Monthly reflection - April 2021
Tags: monthlyreflection, programmingjourney, selfreflection
Published: 2021-05-01 13:03:26

# **Introduction**

Every month as a frontend engineer, I reflect on what I have achieved. Let's talk about April 2021. In summary, I took a significant risk and left my second job. It's something I felt I had to do. My mindset was off and I wanted to focus on writing and improving with front end development. I regathered my thoughts and made a plan of action to further my skills and finally, I have committed to a content creation schedule.

# **Here is what I have done  👨‍💻**

## **Read News Articles** 📰

Here are my top 5 articles I have read this month. My main focus as a frontend engineer is React and Js. So the articles I have included will be based on these topics.

- [Slow and Steady: Converting Sentry’s Entire Frontend to TypeScript | Product Blog • Sentry](https://blog.sentry.io/2021/04/12/slow-and-steady-converting-sentrys-entire-frontend-to-typescript)
- [Comparing the New Generation of Build Tools | CSS-Tricks (css-tricks.com)](https://css-tricks.com/comparing-the-new-generation-of-build-tools/)
- [15 DevTool Secrets for JavaScript Developers (asayer.io)](https://blog.asayer.io/15-devtool-secrets-for-javascript-developers)
- [Blog - Next.js 10.1 | Next.js](https://nextjs.org/blog/next-10-1)
- [JavaScript for impatient programmers (ES2021 edition) (exploringjs.com)](https://exploringjs.com/impatient-js/toc.html)

**Recently, I started to co-author a book for a publisher.**

Writing a book is something I'm excited to be doing. I wish I could tell everyone what it is I'm writing. For now, it has to be a secret 😏 . Hint* It's front-end related.  Surprisingly, I have enjoyed co-writing two chapters, and I learnt something valuable. By writing about a topic, you are testing your knowledge and identifying possible gaps. I have started to improve immensely and, my recall is so much better. For this reason, I have started to pursue writing articles and helpful blogs. If you haven't written a blog article, I encourage you to do it!

**Courses I am taking 👨🏻‍🎓🎓**

In this section, I will list the courses I am currently taking. I will also include courses I have finished and write personal reviews listing what I have learnt.

- Mastering the Coding Interview: Data Structures + Algorithms (ongoing)
- Understanding TypeScript - 2021 Edition: (ongoing)

**Videos I watched 🎥**

The focus this month was slightly geared towards encryption. In pursuit of bettering my skills, I started to use SSH. During my time learning, I documented it by writing an article on how to use SSH and how it worked.

- Secret Key Exchange (Diffie-Hellman) Computerphile
- Diffier-Hellman - the Mathematics bit Computerphile
- Key Exchange-Problems - Computerphile
- Elliptic-Curves - Computerphile
- Rendering performance inside out - Martin Splitt

**Amazon project 💼**

In summary, my amazon clone is close to having an alpha release. My main focus this month is to implement searching functionality.

What features I added this month.

- I integrated stripe payment with a custom strapi controller. The reason for this was to calculate the cart on the backend.
- Currently, a user can put an item in a cart and checkout.
- Multiple items added to the cart change the quantity
- Made a react portal to display error messages or success messages
- All pages were styled to mirror the amazon website.

From this point onwards I plan to make a blog article each month related to my project progress and how I implemented features.

# **What I did wrong 🙄**

I allowed leaving my job to affect my focus. I became torn about the situation but eventually realised that sometimes you need to decide for yourself. I discovered that being nice doesn't mean you have to say yes. Always consider your feelings too. Sometimes you need to put yourself first. Now that it is all done. I'm ready for my next chapter 😀.

# **What I accomplished ⏳**

In April, I feel like I did not accomplish as much as I would have intended. There were a few moments I felt slightly confused and wondered what would become of me. Not long after,  I started to plan my next chapter. I reflected on my frontend abilities and soft skills. I decided on what I need to improve and how to achieve it.

# **Thank you for reading 👋**

For now, I am just publishing my blogs to [dev.to](https://dev.to/danielphilipjohnson/). In the future, I will look to expand to more blogging platforms and will start to host my blogs on my website. If you enjoy my blogs, you might also be interested in my tweets on my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/danielp_johnson). Please feel free to share a tweet with #monthlyreflection, tag me and tell me about your month.