What are your favorite articles from 2020? #bestofdev

Dear reader, it's this time of the year to look back with gratitude the good things that happened in parallel with the shitshow that 2020 was overall :)

Want to try a little gratitude exercise with me?

• Go to https://dev.to/readinglist
• Pick a prime number like 2, 3, 5, 7
• Select your favorite articles from the year
• Add a comment here, formatted like that:

Here are my $PRIME_NUMBER favorite articles for this year:

1. I enjoyed this article from @author1 because....
{% post http://dev.to/example1 %}

2. This article from @author2 was especially helpful to me because....
{% post http://dev.to/example2 %}

3. Last but not least @author3 made me laugh because...
{% post http://dev.to/example1 %}

Comments

[Jean-Michel 🕵🏻‍♂️ Fayard]

I start with my 5 favorites articles from 2020:

I enjoyed this article from @annajmcdougall that teaches a skill crucial to spread joy around you: giving good compliments

How to Give Good Compliments

Anna "Apero" McDougall 🏳️‍🌈 ・ Oct 26 ・ 8 min read

#psychology #career #socialskills #selfimprovement

I'm usually not a fan of things you - supposedly - MUST do to become a 10x developer, but @dabit3 came with an in interesting shift in perspective: let's imagine instead that you would like to become the worst developer ever. What would you do? As it turns out, the result is very insightful:

Top 10 Pieces of Advice for Becoming the Worst Developer Possible

Nader Dabit ・ Sep 22 ・ 4 min read

#webdev #javascript #coding #beginners

Code quality is something we strive for but it can easily backfire. If my code is clean and yours is different, is it dirty? @d_ir tells us in a sensible article that we should put humans first and strive for clear code. I loved this quote:

The two hardest problems in computer science are people, and convincing people that people are the hardest problem in computer science.

Clean code, dirty code, human code

Daniel Irvine 🏳️‍🌈 ・ Jan 19 ・ 4 min read

#webdev #beginners #javascript #career

Books are great to dive deep into topics that we find interesting. The catch is that we don't have an infinite amount of time and attention, so listing books is not enough, you have to be a curator and that's what @bosepchuk has done really well here. I'm cheating a bit because this article is not from 2020, but I have read multiple books from this list in 2020 and every time I was thankful to the author for his selection:

29 Must Read Books For Programmers

Blaine Osepchuk ・ Nov 14 '18 ・ 6 min read

#career #productivity #learning #effectiveness

Teaching code is something I want to try out in 2021 so my last pick is this great article from @aspittel . In parallel, I would also recommend the LadyBug podcast where Ali, @emmabostian @kelly puts out very helpful content.

How to Teach Code

Ali Spittel ・ Oct 27 ・ 9 min read

#career