Another notebook recommendation from one of my blog buddies. This time, it’s Michael Wade recommending the Dingbat journals.
I must resist ordering one now. Although, I will definitely consider one of these when my current bullet journal runs out.
When it comes to blogs, Kurt Harden has one of the best there is. A wide range of topics, daily bite size posts and best of all, he just tells it like it is.
Definitely a blog to aspire to.
Nicholas Bate goes beyond the to do list. Always an essential part of my daily surfing on the web.
I’m halfway through Marvel’s Daredevil on Netflix. Definitely my favourite of the four defender series.
I’m of the mind that web development has become overly complicated. Or maybe I just don’t have the patience for it anymore.
Ruby falling out of fashion?
Ruby is falling again on the TIOBE index.
It’s not a cause for alarm, but I will continue to look at alternatives to Ruby for the long term. Microsoft’s .NET is still something I would like to come back to and there are more opportunities for it as well.
While not directly related, I also did notice that Thoughtbot have made their learning platform, Upcase, free for all. An attempt to get more developers to use Ruby?
Got me a new prompt in the form of Spaceship ZSH. Git, Ruby and Docker info all in the one prompt. Nice!
Staying productive with side projects
I’m in the process of moving back to full-time employment, but the step away from being self-employed doesn’t mean that I am abandoning any of the side projects that I have been working on. I’m putting a few ideas together for DailyMuse, and there’s another more significant project that is a work in progress. Working on these in my spare time can be difficult especially when I have to consider other important things in life.
In the last few weeks though, I’ve been making smaller sprints for my side project, and instead of scheduling big blocks of time, I’m picking up the work when I want to work on it.
Zach Holman’s post on staying productive as a solo founder puts it in a better way.
There’s something to be said for focus, of course, but life’s too short to constantly throw yourself at the wall day in and day out. If you really believe in your product and think that generally, it’s something that can get you stoked, then taking a break for a while is usually worth it, and is more productive in the long run. It’ll draw you back in again in the future; don’t worry about it too much.
— Staying Productive as a Solo Founder by Zach Holman
As a programmer I know I’ll always have the itch to be building stuff on the side. From experience, I’ve learnt that working on side projects when I want to is a much more effective way of working on them than consistently plugging away at them and getting depressed about them.
I’m becoming more interested in Google’s Material Design for my web applications.
The Materialize framework looks like it will be starting point thanks to the Materialize SASS gem.
VS Code continues to impress me. Not just in terms of functionality, but also in the consistent updating and improvement of the application. Monthly updates are becoming something I look forward to now.