Web Developer Monthly 💻🚀 February 2019
8th issue! If you missed the last seven months, check them out here.
If it’s your first time here…(otherwise skip this part)
Being a web developer is a fantastic career option. You have many job opportunities, you can work around the world, and you get to solve hard problems. One thing that is hard, however, is staying up to date with the constantly evolving ecosystem. You want to be a top performing web developer, coder, programer, software developer, but you don’t have time to select from hundreds of articles, videos and podcasts each day.
This monthly newsletter is going to be focused on keeping up to date with the industry, keeping your skills sharp, without wasting your valuable time. I will be sharing the most important articles, podcasts and videos of the month. Think Tim Ferriss and the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) meeting the Software Development world. What’s the 20% that will get you 80% of the results?
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What you missed in February as a web developer…
It’s raining 💸
I’m usually not a big fan of these types of articles: “Here is how great I am disguised as a YOU can do it too post”. However, this has some good points that may come useful to you one day and is an important skill to learn. How to negotiate your offer.
Free Tools For Web Developers✂️
Here are some free tools and assets to help you build your next project:
- Free HD videos to use in your projects
- 1000+ Pixel-perfect vector icons for your next project
- Charts, charts everywhere
- Want to publish an NPM package? This is probably the best way to do it
- Turn any google spreadsheet into your own API
Advanced JavaScript Concepts👩💻 👨💻
Sooooo… I just released my newest course today. Probably the greatest course ever created in the universe. Ok, maybe not, but I think it’s pretty good. You should check it out. The goal of the course is to make you a top 10% JavaScript developer and go over topics that most courses skip over. Ok sorry for the plug, back to the newsletter…
PWA in Google Play Store (kind of) 📱
Don’t get too excited yet since this is something that still requires a pretty hacky solution. However, this is a glimpse at something that we may be able to achieve easily in the future. The key feature that allows you to do something like this is called Trusted Web Activity. Read this article to get familiar with it (but you should read the comments as well to get a glimpse of some of the issues).
React News 🎣
Wouldn’t be a monthly recap without some React news. What crazy things did they get up to?
- A deep dive into React UI system from Dan Abramov
- React has officially released Hooks with the newest release. The hottest new trend around the water cooler in your office. By the way, one reason the React team is pushing hard for Hooks is that in the future, they will be able to do Ahead of Time Compilation like Angular. Keep an eye out on that.
- Next.js version 8 is out!
- People went crazy discussing whether MDN should add some React to their pages.
Vue.js News 💃 🕺
Vue 2.6 was released. Also, a nice article about Vue 3.0 that will be coming out this year and the plans going forward. If you want to keep diving deep, did you know that Vue will also be incorporating the idea of Hooks from React soon?
New Section: Computers Freaking Out Humans 🤖
A lot of interesting AI news this month. Yes, this is still related to Web Development ok?
- A website that generates fake but real looking faces. You can use this for any prototyping needs for your next app.
- People lost their mind when OpenAI announced this and then decided not to share the model. The gist of it is: they created an AI that can generate text/stories that sound like it was written by a human. This leads to a lot of good/bad applications. You can learn more about it here.
- Malware hidden in a strand of DNA hijacks the computer that analyzes that particular gene sequence.
- All 8 character passwords can be guessed in 2.5 hours.
Data Science Briefly 🧮
First you give us AI news and now Data Science news? What is this rubbish? I signed up for web development news! You’re a real stickler for the rules aren’t you? Well this is too good not to share. Data Science field is a little overhyped right now and it also reminds me of the JavaScript fatigue from a few years ago. However, if you know nothing about Data Science this is a great read to get an idea of the state of the field.
ES5 to Infinity 🛸
An insanely long list of all new JavaScript features since ES5. Don’t spend an hour of your life reading it. Just bookmark it as a reference.
Rendering on the Web 🌇
I feel like articles like these come out every month. But hey, here is another one since people seem to enjoy them.
Another interesting method for improving your website performance: instant.page.
Shell Commands Explorer 💻
If you have ever been confused by shell commands, you now have a tool that helps you explain things: https://explainshell.com/
More TypeScript Hype 📌
People lost their mind at this slide from AirBnB: 38% of bugs at Airbnb could have been prevented by TypeScript according to postmortem analysis. Also, you can find a nice cheatsheet here if you are using TypeScript with React.
Bootstrap 💔 jQuery
Bootstrap v5 will no longer use jQuery. So many heartbreaks lately for jQuery.
Proper Way to Make Forms 📋
A great read on how to make user friendly forms on the web. Also, this is a great library to automatically format user data. Use these 2 resources to make great forms!
Big Tech News 🏢
- Apple had a bug discovered with their FaceTime app. The bug allowed people to secretly listen in on others. Oh, they also banned a few internal iOS apps for Google and Facebook for a few days.
- Amazon got booed out of New York.
Completely useless to your career but still great 🙃
Spend hours in front of your computer not being productive: https://alexanderperrin.com.au/triangles/ballooning/ . If you ever want to build something like this, have a look at Three.js.
Best Resource of the Month ✅
This is an important read for anyone taking the latest Kubernetes, AWS, Serverless certification courses thinking it’s the guaranteed path to success.
But the real Best Resource of the Month is this article which I think every software developer should read. Enjoy!
Trick of the Month 🌗
Use this library to detect NSFW images uploaded to your app! Yes, it’s safe to open this link at work.
See you next month!
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