April 18, 2018

How I Code Good?

The easy answer is: practice.

But that takes time and dedication, and who has the energy for that kind of endeavour in a world with Amazon Prime?!

So instead I keep half-starting ambitious coding projects and inevitably get frustrated with myself, put them on the backburner, and kind of… Collapse into a heap of self-deprecation. I’m quite good at that last part.

I’m trying a few new small-scale initiatives in order to try and get back into the ‘swing’ of ‘things’, as it were. I WILL DOCUMENT THEM HERE FOR POSTERITY.

  • Codewars/Hackerrank/etc. Coding Problems – A good way to practice the fundamentals and expand my thinking in regards to best coding practices when using Ruby/JS/etc.
  • Learn a new JS framework (JUST ONE AT A TIME) – Probably going to work on learning React, since that’s one of the… Three(?) JS frameworks I was attempting to learn simultaneously (Note: Don’t do that. It’s not smart. Patience, young grasshopper.)
  • Learn a new programming language – Working on Python currently. I think it will help me work through my problems with thinking ‘programmatically’, where my brain has some trouble parsing the simpler coding concepts into the more involved process of application building and testing.
  • Work on a personal portfolio project (JUST ONE AT A TIME. AGAIN.) – I’d like to resume work on Curator, and I think I have the appropriate API knowledge and Rails skills to get the basic structure and API integration/OAuth credentials/etc. to work. I mean, the bulk of it is there in some form or another in the uniD app.
  • READ STUFF – I’m really good at reading words. Programmatic concepts, not as much, but reading them is making me think more critically about coding and how to apply more advanced concepts to my knowledge base.

I think that this is a pretty comprehensive plan of attack. The trouble is sticking to it and not letting myself get discouraged so easily. I also need to make sure to pace myself and set reasonable milestones. Maybe after I’ve gotten into a better place, self-esteem-wise, I’ll start doing the freelance thing again. It’s really difficult to sell yourself as a freelance web developer when you have no confidence in yourself. That’s a tip, from me to you. You’re welcome.

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. I’ll get there eventually.

April 17, 2018

Introduction

I guess since there isn’t really an ‘About’ page or info bar or anything, this could serve as some sort of starting point for… Blogging.

Hello, my name is Devin, and this is a website.

In particular, this website serves as a tiny corner of the internet where I (supposedly) keep all of my assorted bits of writing and whatnot. I’ve had various blogs and personal websites for… Well, since Livejournal was a thing and not used as some kind of shadowy Russian server farm or somesuch.

On that note, I’m surprised to discover that my LJ still exists. The last post was over ten years ago. Wowzers.

I might do a trawling of all my old archives and assorted other blogs that I’ve kept over the years and try to integrate what I can recover into this site. Just so I can cringe at myself from the comfort of a single domain. IDK, masochism.

I think writing more will be good for my mental health, maybe? I’d like that.

January 3, 2018

Hello world!

Welcome to the… Oh jeez, I’ve actually lost count… 5th? Incarnation of what is supposed to be a no-nonsense repository for things that I’ve written.

Unfortunately, when it comes to maintaining any kind of blog, I tend to choose the nuclear option when I lapse in writing on a regular basis. So now, instead of a spotty and irregular backlog of content, I have yet another fresh start.

This is a bad habit I have.

Is there a word for choosing the nuclear option out of shame? I’m sure there is. I bet you they have a term for it in French.

 

Or German.