[BAWD #97] 2023, Growth, and The End of Programming

Jan 1

Hello, dear friend 👋🏾,

I trust you’re having a great new year celebration. I wish you all a growth-filled year and hope you find and receive the greatest gift, amen, Btw, here’s a friendly reminder that while you’re prepping to start or restart your goals and new year resolutions, remember that you’d spend more time on the journey than the destination, so if you really want to enjoy your life while building yourself, you need to find joy in the journey. There’s no magic to growth; you need to put in the right hard work, develop a growth mindset, and consistently focus on improving by at least 1% daily. The accumulation of your hard work and daily steps will lead you to those goals. And quoting the great Johnny Drille:

Whatever you do, remember to stay humble and cool your temper. No forget your own 'cause e no matter the condition. You just believe in your heart, and you go dey alright. No forget say after rainfall, and after the dark, the sun go shine. Keep your heart my friend, don't lose yourself. In the morning time, the sun go shine

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Featured Technical Articles ✍🏾👩🏽‍💻

First Principles for Software Engineers by Addy Osmani.
Test Management within Continuous Integration Pipelines by Angie Jones.
How To Set Up a GraphQL API Server in Node.js by Tania Rascia.
The hidden costs of waiting on slow build times by Natalie Somersall.
The End of Programming by Matt Welsh.
Building an external payment gateway with the Twitter API by Bolaji Ayodeji.
How to grow your engineers through continuous feedback by João Fernandes.
What is “engineering for software?” by Dave Farley.
The World Is Run By People No Smarter Than You by Swyx.
Color Formats in CSS by Josh Comeau.

Featured Productivity Articles ✍🏾🦅

How to Beat Worry by Lawrence Yeo.
Absolute Success is Luck. Relative Success is Hard Work. by James Clear.
What’s the Secret to Learning? It’s Belonging by Layla Murray.
How to Optimize Productivity (While Working Less) by Mike Manson.

Product of the Week ✨

Laws of UX is a collection of best practices that designers can consider when building user interfaces.

Good Tidings 🔊

The harder our brain has to work to retrieve information, the more neurons strengthen in the retrieval process. The forgetting curve hypothesizes that information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it. As humans, we halve our memory of newly learned knowledge in days unless we consciously revise it. Hence the need to utilize techniques like Active Recall and Spaced Repetition to interrupt the forgetting curve and retain knowledge longer.
A group of designers has created an open-source design system for the Nigerian government, providing a consistent and user-friendly interface for web products.
Want to get better at explaining your skills and experiences to a potential employer by writing a compelling cover letter? Then you should check out this course.
It’s a new year; here are 720 free online programming and computer science courses you can start to expand your horizons.
CS50 is an on-campus and online introductory course on computer science taught at Harvard University and Yale University. In this FREE course, you'll get an introduction to programming, algorithms, data structures, SQL, and much more.
If you’re a professional who works outside of tech, you may wonder what certain technical jargon means or how tech works. Angie Jones bridges the gap and helps you understand the technical world in this easy-to-follow course.
If you’re a big fan of learning with visuals, check out this repository describing complex matters related to Algorithms, Machine Learning, Web Development, etc., with simple doodles.
Here’s a new self-study course from Google where you'd learn how to write more explicit and more effective error messages.
If you’re a student (at any level), you can apply to get the GitHub Student Developer Pack and access the best developer tools 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 💾

HTTP Cookies are small blocks of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website in a web browser. Learn more here (text) or here (video).

Book Recommendations 📚

All of Grace by Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
Engineering Management for the Rest of Us by Sarah Drasner.
Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel.
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.

Costi W. Hinn @costiwhinn

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Adam Wathan @adamwathan

Big life lesson for me over the past year or so is realizing how important it is to be clear on your expectations of others and make sure others are clear on what they should expect from you. Lot of unhappiness stems from just not having decided what you can and can't expect.

nader (🧱, 🚀) | nader.lens @dabit3

What a lot of developers get wrong is thinking that users care even a tiny bit about the technology stack that their product is built on. The only thing that matters is delivering either a higher-quality user experience or a better value proposition than what already exists.

Simon @simonholdorf

Learn for free in 2023: AWS → explore.skillbuilder.aws Azure → learn.microsoft.com GCP → github.com/priyankavergad… DevOps → edx.org/learn/devops Docker → docker-curriculum.com Security → tryhackme.com Python → learnpython.org ⬇️ more ⬇️

learnpython.orgLearn Python - Free Interactive Python Tutoriallearnpython.org is a free interactive Python tutorial for people who want to learn Python, fast.

⬇️: Raspberry Pi versus AWS // How to host your website on the RPi4

⬇️: Building a Full Stack Social Mobile App in 15 minutes with Expo, React Native, and Lens Protocol

⬇️: Make the Most of Your Home Office Video Setup

⬇️: How to Find Gold in God’s Word: Reading the Bible with Supernatural Help

Quote of the Week 💙

“There will never be a perfect time to do something that stretches you. That’s true whether you are starting a business, having a child, changing careers, or wrestling with any number of challenges. That’s not a license to be reckless and never think things through, but at some point you have to embrace the uncertainty because it is the only path forward. If you were ready for it, it wouldn't be growth.” –James Clear

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

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

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Bolaji Ayodeji's Weekly Digest