What I Learned In 2019
Tags: webdev, javascript, react, linux
Published: 2019-12-27 21:04:42

2019 has been one crazy year of learning for me. I definitely did not expect to see myself growing this much, and it kind of blows my mind.

## The Beginning

I did not even start attending classes part time at Lambda School for web development until February 25th! That's crazy because when I decided to join Lambda I had only copy / pasted html back in the Myspace era. I started studying for my up and coming Lambda classes during November of 2018 and I had not learn a lot yet. I really began taking studying for my up and coming classes around January. 

During January I really began to study and practice my HTML and CSS skills. I took all the things I learned from Lambda's pre-course material and applied it to a web page I created. It was a beginners guide to learning the music theory, the major and minor scale, on the guitar. It was very ugly at first, but after updating it a few times as I went through the actual curriculum it began to [take some shape](https://jimmymcbride.github.io/DANGER-Music-Theory/cmajkey.html). 

It was February, when I began to learn JavaScript with Lambda's pre-course material. I learned about the 3 primitive data type, arrays, objects and functions. I learned how to make some simple programs that would console some stuff but had NO idea how to manipulate the DOM, what the DOM was, or how to do anything useful with it yet. I remember when we started learning how to manipulate the DOM that's when I really started to fall in love with JavaScript. [I ended up making this multi dice roller app to test myself](https://codepen.io/jimmy-mcbride/pen/qgOoeX). The project was much easier to accomplish then I had anticipated. (The code is not dry at all, but it did the job at the time.)

## The Middle

This is where I put my scuba gear on. I had absolutely falling in love with coding and began to really push my limits. I installed many different distributions of Linux on my 2 toy laptops and turned one into a server to host my discord bot I created in Node with Discord.js. I fully switched all my computer's to Linux (Manjaro, gnome edition, being my absolute favorite distro) and I even duel booted it on my wife's laptop and got her into Linux.

I am still really proud of my discord bot. [You can check out the documentation I created for it here.](https://fire-bot-docs.firebaseapp.com/) And really proud of what I have learned about Linux and just how computers work in general. I have a few Arch installs under my belt now, and I can do a clean and professional duel boot with any Linux distro. All the meanwhile I had started learning React and developing my proficiency with that.

## The Now

[I now have 3 versions of my own custom create-react-app template and my own mini style library published!](https://www.npmjs.com/settings/jimmymcbride/packages) I have just broke 1,000 followers on my Dev account! That's insane, I've been gaining around 100 followers a day for about a week and a half now! I know that isn't much, but it's more than I've ever had on any other platform and I actually feel like I'm providing content that people find value in. That's the most addicting part right there.

I feel like a wiz kid running around in React, I've been learning all the new things that React has to offer; hooks, redux hooks, router hooks. Studying the experimental things like suspense. I've learned a lot about Firebase auth, how to set up their reducers and dispatches and creating clean and professional private routes and connecting everything to an API built in Node with postgresql and knex. 

I have absolutely fallen in love with writing bash scripts that make me more DRY as a human. I have my file-system set up and organized just the way I like it with alias's set up to make navigating around my terminal an effortless and fun experience.

## The Future! :rocket:

I'm almost finished up with creating an amazing nutrition tracker app with an amazing team for Lambda's Lab, and I'll be moving on the the computer science section next! I feel like all my studies and experimentation's with Linux has prepared me for it and I CAN'T WAIT to lean python! With everything I've been learning about bash, bash script and node applications with my discord bot, I think I could do some really cool stuff by the end of next year with python. 

I love looking back on my journey and reflecting, and if you've made this far, then thank you very much for reading! I have so much more to learn and grow and I'm in a truly amazing part of my life right now and I'm glad I have began a new journey with you guys here at Dev and am blessed to be a part of this community and growing along with everybody else. Hope next year is even more amazing that this one for every single one of you! :fire: