fatigue
Constant feeling of being ill
Depression

How to fix this

It's not easy to fix some issues. Sometimes you have to work all day and that's ok. For me, I was required to always be on a computer to get my job done efficiently. On my breaks, instead of getting a colleague or brewing my own coffee, I walk to my local coffee shop or McDonalds and get one there. That way I am taking a break, getting some small excersize and getting sunlight.

Not getting excersize

I know, I know. You are probably thinking about why you shouldn't be a giant muscle man because you don't care about it. I agree, I'm not a sexy muscle fueled developer myself. I can say that working out has extremely benefited my career and my life. It's hard to start working out. Especially if you are new to it. Developers have long days and use lots of mental brainpower that it is often exhausting just to think about doing a workout afterwards. With the hours of sitting down and lack of movement, it's really tough on the body.

How to fix this

Just like the previous section, taking small walks in between breaks is a great way to get started. Once you do that and improve your diet, you can go to the gym and you will see amazing improvements. For me, this was huge because it allowed me to find another hobby outside of programming. Sometimes you won't have time to go to the gym, but find ways you can get excersize in. You're body and mind will thank you.

Only having programming as a hobby

I love to develop. There is a massive ecosystem of programmers and packages so it makes sense why somebody will want to do it all day. That being said, if this is your approach, than it's a slippery slope. I can't blame developers for this. Our jobs are constantly coming out with new things and we need to stay on top of it all so if we don't have programming as a hobby, we fall behind. This gets really bad because after long days or weeks, we start to resent the fact that we will have to code. Even so much as starting to hate it at your job.

How to fix this

Stop coding at home when you can. I've reserved all my work code for work and anything else that I love to do I put it on my computer at home. Not only this, but experiment with other things. Laura Medalia is a serious advocate on being a programmer with multiple interests (in her case it's fashion). I couldn't agree more. Ever since I have been trying multiple things out, I have been improving my work ethic and liking to program more.

Staying too comfortable

There becomes a point in a developers life where you are constantly working with the same framework/language/etc and you start to go downwards in terms of learning new things. There's a couple of reasons for this. This usually happens when:

You or your employer doesn't require you to learn anything new (legacy projects)
You are more focued on hitting extreme deadlines
Don't have a desire to keep pushing yourself

It's a tough industry that requires you to constantly keep learning, even if you aren't sure that's where you want to go. Staying too comfortable can cause you to become more lazy or even less qualified in the future.

How to fix this

Maintain a balance. The idea of becoming really proficient in a language or framework is extremely valuable. With the addition of new standards for computers/languages/web, if you fall behind than you risk your job. Take some time to expirement with new technologies on whatever you are working with. Even if it is minor. Remember, you are a problem solver, if you don't know everything, that's ok.

Not having a clear direction.

This one is very common with newcomers. With the saturated ecosystem of frameworks, languages, concepts, etc... It's hard to keep up and it overwhelms you when you want to get started. Often times this causes you to have an existential crisis in your abilities to perform tasks or even questions your progress down a certain route. Developers often spread themselves out too thin, meaning they know the basics of so many different options but don't know one specific one too well. This is problematic.

How to fix this

Pick something and stick to it for a while. Chances are you can do it with what tool you are using. Of course, this isn't to discourage learning new things, but first ask yourself if you are learning because you are lost or learning because it's the next step towards your journey.

Closing Words

Devs have lots of issues. Sadly, there isn't an issue tracker to show how we can solve all of our probelms but we can always be here for each other.

What are some other issues you deal with while being a Developer? Let me know in the comments.

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Reflecting Back On Yourself as a Developer

Lewis Menelaws — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 17:55:45 +0000

Today I visited /r/webdev and found this post:

A developer that goes by the name of FeelingSafe posted a project that took him 5 hours to make. It consists of a bunch of icons side by side where you can click on them to get quick access to the websites. The site isn't the best looking website and there are a lot of alternatives that offer this kind of solution. However, it wasn't FeelingSafe's website that inspired me.

It was him.

The Problem with Starting

I love problem solving but I hate operations. Meaning, I love finding solutions that take me one step closer to my final vision but I hate having to scramble through trivial architecture to get there. I've been developing for years now so I have overcome (most) technical issues but when I was a junior developer this has caused me to become so overwhelmed. So overwhelmed that it even made me consider trying other things.

How can you blame any junior developer for thinking this way? The amount of new technologies coming out is extremely overwhelming. Even reading some documentation will get you lost in just the terminology. Mix this feeling of not knowing with the pressure of finding a job and you are constantly going through Imposter Syndrome.

Staring Up as a Developer

My story started in 2013. I was finished my first year of College. During summer break I wanted to get ahead on learning PHP so that I can move faster in my course.

