What a lonnnnnnnnng break it’s been huh? I don’t want to get into specifics about my situation, it’s a well beaten horse, but I am stable and in a safe place and can continue to work towards another software job.

The times, they are a’changin’

It’s a brutal market for us techies. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this, even 2001 seemed less terrible than the past three quarters. It is infuriating, not just because I was laid off, but it seems that everyone is, was, and it is hard for tech workers to get back into the field.

Also, it isn’t just the slackers being given a pink slip; tenured engineers with awards are being shoved out the door of Google and Microsoft at will and opening up LinkedIn is an exercise in not wanting to jump off a bridge.

Resend! I am moving back to Buttondown. I will talk about it in another newsletter.

Talk to any nerd about marketing and selling, and you’ll hear common refrains, the classics like:

• Marketing is gross.

• ew

• Marketing? You mean shilling.

With a shudder or smirk to accompany this disgust.

Been a long while, again. Sorry y’all.

I got laid off February 4th of this year.

Brief-ish newsletter. I am hoping to do more of these now that things have settled down.

So…I got a job!

This is just some thoughts on life and tech and how having a routine helps stave off burnout.

I have a 17 Day Streak on freeCodeCamp which is . My longest streak was 4 and I am really proud of how I’ve stuck with it; I don’t always put in more than one challenge or algorithm, but I and .

Been a looooooong time I suppose.

Last year’s hell is this year’s hangover, or so it seems.

There are periods of intense studying, thinking about problems, filling up my freeCodeCamp consecutive days streak in dark green squares.

I am publishing this here first before my blog. Let’s see how this works.

Joel Hooks, creator of egghead.io wrote a post on automating new posts for Gatsby with a basic npm script.

I decided that, with a few modifications specific to Gatsby Starter Blog, I would publish it as a package on npm.

First to market? Hardly ever

Another year is gone and everyone is doing their retrospectives; goals they did or didn’t accomplish in 2018 and what they plan on doing in 2019.

I wrote such a piece in the beginning of December and I thought I’d go through some things I didn’t mention in that post.

Some Letdowns

I was not offered a position at DEV. Simply put: I did not perform well. I did initially, but after a month or so, I began to have lapses in judgement that cost me. I couldn’t navigate VS Code with just my keyboard, I wasn’t taking notes so the things I was instructed on doing I would forget.

Just a heads-up: I’m an egghead.io instructor now! My profile is pretty barren of content but I have some things up my sleeve. The link is in the footer if you want to check it out later.Stay tuned.

I am currently working on interviewing with a pretty great company and this means preparing for technical interviews.

Sorry about collecting emails and then not posting anything for a while! This newsletter will explain some things and hopefully give some insights to new developers as well.

Last year around this time I was looking for work and getting some nibbles on the things I put out there. The end of the year ended with an internship at dev.to. I had a blast working with the team despite my shortcomings. I figured by the time I moved, sometime in the summer, I’d have work. I didn’t think that here, in November, I’d still be looking for a permanent, full-time mid-level developer job.

Interviews with Automattic and Microsoft

This summer I had interviews with both Automattic, makers of WordPress.com and Microsoft within a couple weeks of each other.

A collection of the best React, JavaScript, and front-end development links for the month of September.

This segment of the newsletter is being named what it was originally called eons ago: Critical Linking. I got the idea from Book Riot a couple years ago and decided to use it for my newsletter. If you’ve read it’s essentially the same thing.

I am just beginning to write documentation for my open source projects. I have had some stumbles along the way but I am still learning how to communicate what each app/tool does.

Here are some of the basics that I am learning while drafting my docs:

1. Have a good and sections to get a user up to speed on installing the tool/s on their local machine for testing and development.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? There are some good things happening right now so I’ve been busy with that. More details as I get them.

I have had a pretty eventful couple of weeks!

I mentioned on Twitter about a Google recruiter getting a hold of me on LinkedIn:

In order for React to be as fast as it is, it only needs to update the parts of the DOM that need it. You really don’t need to worry about doing this yourself, but understanding how setState() in React works could be beneficial.

The render() Function

Links of Note

It’s been a bit of a week! From snow to 90°? Wild.

If you haven’t noticed I have switched from TinyLetter to Buttondown.email as they allow writing in markdown as well as other necessary features for free for the first 1000 subs. I am nowhere near that so I am happy to be a part of this.

Without further ado! This week’s

Well, it’s been a couple weeks, hasn’t it?

There’s not much to say except that I moved, back to my tiny hometown because . The place is technically barren so there are no dev jobs here, especially cutting edge web dev jobs…or…cutting edge dev jobs…or…cutting edge . I hate this place but it is what it is. I digress.