Tech I'm learning this summer

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As of April 28th, 2019, I finished my third year at University! šŸŽ‰

While I am going back to work full time, I should still have some more time on evenings and weekends. In true student fashion, Iā€™m planning to fill some of this time learning and sharpening my tech skills. Iā€™ve got a few technologies in particular that I would like to get to know a little better.

Things I Want To Learn

  1. React Hooks : While I realize that the traditional component model isnā€™t leaving react anytime soon, I still feel like learning hooks is a good step forward and could benefit my overall understanding of react. Overall, from what I have seen anyways, Hooks likes like a pretty fundamental shift in structure so it should be interesting to see how I adapt to that.

  2. Typescript : This one has been on the backburner for me forever. I work primarily with heavily typed OOP languages in University (Mostly Java) and am interested in how javascript will feel within a more strongly typed environment with interfaces & generics etc. Iā€™ll also be interested to see how typescript will end up fitting into React (especially with hooks).

  3. Integration Testing : Iā€™ve tried to pick up testing libraries over and over again over the last year but just havenā€™t been able to commit to putting the time in and learning what I need to make testing natural for me. Iā€™m particularly interested in integration testing with jest but I feel that I should probably try and pick something up to test node apps as well.

  4. VIM : VIM is the tech Iā€™m most nervous to attempt to learn but also the most excited by because it requires so much buy in. From what Iā€™ve heard, to really get the speed gains you need to make vim worth it, you really need to immerse yourself in it. That said, until I get the proficiency Iā€™ll need to be faster in VIM, Iā€™ll probably be slow and inaccurate which will drive me insane. Iā€™m also concerned about losing my snippets and prettier support that I have in VScode so. Iā€™m not 100% sure on that level either. Maybe there is some way I can get all of those things into VIM but Iā€™m so uneducated at this point Iā€™ll just have to see.

  5. CSS Grid : I feel really behind the curve on this one. Iā€™ve seen how easy it is to get some really awesome layouts together with CSS grid once you put the time in but Iā€™m really having trouble finding the motivation when Iā€™ve been using flexbox for so long. however, I hope that I will be able to finally start with grid this summer.

Strategies For Learning

I learn best by doing so I have a few resources and strategies that Iā€™ll be using to make sure I learn this tech the best I can.

  1. Tutorials & Talks : I usually use tutorials or tech talks as an intro into a subject and go from there. In the past, Iā€™ve used tutorials from Wes Bos (which are usually more comprehensive and long-form. Good for going in-depth) or Scott Tolinski (Most tutorials can be completed in a day or two and give you a really strong understanding of concepts overall). Scott has some courses on Typescript, Testing and React Hooks that I will most likely be taking on weekends to get a good basic understanding.

  2. Building Things : As i said, I always learn best by building things so I will probably end up building some sort of basic application using a mixture of the tech listed above (maybe a simple budgeting app? a style guide for my website/projects? either way Iā€™m sure I will post about it here). Honestly, this strategy will probably account for most of my learning; it usually does anyway.

Hopefully, between the tutorials and whatever little project I decide to put together, I should be able to master these over the summer. Iā€™ll probably do a few updates here throughout the next 4 months to keep track of my progress and be a little bit more accountable for it.

If any of you have any tips, resources, advice, or just want to talk about the tech mentioned here comment down below! Iā€™d love to talk about any of the topics in this article!