DEV Community: Raji Ayinla

I built a tax calculator for freelancers

Raji Ayinla — Sat, 02 May 2020 16:01:52 +0000

I built a tax calculator for freelancers. The project started out as a personal one. I wanted a super simple way to calculate my taxes owed from my contract work without having to deal with all the bells and whistles you find on other sites.

But as I started working off my coding rust, I couldn't stop fleshing out the calculator. I decided to include every state and the filing year of 2019 and 2020.

The calculator is still simple though and doesn't give you an option to input deductions. The income input assumes you already know your net taxable income. It's also just an estimate, so definitely verify and consult with a tax professional. The point of something like this is to give you a solid idea of what you might owe before you start chopping off your liability with deductions.

What did I learn from my experience? I've written a couple of articles that stress learning to code by building things. So, it was probably a good idea that I followed my own advise. In doing so, I surprised myself by how quickly I was able to pick up patterns and then abstract that pattern into functional, modular code. You know when code is functional and modular when you can use it in different contexts without fearing that you'll break something.

This small project really showed me its importance because as I started adding more and more data, I didn't have to stress about whether the app would break. If there was an error, it was usually because of the data, not the algorithm.

The modularized algorithm allowed me to spin off a cascade of useful functions that were easy to reference. There are still improvements I can make to the code to increase the speed. I though about memoizing the arithmetic involved in the tiered tax calculation, but the nature of the calculation doesn't really call for it.

Here's the website I made for the calculator. Enjoy: https://www.taxmygig.com/

I Made A Website To Teach Others JavaScript

Raji Ayinla — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 17:55:11 +0000

I've redesigned my basic tutorial site to help beginners learn JavaScript by teaching in an approachable way. I took the lessons learned from a coding bootcamp to help communicate JavaScript concepts.

Here's the website: https://www.howtocodejs.com/

Here's a little about what inspired me to create this site, taken from my about me page:

I’m a hobbyist coder and serial writer. I designed this website and wrote these articles to teach others how to code this mystical language called JavaScript. When I was first learning to code, I was frustrated by the lack of practical articles. The articles that did go in depth usually were too advanced, and the ones that took their time felt shallow. I always wanted to have everything I needed on one website. I wanted articles that were well explained, ones that used good analogies to allow me to visualize the concepts.

I believe this website would’ve helped “past” me. As a Dev Bootcamp graduate who has a degree in English Literature, I believe that I can communicate tough ideas in a way that everyone can understand–be they novice or experienced. Feel free to ask for help, because your voice will only improve this website as it continues to grow. Thanks for reading.

Happy coding, and stay safe

Raji Ayinla.

I Threw Together a Cute JavaScript Sandbox

Raji Ayinla — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 19:07:14 +0000

I wanted to create a fun practise environment for anyone trying to learn JavaScript for the first time. To build this site, I used the JAMstack with Jekyll serving as the peanut butter to all of that JAM-y goodness.

I am aware that the "sandbox" is not secure; I used a pre-built compiler that I had to tinker with a little. When I remember the name of the dependency, I will add it here. This is was more of a fun concept design project than a treatise on expert jailing techniques.

Here's the link of to the sandbox, if you want to play around with it: https://www.howtocodejs.com/variables/

The sandbox has a classic full page view and what I named the Lex view, for a more fun aesthetic.

How Does Dev.to Sanitize User Submissions?

Raji Ayinla — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 15:46:26 +0000

I read an awesome article on Verge that detailed how Facebook moderators faced the nearly impossible task of sifting through Facebook posts in order to remove things like child porn or a brutal murder captured live from public view.This moderation problem isn't isolated to Facebook, because Twitter and Reddit are sites that cater to a wide audience as well, and therefore attract bad actors.

The first question I want to ask so we can speculate(unless confirmed by a Dev.to employee) is, does Dev.to face similar issues?

If not, do they anticipate facing similar issues as the site grows?

What does Dev.to currently do to sanitize user submissions?

How many moderators do they have?

Is a site that is focused on a niche like programming immune to the garbage that moderators have to collect on open forums?

What is the easiest programming language to learn?

Raji Ayinla — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 16:38:28 +0000

Since I learned OOP through Ruby I figured it was the easiest programming language to learn. Is there a consensus among developers about what the easiest programming language to learn is?

Is there such thing as a bad programming language?

Raji Ayinla — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 16:27:05 +0000

I've heard a lot of people complain about some of the older programming languages like Perl.But I don't really know what makes a programming language bad besides syntax. Does anyone here know what constitutes a bad programming language?

What Bugs Have This New Year Brought?

Raji Ayinla — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 15:44:14 +0000

What's been the toughest problem you've had to debug so far this year? The problem doesn't have to even be a technical problem. It can be a "people" problem.