Step out of your web dev comfort zone

𝙿𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚞𝚜 𝚂𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎́𝚗 — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 08:17:35 +0000

When I first learned about web development, CGI-scripts was a thing and PHP was in version 3.x 😲 After not so long, I got confident with the LAMP stack, and it has been the setup on a majority of the projects I have worked on. That became my comfort zone.

Sure, since then I have done some hacking with the CodeKit app on some smaller projects, publishing them on GitHub Pages. But this spring, in perfect sync with Covid-19, I decided it was time to get serious with exploring new tools and methods for web development. New for me.

My trick to step out of my comfort zone was to imagine myself as a 13-year-old kid, today.

What technics or languages would I have started playing with to get into web development now? Of course, I have no clue, and that's not the point. The point is it made me discard my old ways of thinking and look for something new to take that place.

What's your trick to step out of your comfort zone? And what did you find? I'm curious!

Here is what I found on the outside

👉 The fresh, good looking, CMS systems call themselves headless. The old ones are still around, but they do look old 🏚

👉 Node.js is everywhere. Literally everywhere.

👉 If you learn to use Heroku, Digital Ocean, or something similar you have the key 🔑 to build everything from tiny websites to large-scale businesses.

👉 Speaking of tiny websites, Static Site Generators are the over-engineered equivalents of uploading about.htm to public_html/ over FTP.

👉 For every part of the process, there is an As a service-alternative. Do you really have the argument to build it yourself?

Needless to say – I like it on the outside!

This text is crossposted from my blog at psu.se

(Re)discover my passion for web development

𝙿𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚞𝚜 𝚂𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎́𝚗 — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 13:37:44 +0000

Hi!

I must admit I'm a little bit nervous. Even though I have about 10 years in Communications behind me and been a native online since the mid-90s (yes I'm old) – this is really the first time I'm writing a personal blog post.

How it all started

My passion for web development has always been there. I clearly remember the first time I save some HTML code in Notepad.exe and realized the connection to the webpage it created. That was the start of a journey of self-education in programming and web design.
Another vivid memory is me at the public library, printing loads of pages with instructions and code examples for Javascript to bring home and study offline 🤓📠

Present state

Fast forward 25 years and I have a Master of Arts in Teaching, I am employed as a Communications Officer at the university in my hometown and trying to squeeze in as much of the web as possible into my 9-to-5.
As I've just finished my first major assignment as a Web Project Manager I find myself thinking a lot about the future of my career: What's missing? What should I keep? How do I want to work? With whom?

The problem

A feeling has been growing on me. It was a bit evasive at first but I think I've managed to put my finger on it:

I have all this hands-on knowledge, about programming, how the web works, what's good design, how to build a website, when to use/not use a SaaS etc.
But I'm not really making use of that in my career. And I'm not sure anyone else really know this about me.

If that sounds a bit strange, yes it probably is. But to me, it also sounds a lot like me 🤷🏻

What to change

So, here is my plan:

More code: Update my programming skills and knowledge of (modern) front-end technologies.
More social: Tell others about my journey and share my work/passion/thoughts with others.

With this as my guiding stars, I hope to rediscover my passion for web development. And doing it in a different, more personal, way this time. Click Follow to tag along on the journey!

This text is crossposted from my blog at psu.se

DEV Community: 𝙿𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚞𝚜 𝚂𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎́𝚗