My first idea consisted of creating a webpage where it would randomly select what DOTA 2 character to play as. The scope of this project is minimal. All it consisted of is ~50 records in a database and a PHP random function for a page. Now, this would take me an hour to create.

It took me an entire week to create. Yes, one whole entire week.

The amount of barriers I had to jump over was crazy. It was something way over my head and at times discouraging. Part of me thought it wasn't work being a developer. I stuck it out and finally got it done. It looked like absolutely crap and was only barely functional.

Despite that, I was proud of myself for creating it and the feeling of building something by myself was amazing. Moving forward, I was able to complete the tasks that I have done before a lot easier and concepts were much easier to understand.

Growing as a Dev

It always feels great when you solve a problem that has taken you a while. Things don't really get easier as a dev, you're confidence in your ability to solve it just gets better. Eventually it becomes routine.

Sometimes you are stuck on an issue for the entire day and don't come around to solving it. I find this discouraging and sometimes I think if I have been growing at all.

That's the irony behind FeelingSafe's Reddit post. He posted a thread to learn something but he ended up teaching me something about myself. That's what I appreciate it the most.

Conclusion

Despite how much experience you have as a dev, you are making progress. There was a time where you were working on your first project. There was also a time where you were learning how to even create a project like that. You are constantly evolving. Lean back in your chair and realize how much you are growing as a developer and person.

The Imposter Syndrome. Why you feel like a fake.

Lewis Menelaws — Sun, 01 Apr 2018 05:15:53 +0000

Here’s a funny story.

When I went to college, I had a teacher that had awards up on his walls for some sort of IBM database development. He taught us how to use different legacy database softwares as well as SQL. I learned a lot from him but when I finished school and it was time to find a job, I found myself having qualifications that weren’t even relevant towards modern day programming. Why was this?

I felt like I possibly maybe just wasn’t qualified for any jobs. Considering that the college I went to was out of town and most places would want to hire in town right? Well that couldn’t be it.

To make ends meet, I did freelancing with the skills that I have developed. Eventually my friends and I started a company that I still work at full-time to this day. As we started to get more clients, their demands started to get a lot bigger. Sure, the pay check was really nice but I started to get insecure. Almost as if, I was pretending to be something I wasn’t.

I had the Imposted Syndrome.

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and have a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud".

Being exposed as a fraud is the perfect definition. How can I charge clients or accept pay when I have no idea what I am doing? Am I even considered a professional?

The answer is yes. You are a professional. I asked lots of people even outside of the software community and they thought the same thing. Why is this such a common occurrence with people getting into their industry? Here are a couple of reasons.

They compare themselves with others.

Everyone goes through a different journey. Some people need to create a couple of projects in order to really get something while others can just read some documentation and call it a day. Either way, it allows people to get the wrong idea of the scope of a project as well as their own technical ability to just get shit done. As a business-person myself, I sometimes look at these Zuckerberg-Musk type people and think that because I am not working 12 hour days that I am just wasting my time in this industry. Clearly I have lost my mind.

Refusing to celebrate your successes.

So many different people have different opinions on “success”. What does it even mean? Well that’s for you to decide. Some people think creating an MVP of a product is a success for them and they can drink some beers after and not feel any guilt. Others can just fix a bug and feel the same level of success. This is where you need to determine where your “success” truly is. Stop comparing yourself to others and realize when you work hard for things.

They sabotage themselves.

People who suffer from the imposter syndrome are really scared of failure but are also scared of success. Studies show that if you internally struggle with imposted syndrome, you are more likely to self-sabotage by ruining your chances of achievement.

Remember when I brought up my old professors IBM database awards he got in the 90’s?

This is how people deal with imposter syndrome in a rapidly growing industry like the software industry. They stay attached to what was relevant at the time to escape the feeling of constantly learning and realizing that the projects being built are bigger than all of us.

Keep Learning

Having the imposter syndrome is healthy. In an industry that keeps evolving and one-upping itself, learning is all we have as developers. That’s why always feeling like we might not know everything or being the complete experts that we strive for make us better developers as well as better people in general. If you keep learning and realize that the imposter syndrome IS JUST the imposter syndrome, you will realize that this industry has lots to offer and that we are constantly being blessed with an outstanding community that only developers will understand.

Maybe that’s what we are being paid for as developers.

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How would you define a Full Stack Developer and what role do they play in the company?

Lewis Menelaws — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 02:15:25 +0000

Being a "Developer" is such a vague term. There are lots of different types of developers (backend, frontend, python, ruby, django, laravel, etc). However, you often see Full Stack Developer positions in job postings. Where do these people fit in already existing tech companies where they have specialized devs on each aspect?