2017 summaries, 2018 objectives
Here are a list of things I have done in 2017. Most people write their summary of the year close to end of the year, I haven’t done this before and this is very much inspired a.k.a template copied from Tania Rascia’s post.
My friend Ajmal has his own version of it here.
I shipped a side project (and shared it on r/singapore)
I made a train arrival timing application called mrt-tan.com. This was my first time shipping a side project on my own, and the experience of having to figure out everything myself was very rewarding.
I also shared it on r/singapore and local Front End Facebook groups to gather feedback, and iterate on the app.
I learnt a new framework
Whilst laying the foundation for mrt-tan, I was picking up VueJS and took the VueJS 2 Complete Guide course on Udemy. I did not finish the entire course, and went to apply my newly found knowledge into building the application.
That’s probably the fastest way to learn, right? 🤔
I challenged myself to pick up Python
..and it was tough.
I encountered Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) issues communicating with the API I was using for my train arrival app, and did contact the API creator about it. We couldn’t get it fixed, so I decided to roll my own.
Why Python? It is the most commonly used language for APIs, and coupled with Flask, it would be much easier to build one.
The project is on hold at the moment, but I will get back to working on it.
I got better at front end development (slightly)
I made a more conscious effort to read up on the development space, and implementing new techniques I have picked up into projects.
Faster, and more efficient asset delivery on websites, CSS girds, and focusing on web performance.
I attended more industry related talks
For this year, I also attended more industry related talks and meetups whenever possible. It felt good to be able to learn from veterans within the industry, and keep up on what’s new in the development space.
I also attended Webconf.asia 2017 with the Minitheory team in Hong Kong in June.
If you are in Singapore 🇸🇬, I usually attend kopi.JS and talk.css.
I made 730 commits
Over the two major projects I worked on at work. It is not a more commits = better quality code, but it’s kinda cool to have a figure on hand.
The period from January to March seems sad, but I was working on mrt-tan.com, which I used my personal DigitalOcean droplet as a repository 😄
If you need a referral link, use mine! You will get 10 USD worth of credits free!
I wrote 3 articles
While 3 is not huge compared to others on Medium, it is a huge for me compared to writing zero articles in 2016. I want to continue to share my learnings through articles 😄
Medium
What I have learnt in 2017
- Vue JS
- Font Support on IE
- Front End UI Testing
- Getting started with Webpack
- Deploying projects automatically with Git
- Better Linux management
There are more trivial ones that probably trivial to list down 😅
What I want to learn this year
- How to set up Docker
- Understand React
- Understand Flux, Redux
- Understand Webpack better
- Get better with Vue JS
- Ship at least one more side project
- … and many more!
