Given how fast tech is developed and released, Developers sooner or later stumble on the inevitable thought that he or she may become obsolete. Since my main expertise is front-end development, I've had this thought every time a framework or a library is released which seemed to revolutionize the industry in some way or another (I'm looking at you svelte). However, I realized that acquiring these habits help me ease my foreboding, deepen my understanding, and come out with efficient and interesting solutions to problems.
Daily Routine
My first habit (and most important) is to check GitHub's trending tab daily. It is amazing how many amusing and fun libraries, boilerplates, and contribution opportunities you can find here. You can just sort by your favorite programming language and even your spoken language, so you can see what is relevant to your ecosystem. Some recommendations for Web Developers is to check both Javascript and Typescript filter since both can feature excellent discoveries. Some examples I've found, which I use and plan on using on personal and professional projects, are React Hook Form, React Content Loader and Zdog. Additionally, GitHub recently added email updates which send you an email daily, weekly, or monthly on trending and interesting repositories.
Another part of my daily routine is checking dev.to articles. I can't help but appreciate how much of a good job have the Dev.to team done to allow us to have a centralized developer community for us to share our favorite discoveries and teach others with it. I remember the days of getting frustrated with Medium articles behind a paywall — now I just avoid it all together except when I'm interested in an article and it's free.
Also, I love to read some blog posts on reputable developers, even though I don't do it daily, such as Dan Abramov and Kent C. Dodds. If you know any good bloggers please write it in the discussion below — thanks in advance!
Weekly Routine
For my weekly routine, I check Product Hunt. Product Hunt is an intuitive site to see the up and coming startups and initiatives. I blame them for filling my Bookmarks on Chrome with so many interesting links, especially in the illustration department. Some cool websites I have found: Free Illustrations, Free royalty videos, Tech trends of 2020, and many more.
Monthly Routine
I begin each month by reading Andrei Neagoie's newsletter which lets me keep up with the novelties I couldn't see on GitHub, Product Hunt, etc.
Conclusion
By applying these habits in my career as a web developer I have been able to come up with interesting solutions to my endeavors. There are many more which I would love to adopt such as listening to podcasts, watching at least one conference, and contribute to OSS weekly. What habits do you possess that have generated an impact on your career?
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Top comments (11)
The urls are broken @jfelix61
Thanks! Fixed them promptly.
Damn right, Dev.to is awesome!
I had the same frustrations with Medium. Just today did I finally block their emails!
I'm using a browser extension called daily, it gives you topics from pretty much every where, you should follow them here too on dev.to
And there is this Developer that I really love her and her posts
Lydia Hallie
I use Daily too, it is a really good extension for catching up with what is new. I'll definitely check on Lydia, thanks for the suggestion!
I also check Github trending in the mornings, also dev.to : ) It's a way (for me) to get into the mood to go to work.
Same for me. Sometimes it's way/bridge from lazy day web scrolling to the inspiration and productivity!
I also do the same thing!
Hi, great post.
"Andrei Neagoie's newsletter" link is dead :P
Thanks! Fixed it.
I check dev.to posts every morning before I go to work