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Welcoming the challenge of Open Learning

I was having a conversation with my girlfriend - who is also an engineer - a while back on the struggles of keeping up with technology. Arguably, it's the hardest part of our job. Rarely do you get the chance to experiment freely during work hours so unfortunately it can be left up to individuals to do in their own time. I don't agree with this as it really restricts those who have obligations such as children and families, however, that's the situation we're in.

I'll be honest with you internet - my learning hasn't just slowed over recent months, it's completely halted. It turns out when you mix a global pandemic, being stuck in doors all the time whilst having to build business critical and time senstive products it can be incredibly draining on you mentally. Thankfully, work is easing up, we're heading into christmas and all of a sudden my desire to improve, broaded and deepen not just my programming knowledge but general knowlegde has increased. So here I am writing a blog post about how I want to start learning in the open. Mostly so that I have a public commitment to myself.

So, what do I want to learn in public?

It turns out a whole lot, from different languages to best practices.

Programming languages:

  • Rust
  • Reason
  • Python
  • Scala

Databases:

  • Deepen my knowledge of SQL
  • Deepen my knowlegde of DynamoDB

Infrastructure:

  • AWS CDK

Product:

  • I want to spend a bunch of time learning about engaging with customers so that I can better understand their needs
  • How to measure the success of a particular feature or product

General

  • Computer Science - I regard myself as a pretty good developer. I've built production mobile apps, web apps and backends, and I've got my dream job as an Engineering Lead, however, I don't have a CS degree and I genuinly feel that this holds me back from achieving what I want to achieve. So, I'm going to work out how to gain a good, robust CS and maths knowlegde without going to uni. Looking at you freecodecamp.
  • Functional programming with JS. Why not?
  • Continue to deepen my knowledge in all things GraphQL. I've been working with GraphQL for a few years now, however, my skills and knowledge are stagnating.
  • Spend more time watching conference talks on YouTube.

As well as dedicated and intentional practice I'm going to force myself to start reading more articles to help broaden my knowlegde.

What's the first step?

Well to get started I've signed up to egghead again (on a monthly sub just now) and that's been great, the short informational videos are ideal to my learning style and are helping me build up a habbit. Next up I'm going to just work on areas of my coding abilities that I don't normally work on and we'll go from there.

Wish me luck Internet.