Welcome to Coffee and Code with me, Dan Vega for the week of Mar 8 - Feb 14, 2020.
It's a scary time in my home, city, state, country, and world. I know that this won't last forever but it is a reminder to all of us that the problems we have on a day to day basis are pretty minor in comparison. I hope all of you are doing well and it's my job to take your mind off of what's going on and do what I love to do, teach. If you don't already have one grab a cup and your favorite beverage and let's get to it.
Previous Week
This week started with a couple of tweets from ✌🏻YouTubers that I look up to.
Every new project is an opportunity to do your best work. https://t.co/7Qj9RUTUeV
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) March 8, 2020
This was a great reminder from two channels that have over 30 million subscribers combined. I know my videos from a production standpoint aren't great but what they lack in transitions and effects they make up for with my passion for the topic. I am confident that I have a unique way of teaching and 20 years of programming experience to lean on.
After reading these tweets and spending a little time reflecting on them I have some thoughts on how I can improve going forward. Every single creator I look up to is constantly reminding me that it is my job to tell a story. I need to stop looking at a tutorial as a series of steps to resolution and an opportunity to put my personal experience behind it. There is a story in every tutorial, review or discussion, I just need to find it.
It's hard to do 20 years later but I need to remind myself of just how lost I felt at times when I started programming. I would often search for answers to my problems and come across very technical articles that were supposed to answer my question but left me scratching my head.
That is part of the reason I started a blog 15 years ago. I knew there was a better way to explain solutions to those of us who aren't computer science geniuses. I was reminded this week by my friend Brian on Twitter that I was able to take something that can be complicated and break it down to a few easy steps (Thanks, Brian!)
@therealdanvega just watched your GitHub PR video. That'll be really helpful to a lot of folks. The fork-clone-commit-PR process is one that sounds complicated if you try to read documentation but is pretty simple once you've seen it or done it
— Brian (@Crashbox) March 11, 2020
There are no unique messages, only unique messengers.
If you can't tell I am really into this. I love to learn and I love helping others. Something strange happened over the last year though, I have started to fall in love with the entire video creation process. I am currently a sponge and trying to soak up everything I can. I know that was a bit of a tangent but what it comes down to is you will probably see me doing a variety of experiments so I can see what works.
YouTube
I was able to upload 3 new videos this week and I am pretty happy with the way they turned out.
- Spring Boot Unit vs Integration Tests
- Create A Full Fake REST API With JSON Server in a Vue application
- Java 11 HttpClient
Mentions
Thank you to Anthony Gore and the Vue.js Developers Newsletter for featuring my Vue 3: Smaller, Faster Stronger video.
Upcoming Week
This newsletter is a little bit of a milestone for me as we hit #30. It might not seem like a lot but committing to a newsletter each week for 30 weeks (minus a couple of weeks off during the holidays) is something I am really proud of 🥳 With that said I am not sure how much longer I am going to continue it in this format. I am going to take a break from my weekly cadence and figure out what I want this newsletter to look like. If you have any feedback please reach out to me.
Around the Web
These are things I found cool around the web this week.
Articles
- Reactivity in Vue 3
- Insomnia REST Client: Plugin Hub 1.0
- Twitter "Fleets" that disappear after 24 hours
- Joel Hooks: Using a dSLR as a Webcam for Live Streaming
Videos
- Two Big Announcements: Academind Pro & A Brand-New Course
- JAMstack Tutorial – How to Build Fast, Secure Websites – a Free 4-hour course
Podcasts
- Go Time: Pow! Pow! Power tools!
- That Creative Life: MKBHD - His Expanding Tech Empire, 10 Million Subscribers and Are We At "Peak Smartphone"?
- The Entrepreneurial Coder Podcast: Eve Porcello & Alex Banks - How to Build a Business as a Workshop Instructor
Projects
- Visual Studio Code: February 2020 (version 1.43)
-
Have a question about Vue 3? We've updated the roadmap and added an FAQ column for commonly asked questions: https://t.co/act5NHEpnS
— Vue.js (@vuejs) March 11, 2020
Newsletters
- Tales from the jar side: Reactive Spring, Kotlin, and Coronavirus Jokes
- This Month in Spring - March 2020
Until Next Week
Thank you for reading my words, watching my videos and sharing this journey with me friends. I hope you have a great week and as always friends...
Happy Coding
Dan Vega
danvega@gmail.com
https://www.danvega.dev