Taking inspiration from Dan Abramov's blog post on the same topic back in 2018, I am diving into technical writing with a partial list of programming topics I do not know at the time of writing this post.
Why am I doing this? Simply put, I believe it is very important for a developer at any level to be able to identify technologies that will help in writing better code and be able to publicly admit that (s)he has no idea how to use them. This is very important for learning.
"Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality." ~ Bruce Lee
Okay, enough of introductions, let's dive right into it.
Thing's I Don't Know
- Wordpress: I know it is used to create websites and manage contents, but that's all I know about it, I don't even know how to set it up. And this goes for all other Content Management Systems, Joomla, Drupal....
- Bash and *nix commands: I know this is very important for developers to know a thing or two about, I can create, copy, move, rename and delete files and directories, I can also print working directory, change directories, use cat and echo commands primitively and that's all I know about the CLI.
- SSH: I have seen tutorials on how to set up github ssh on my local computer but I just follow along and don't know what I'm doing.
- Git and Github: I have initializing a git repository, staging/tracking changes, committing changes and pushing to the github repo covered every other thing I do with my github are googled and since I have not started working on Open Source Projects just yet, I have no idea how pull requests (PR), branching and merging work.
- CSS Animations: This is probably the most nagging issue I have with my CSS game.
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JavaScript Terminologies: Bubbling, Hoisting, prototypal inheritance, DNS and
use strictare all still fuzzy to me. While I can write code that implements some of them, I do not have full understanding of these terms. -
Package Managers: I can install packages and dependencies with npm, (I have never tried yarn), I can also
npx create-react-app. - CSS Preprocessors: I only know the little SASS codes from FreeCodeCamp's curriculum.
- CSS Architecture: What are those?
- CORS: It's a nightmare! I hate seeing them and have no idea how to skirt them.
- GraphQL: Recently found out that it is a query language and is used by the github API. I have no idea how this works.
- Graphics
- Deployment: I just drag and drop my build files to Netlify.
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Redux: I have never gotten a hang of redux, probably because I have not used it in any project I have worked on. The introduction of the
useReducerhook by react has me thinking if there is still any need to use redux. (kindly drop your take in the comment section)
I am currently focusing on the front end of things, so this list is populated with concepts and technologies used in a front end development.
All of these concepts and technologies are those I am currently on a path to learn and updates will be made at regular intervals as I continue my web development journey.
Sometime very soon, this list will be reduced to nothing and I will have new concepts and technologies I can publicly say I don't know.
Top comments (3)
I absolutely love the idea behind this, it's seriously taking introspection and self-reflection to a whole different level. I can't wait to take some time to write my own list and to start tackling some of the (many) topics and things I don't know. Thank you for sharing your list with us!
I'm glad you feel this way Pauline, really looking forward to your reading your list.
Sadly but if I write a list of things I don't know there are many of them I used to know.