[BAWD #99] Google Dev Library and useState Hell

Jan 22, 2023

Hello 👋🏾,

I trust you had a blissful week. Btw, here’s a friendly reminder that the more time you spend complaining about what you deserve, the less time you have to focus on what you can create. You should focus on the things you can control.

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Featured Technical Articles ✍🏾👩🏽‍💻

A Cure for useState Hell by Steve Sewell.
How to build an ecommerce website with Commerce Layer Demo Store by Bolaji Ayodeji.
The Debossification of Management by Zef Hemel.
Julia Programming Applications – What is Julia Used For? by Ifihanagbara Olusheye.
TypeScript performance lessons while refactoring for v10 by Sachin Raja.
Circuit Breaker Pattern in Microservices by Chameera Dulanga.
How to handle VAT and sales tax calculations by Seth Bindernagel.
Secretless TLS client certificates in GitHub Actions by Carl Tashian.
Unlock the Power of Aggregation in MongoDB: A Beginner's Guide to Mastering Data Analysis by Alao Abiodun AbdulRahman.
Lifetimes in Rust for JavaScript developers by Sid Chatterjee.
GitArchitecture — a better way to capture Architectural decisions by Kyle Brown.
Data Binding in React by Josh Comeau.

Featured Productivity Articles ✍🏾🦅

No More Bad Ideas by Zef Hemel.
What I Do When I Feel Like Giving Up by James Clear.
How to Stop Procrastinating by Mike Manson.
Focus on high-leverage activities by Addy Osmani.
The Riddle of Rest by Lawrence Yeo.

Product of the Week ✨

MotionIt.ai is an AI platform for creating professional slides and videos for pitch decks, conference presentations, and more.

Good Tidings 🔊

It’s been a rough week in the tech industry with thousands of layoffs at Google, Microsoft, Prisma, and others. In this database, you can see all the companies that have laid off staff (including the lists of employees laid off— just in case you’re hiring) since 2022.
The OneTen/BIT Udacity Scholarship Program aims to help Black individuals aged 18 or older looking to advance their skills in business analytics, digital marketing, or front-end web development and prepare them for a high-paying tech job.
Google Season of Docs is back for 2023, and you can learn more about the program or get started by applying as an organization or technical writer.
Applications are also open to joining the Outreachy internship for the May to August 2023 cohort!
Here’s a FREE booklet for people who need guidance in starting a DevOps career, including a roadmap, study guide, list of DevOps interview questions, and answers to some FAQs.
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.
You should check out Dev Library—a platform for open-source projects built around Google tools and technologies. You can explore available projects or submit your project/blog post.
TheJam.dev FREE virtual conference is coming up on Jan 25-26th. You should register now to join developers from across the world to learn about Jamstack, Serverless, and Edge Functions.
The global Sustain OSS unconference will happen on Feb 7th-8th, 2023, at the OpenUK State of the Open Con 2023 in London. You can learn more or apply for ticket support in this post.
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 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 💾

Web Components are a set of web platform APIs that allow the creation of new custom, reusable, encapsulated HTML tags for web pages and web apps. 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.

Andrew Mori @marsInternet

I have hired (literally) hundreds of people in Nigeria over the last 8 years. As I am sitting here reviewing CV's today, I am still completely blown away by the depth of the talent available and the level of professionalism shown.

David K. 🎹 @DavidKPiano

⚛️ Here's a fun React tip: `useReducer` is a better `useState`, and it's easier to adopt than you may think. Group related values together and spread them in the reducer. Then, updating is just: updateThing({ prop: newValue }) And there's even more benefits to `useReducer`...

Screenshot of React code showing two approaches to updating state:

Separate useState hooks:
const [message, setMessage] = useState('');
const [tags, setTags] = useState([]);
const [status, setStatus] = useState('active');

Single useReducer hook:
const [todo, updateTodo] = useReducer(
(data, partialData) => ({
...data,
...partialData,
}),
{ message: '', tags: [], status: 'active' }
);

Screenshot of React code showing the difference between updating a value:

Updating with useState:
onChange={(e) => {
setMessage(e.target.value);
}}

Updating with useReducer:
onChange={(e) => {
updateTodo({
message: e.target.value,
});
}}

Sarah Drasner @sarah_edo

Sometimes when we talk about UX or DX (developer experience), we talk about how easy it is to do something but not about: how easy it is back out of a mistake, or guardrails for not making the mistake to begin with.

Ian Coldwater @IanColdwater

So who *is* hiring in tech right now, and what are you hiring for? Asking for several tens of thousands of people

⬇️: The Official JavaScript Tier List is Here

⬇️: 10 Ways to Legitimately Relocate as a Nigerian

⬇️: 18-year-old makes history as youngest Black mayor in the US

⬇️: What is the Gospel?

Quote of the Week 💙

“Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

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