How I keep up with the software world?
You just can’t
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Overview
- Introduction
- Eagerness to learn
- Trello
- People
- Opportunities
- bytebytego
- educative.io
- Podcasts
- TLDR newsletter
- YouTube channels
- Practice Algorithms
- Tech radar
Introduction
Hello, fellow developers! Good week so far? Did you have any time to learn something new? Everyday something new emerges and you can’t keep up with everything happening around you? I have a very nice and simple answer for you: You just can’t. Is extremely hard for one single human being to catch up with an overwhelming world of programming, in which a new frameworks rises, a programming languages increase popularity exponentially, some others get deprecated, and so on. The list is immense. It’s just extremely hard.
Eagerness to learn
Despite of the task in hands being in the edge of impossible, I have great news for you: the community provided several interesting tools that you can use in your benefit and somehow minimise the struggle. I will bring to the table some resources that I find quite useful and keeps me motivated and eager to improve my skillset everyday. Feel free to steal some, but I will also appreciate a few others that you might share with me. Don’t be shy! 😃 Personally speaking, I don’t like to take my knowledge for granted: I like to keep feeding my brain with more knowledge, more ways of working, different strategies to solve specific software problems, coding styles, find new ways to learn new things, you name it.
Trello
No, this isn’t a source of knowledge, i’m afraid. However, trello is a tool that I use a lot to prioritise my learning pipeline. I truly believe that having a plan on what to learn in short, middle and long term will give you a sense of purpose and keep you motivated throughout the year. Overall, I think it worked pretty well on me. Besides, I really enjoy checking ✅ things out. I enjoyed so much the outcome that I started using it in other things, such as the list of books (technical and non-technical) I want to read next or for the current year. Who says trello, says other tools for the purpose. There are tons out there. Feel free to use the one that suits you the most. However, to manage my daily work tasks, I am still stuck to the last century. I still like to write stuff down on my notepad and strikethrough when I get things done. I know, I know, its way outdated.
People
Needless to say that people is a (very) good source of learning. A rule of thumb that I really like to apply on my working style is to share mistakes and knowledge with others. Additionally, even though sometimes you may feel intimated with the knowledge gap between peers (I met some rockstars on past experiences), don’t be afraid to ask questions. Even silly ones. Ultimately, leave your ego at the door. Not needed (at all) for what you are doing.
Opportunities
Sometimes, opportunities arise in your company. A new role arises, a complex task that require an extreme redesign, you name it. If you are in need of increasing your skillset with challenges, embrace the opportunity. Hiring a new engineer to fill the bottleneck takes lots of time.
bytebytego
By the way, I just receive an email from them 🤓. Very nice work from this guys! bytebytego gives you a new dimension on system design. They make sure you don’t miss a thing but also take your system design skills to the next level. Give it a go and let me know what do you think.
educative.io
A few months ago, I got a recommendation of a course in educative.io about system design. I truly enjoyed it. Everything was explained in high level of detail, and the user experience of the whole platform is so neat and well organised. I got pretty impressive with the final result! Additionally, their price model is super interesting. Its a subscription based plan, in which you pay on a month (or yearly) basis and they give you access to all content available: courses and career roadmaps. How cool is that? If you don’t have time to invest in a specific month, no problemo, you can just cancel the subscription and come back later on. I got the taste of it with the system design course, but I invested an extra time on the python one cause I really needed to take some rust off. Furthermore, I have a few others in mind, namely Dart/Flutter, microservices and machine learning. The world is vast and the combinations infinite.
Podcasts
Being totally honest with you, I found podcasts a bit boring. And besides, I can’t fully concentrate on my daily tasks AND podcasts at the same time. 😂 Maybe it works for you. Cannot help you in this topic, i’m afraid.
TLDR newsletter
The same way bytebytego gives a very nice overview of system design, TLDR newsletter provides you an overview of what is going on in the tech world. In just a few minutes you get a glimpse of what is going on, not just software, but tech in general. With just a couple of clicks you will be able to receive daily notifications.
YouTube channels
There are two channels that I really like to highlight. They cover distinct topics, though very interesting ones. I will just leave them here. Just give it a go. You will not be disappointed (at all). Maybe it was just me, but one of them could easily be used as asmr. Try to figure out which one it is. Is so damn relaxing hearing coding style recommendations!
Tech radar
The impression I got from Thoughtworks is that they are really into innovation. From their radar, I can get a glimpse of what is going on the tech world, and programming in general. Each year I grab a few things that I found interesting to learn and add them to my trello board.
Conclusion
I think from this article, you can get an idea that I really take learning very seriously. Even though that sometimes I fail to learn something cause it might be too complex or confusing, I try always to ask for help from coworkers or even the community. There are lots of people out there willing to help and making sure you don’t miss a thing. Don’t let the fear of asking silly questions beat you up.
Something very easy to learn: hit the clap button and the follow button as well. Will totally appreciate it! Happy learnings! 🤓
