I changed the color of a button with CSS for the first time. When I saw the change reflected on a web page, my world changed. I realized, right, this is what I want to do. From that moment on, I took my laptop with me everywhere I traveled. For instance, during a recent trip to Bali, I brought my laptop to a waterfall. My laptop goes everywhere with me, even on a three-hour motorbike ride to a waterfall. It's just so different now; I can hardly recognize myself from my university days. Back then, I was a completely different person, but now, I have to be pried away from my laptop because I love collaborating with the community on open source code and documentation.
I am a strong advocate for the principle of automate and delegate. If you can automate a task, such as pushing it to a bash script or running it as a Lambda function, you should do so. However, it can be challenging to delegate tasks that you do not understand yourself. This brings to mind a historical analogy from the Age of Exploration. During this time, a ship's captain had to master every job on the ship before ascending to the rank of captain. They needed to know how to swab the deck, prepare food, tie knots, raise sails, and patch holes in the hull. Only after gaining experience in all these roles could they effectively delegate tasks and ensure quality assurance of the work done by others.
it is essential to at least take half up front, if not the full amount. Even if the client is a friend, it is crucial to maintain this practice.
Maintaining a reputation for always delivering is crucial. Have you ever walked into a reputable ramen restaurant, handed them your ticket, and not received your ramen? No, because in most cases, you will get what you pay for if you are selective and work with reputable players. There is a degree of determinism in that process.
Developer advocacy is crucial; you need to teach people how to use your tools. There’s a saying that first-time founders think about the technology, while second-time founders think about the distribution. This is absolutely true and makes sense. Developer advocacy is essentially distribution; it’s how you get the tools into developers’ hands and how you get them to care about your open-source library when there are ten other libraries
There are courses on everything; there are so many people out there creating courses. I don't know what the exact statistic is, but it was reported that there are thousands of hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. With all that content, it's clear that there is something on pretty much every topic.
However, you can teach it in a way that makes sense to you, and if it makes sense to you, it probably makes sense to others who think the same way.
Everyone knows that test-driven development is the better way to do things, but most people don’t actually implement it. Even those who claim to have done end-to-end testing with tools like Playwright or Cypress often skip testing their authenticated pages because they don't know how to log in. They might create a fake user in the database or use a spare account, which leads to low testing quality. When using OAuth, for example, it is crucial to mock out the authentication process. You need to test it once to ensure it works, but then you want to focus on other things. Unfortunately, there is little content available on this topic, and if I create content on it, it often doesn’t perform well because it lacks excitement and flashy elements.
I believe it is important to avoid just hammering GitHub or similar platforms, especially since I hit the rate limit on GitHub. Some people suggest just putting a private token in, but that feels fundamentally wrong. Instead, I should make those requests once, save the JSON files, and then mock those out. This process has been super interesting for me, and I can't wait to share it with others.
You have your routine, and you do it. You can’t not work out for a year, join 10 gyms, and then work out for an entire weekend. It doesn’t work like that. The same principle applies to content creation. I tell people not to worry about it. If you document your journey, you will have more content than you can put out. I only put out about 40% of my content because I just have too much.
if you really want to grow, you need to be consistent and feed the algorithm, not the trolls. Ignore those trolls; just get friendly with that block button. If someone is challenging you, I actually think it's important to engage in that conversation if they're doing it professionally. I learn a lot from that and make many new friends that way. However, if someone is clearly being a troll, just block them, done, forget it, and move on.
I would say you should post every four to six hours around the clock because you want to cover multiple time zones. Do something that's authentic, whether it's a success you've had that day, a challenge you've faced, or even a picture of your workspace—whether it's tidy or messy. People love workspace photos. Even if your setup is basic, just share that; it shows you're authentic. I think having a picture of yourself at least once a month is really important so people can see you're a real person.
Additionally, share a technical tip once a day. This should be something you've learned, just a bite-sized piece, like one or two lines, maybe with a screenshot of code or something similar. I have about six different topics that I try to cycle through every couple of days. For example, if I did a technical tip today at 1 p.m., then tomorrow I'll do another technical tip at 1 a.m., ensuring it's not the same one. This way, across time zones, people get a mixture of content.
I'm using a dynamic mic because I'm not in a nice studio; I don't have soundproofing and am working from my office. I have big windows in front of me, providing natural light
you focus on specific areas of interest, which allows you to triage your learning effectively. You’re not necessarily following all the comings and goings of the tech world; rather, you're concentrating on things you can directly control, like getting better at JavaScript.
Speaking with people like you energizes me so much, as cheesy as that sounds