[BAWD #100] The Value Of Fundamentals

Jan 30, 2023

Hello 👋🏾,

I trust you had a blissful week. Today we hit our #100 letters milestone 🍾🎉. Special thanks to 750+ of you who read my letters! I started this newsletter because I had access to numerous resources/opportunities I wasn’t using and wanted to share them with those needing them. I desire to see you all succeed and grow in your respective careers, and I hope I’ve been able to help you with all that I share in BAWDLetters.

I'd like to hear from you to know how helpful/not helpful the letters have been to you or what I can improve. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind some thank you notes if you derive value from the letters, just let me know :). So kindly fill out this survey form—I appreciate your time in advance. If you want, you can also support or sponsor this newsletter.

Btw, here’s a friendly reminder that learning to break down problems into smaller pieces is one of the essential life skills.

If you love #BAWDLetters, please forward this email to someone, share it on social media, or invite your friends to subscribe. Feel free also to share feedback or suggestion(s); thanks!

Share Bolaji Ayodeji's Weekly Digest

BAWDLetters Sponsors 🦋

Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes on design, music, photography, freelancing, etc. As an active BAWD reader, you will get a free one-month premium membership trial and 40% off your first subscription.
Namecheap offers the best value for domains, SSL certificates, website hosting, and more. As an active BAWD reader, you will get 20%-50% off your domain purchase.
Udemy is an online learning platform where you can take programming courses. As an active BAWD reader, you will get up to 30% off any course, 60%+ off career courses, 60%+ off web development courses, or 60%+ off mobile development courses.

Featured Technical Articles ✍🏾👩🏽‍💻

On The Value Of Fundamentals In Software Development by Alan Skorkin.
The local-only web by Paul Kinlan.
Understanding the GraphQL Type System by Tania Rascia.
What to consider when building subscriptions into your ecommerce experience by Seth Bindernagel.
Why the Full Stack Engineer is Problematic by IT Revolution.
The Definition of Done: What Product Managers Need to Know by Product Plan.
Structure of a TypeScript Error by Matt Pocock.
Composable commerce with micro frontends by Filippo Conforti.
How to Set Up the Raspberry Pi Pico for Development on macOS by Robert John.
Why React isn't dying by Dominik Dorfmeister.
How to build an ecommerce website with Commerce Layer Demo Store by Bolaji Ayodeji.

Featured Productivity Articles ✍🏾🦅

How to Get Lucky by Eric Jorgenson.
How to Optimize Productivity (While Working Less) by Mike Manson.
Good Enough Is Just Fine by Lawrence Yeo.
The Productivity Guide: Time Management Strategies That Work by James Clear.
No More Productivity Hacks by Zef Hemel.

Product of the Week ✨

APItoolkit.io allows you to build and maintain APIs with fewer downtimes, fewer support tickets, faster time to resolution, and always up-to-date insights.

Good Tidings 🔊

You should check out the Accessibility Project, an ongoing community-driven effort to make web accessibility easier: from articles and checklists to accessibility tools and books.
Mentor organization applications for Google Summer of Code are now open. Like last year, the program is open to students and beginners in open-source software development (learn more).
Suppose you’ve gotten stuck in tutorial hell trying to learn Reactjs, following tutorial after tutorial without making progress. You’ve built so many “to-do list” apps, and yet when you try to build your own project, you don’t know where to start. You should check out Josh’s all-new interactive learning experience that teaches you how to build web applications with Reactjs. If you’re in Nigeria or a similar region, you’d get 70% off the price of the course. You can also preview the content of the course for FREE.
GitHub Education is running the Code Innovation Series in Nigeria, an open-source-focused student developer skilling program. You can sign up now to join the virtual workshop on the 4th of February, 2023.
You should check out this cool tool—a REPL with an interactive debugger for creating PDF files on the browser using Reactjs and the @react-pdf/renderer package.
Here’s the essential guide to conscious language, including the latest news, observations, and style guides—all in one place.
If you're a developer who wants to become an ecommerce expert, you should check out the commerce for devs publication.
Here are 800 free computer science classes you can take online right now.
Here are 720 free online programming and computer science courses you can start to expand your horizons.
Here is a collection of universities, companies, and organizations that offer free online courses with certificates.
If you’re a student (at any level), you can apply to get the GitHub Student Developer Pack and access the best developer tools, resources, and courses for FREE.
Here’s a curated list of project-based programming tutorials you can use to learn how to build applications from scratch.
Need support for your learning? Every month, you can get funding for your learning needs (internet subscription, computer device, or courses) from anonymous people who care.
Here's a recommendation of the top five websites to find remote jobs for different fields in tech.
Joe's Jobs curates the best web, product, engineering, design, DevRel, and open-source startup roles.

Dev Term of the Week 💾

Firewall is a network security device that monitors and filters incoming/outgoing network traffic based on a set of predefined security rules. Learn more here (text) or here (video).

Book Recommendations 📚

All of Grace by Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
Understanding Privacy by Heather Burns.
The Pragmatic Programmer by Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt.
Engineering Management for the Rest of Us by Sarah Drasner.
Building Python Web APIs with FastAPI by Abdulazeez Adeshina.

Featured Tweets and Videos 😍

Here are some tweets I think are cool and some of my favorite videos from YouTube this week.

Bọ́lájí Ayọ̀dejì @iambolajiayo

Please collect your PVCs if you haven’t yet. Please go out and vote next month if you have collected your PVC. Please pray for the country if you can. Do it for yourself and those you care about.

Sarah Drasner @sarah_edo

For the thousandth time, docs are critical. What we build is perceived through the lens of our documentation. They should not be an afterthought or uninvested in.

Bọ́lájí Ayọ̀dejì @iambolajiayo

Becoming a good engineer is about collecting experience.

Angie Jones @techgirl1908

Friends, now is a good time to make sure your resume and LinkedIn are up to date - even if you aren't looking for anything new.

⬇️: JavaScript Algorithms Crash Course

⬇️: 7 Side Hustles You Can Start in 2023

⬇️: Why is Chess.com crashing?

⬇️: Are Tailwind CSS Tradeoffs Worth It?

Quote of the Week 💙

“You've got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and then try to figure out where to sell it.” –Steve Jobs

Shout out to my amazing Patrons: Maya Shavin, Angie Jones, Sarah Drasner, Samson Goddy, and Obinna Odirionye.

Become a Patron 😉

Become a Sponsor 🤝

That's all for this letter. See you next time, and stay safe!

It will help if you forward or share this email with your friends and leave a comment to let me know what you think. Also, if you've not subscribed yet, kindly subscribe below 😊.

Bolaji Ayodeji's Weekly Digest