Weekly Update One
As I have been contemplating what I should blog about on my portfolio website, I realized it would be helpful to show potential employers and potential future clients what I have learned/been working on each week. Thus, I have decided to begin a new series where I talk about what I have been working on each week and sharing it with the world.
So without further ado, I bring you the very first weekly update in what I hope to be a long running series of blog posts to keep y’all up to date with the career of Andrew Weisbeck.
Reviewing JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms
Well really, I am reviewing everything I know and understand about JavaScript. I started learning JavaScript back in 2021 while working as SOC Analyst for the cyber security company Iron Range Cyber (then we were known as CyberOpz). Technically, I started learning JavaScript when I started really trying to learn programming when I graduated college in 2014, but I considered my first real attempt to begin learning JavaScript at this time in 2021. I realized that Python wasn’t the only important programming language and that I could build awesome web applications by learning JavaScript.
I feel that when I started learning JavaScript, I as too eager to just jump into building things and I missed out on really grasping some important concepts of JavaScript. I’m not saying that I don’t understand JavaScript, but I think I haven’t been able to take the next step where I want to be as a developer because I didn’t take the time to practice some things that would make me the developer I want to be.
For example, I still struggle at times with RegEx and JavaScript, because I feel like that topic was boring when I learned it. So to make up for some of those gaps in knowledge, I have started working through some of the FreeCodeCamp.org JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms courses and challenges to review some basic JavaScript topics.
This was important for me, especially since there was a period of time in the last year where I had a break from programming for a few months that caused me to struggle when I stepped back into working on some stuff recently.
You can find a few of those projects that have reviewed these concepts in the portfolio section of this website. I will continue to add projects as I get to spend more time working on this site and will write more about them.
WHATWG and W3 Standards
I have always been interested in the W3 community and spent some time learning more about accessibility and some of the WHATWG specifications to help me better understand the browsers we build web applications with and the standards of the web that we adhere to as developers to make the web more accessible to others.
Specifically, I have spent a lot of time reviewing the Fetch Living Standard and DOM Living Standard so I can learn more about each topic. I have blog posts in the work for these topics in the coming days.
Responsive Web Design
I find it humbling how quickly programming knowledge can go if you are not consistently practicing the basics. One of those things that I felt like I had mastered was CSS and responsive web design. Boy how quickly that can slip from your brain if you are not practicing on a daily basis (or at least somewhat frequently).
I have worked on a variety of projects to get back those CSS skills and will share some of those projects on my portfolio and in blog posts. I think I have an idea for a small project to share my responsive web design work and I plan on playing some games to build these skills back.
Conclusion
There are some other things I’ve worked on this week as far as projects go (like this portfolio) and other learning topics, but I don’t have much time to get in depth about every little thing I have worked on. I also think it would bore you to elaborate on all the stuff I’ve learned this week, so I will keep this post focused on the things I have spent much of my time.
I plan on writing blog posts on interesting in depth topics that I think potential employers may enjoy so stay tuned for more to come on that in the near future.
Thank you for reading what I’m learning about and I hope you find it somewhat interesting or informative about where I’m at currently.