Like many developers, I get into ruts where I'm not excited about what I'm working on. There are pieces of development that each of us doesn't enjoy for some reason. Maybe you hate QA. Maybe you hate refactoring. Maybe it's writing JavaScript, PHP, CSS, or Go. It doesn't matter what it is for you. These roadblocks of lack of excitement and interest need to be broken through if you are going to succeed, and one of the best ways to do that is to make things new and fun again through learning.
Having Fun isn't Hard
When you've got a Library Card
Arthur
Learning and using new techniques makes things fun again. Coding gets boring when we spend our time doing the same thing over and over again. When we aren't pushing ourselves forward, we are being left behind. It's important to overcome the challenge of doing something new so we continue moving forward.
Here are three things I've read over the last few weeks where I learned something. Maybe one of these will help you learn something new:
- Linked Lists by Lara Schenck. This is an overview of a data structure that isn't native to any of the languages I spend the majority of my time in. Lara's series on computer science basics is a great primer for those of us without formal CS educations.
- The Documentation for Styled Components. I was introduced to Styled Components when Laura Medalia started mentioning them on her Instagram Stories. I've started playing around with them to see if they are going to be right for some of the react things I've been doing.
- A Twitter thread on the Social Model of Disability and Stephen Hawking has helped my thinking about how I speak about disabilities. Hat Tip to Ryelle for sharing it.