This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Nick Taylor
Like last year, 2021 has been quite the year. Despite the pandemic, I stayed healthy and managed to have a pretty good year.
@dabit3 - gave 4 talks
- trained consistently (3 HIIT sessions/week)
- big impacts at work: got E2E testing in place, resuscitated Gitpod in time for Hacktoberfest for Forem, mentored/paired
- streamed + live-coded a tonne on Twitch with amazing guests + community members
- explored web315:24 PM - 24 Dec 2021
This reply to Nader Dabit's Tweet sum up a lot of my year, but let's break it down.
Talks
I gave four talks. Were these conference talks? Most were lunch and learns, but I also had a Hacktoberfest talk.
The first talk of the year was for The Collab Lab. I went over what Storybook is and how you can use it in your application. I even did a live coding session demonstrating its use in one of The Collab Lab cohort's projects.
Here's the accompanying slide deck and blog post for the talk.
The Collab Lab was looking for more mentors recently, so I offered to mentor. I'm looking forward to meeting my cohort in Q2! Let's go!
My second talk of the year was a lunch and learn for my favourite community, Virtual Coffee! It was all about debugging JavaScript. From console.log to debugger.
Here's the accompanying slide deck.
Next up was another lunch and learn for Virtual Coffee, "Getting Started with Streaming on Twitch". A lot of folks were interested in streaming and learning in public, so I shared what I had learnt after one year of streaming on Twitch.
Here's the accompanying slide deck and blog post for the talk. Check out the blog post, as there was stuff I didn't have time to mention or forgot.
My last talk of the year was for Hacktoberfest. The AppWrite team approached me to talk about open source, and I was happy to oblige.
I appear at this point in the video.
Here is the accompanying slide deck.
If you're interested in other talks I've given, you can check out my talks page.
Workshops
I gave two workshops at Codeland 2021! The first one was about contributing to open source with my awesome co-worker Arit Amana.
Super-excited for the Open Source Blastoff workshop @codelandconf tomorrow!! 💃🏾
@nickytonline and I will demo how to start contributing to @forem using @gitpod 🎉
Here’s a short video I made showing how to spin Forem up fast on GitPod;
youtu.be/ThK9KcmWOas
#WomenWhoCode19:53 PM - 22 Sep 2021
The second workshop was on accessibility with my other awesome co-worker Suzanne Aitchison.
Super stoked to co-lead another @codelandconf workshop tomorrow, "Building the web for all: A primer on accessibility", with @s_aitchison.
Let's go! #CodeLand202101:18 AM - 24 Sep 2021
Folks paid for these workshops, so there is nothing I can share aside from some kind words from Jenny, one of the workshop attendees.
Jenny Nickell@jenny_nickell
Super thankful for the opportunity to join @codelandconf workshop Open Source Blastoff. Big thanks to @aritdeveloper and @nickytonline for a fun and informative workshop!19:25 PM - 23 Sep 2021
Making an Impact at Work
It's funny how this section of my year in review is short, but nonetheless, I made some big impacts at work:
- I got end-to-end (E2E) testing in place
- Revived Gitpod in time for Hacktoberfest for Forem
- Mentored and paired a tonne
- Shipped features
- Worked a lot with the community (we're open source)
Streaming and Live Coding
This year, I streamed a bunch with my co-worker Christina on the DEV Twitch stream, but I also got back into streaming more on my channel.
If you're interested in checking out the back catalogue of DEV Twitch streams, check out the DEV YouTube channel.
I also have my own YouTube channel where some of my streams persist.
Explored Web3
I won't link to all the projects I've done in this space (you can check out my GitHub profile, but I will link to one project since it's modestly popular. I created a web3 starter project template.
nickytonline
/
web3-starter
An opinionated web3 starter for building dApps
Web3 Starter
The goal of this project is to give you an opinionated boilerplate to start a web3 project.
Contributing
If you are interested in contributing to the project, first read our contributing guidelines. Take a look at our existing issues or if you come across an issue create an issue For feature requests, start a discussion first.
Getting Started (Local Development)
-
Install the dependencies
npm install # or yarn -
Start the project
npm run dev # or yarn dev
Open http://localhost:3000 with your browser to see the result.
Getting Started (Gitpod)
The project can be run in Gitpod. Navigate to https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/nickytonline/hello-edge-and-node. If you wish to load it in Gitpod as an external contributor, you will need to fork the project first, then open the fork in Gitpod, e.g. https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/some_user_that_forked_the_repository/hello-edge-and-node.
- Gitpod will take a minute or two to load.
- If this is the first time…
If you are interested in web3, definitely check out Buildspace and consider joining a DAO like Developer DAO.
I'm still exploring this controversial space, but all I can say for now is
it's been fun exploring the tech and ideas.
Podcasts
2021 was the year of podcasts for me. Before 2021, I had never been a guest on a podcast.
Back to my favourite community, Virtual Coffee, I had the privilege of being the podcast's first guest. It was awesome chilling with my friends Bekah and Dan.
Later on in the year, I got to hang with my co-worker Ben Halpern, Jonathan Carter, principal program manager at Microsoft, and Cassidy Williams, director of developer experience at Netlify.
We discussed Visual Studio Code and all things related to it.
In the fall, Candost Dagdeviren reached out to me on Polywork about being a guest on their podcast. It was a great discussion. Check out episode #25, Live Pair Programming, Open Source, and Building Communities with Nick Taylor.
And to round off the year of podcasts, I got to hang with my co-workers Ben Halpern and Arit Amana, along with Michael Boroff, mental health program manager at Crossover Health to discuss imposter syndrome.
Working Out 💪🏻
Since gyms are closed, I built a garage gym. It's not huge, but it lets me put in the work.
I trained consistently this year, typically 3 one hour HIIT sessions/week. I say typically because I was on vacation (pandemic vacation) for parts of the year, and a few of the weeks might have been one or two sessions only due to appointments or some anomaly in my regular schedule.
Not only did this keep me sane, it just all around made me feel better. Since I train at 7 am, it's also a great way to start the day feeling energized and having a clear head.
I'm still not where I want to be, but it feels great working out consistently again as year one of the pandemic derailed my training. Also, after performing thousands of lunges this year and all kinds of single limb training, my body is snowboard-ready. 🏂🏻
Fun Stuff
I rebuilt my backyard rink. It's a little wider this year and twice as tall. I ran into issues mid-winter last year where the ice ended up being at the same height as the walls. I had to use scraps of wood; I had to make it taller along with snow and ice. It worked but making it twice as tall this year will avoid all that.
How it started
Start with an empty canvas14:29 PM - 20 Nov 2021
How it's going
Stay safe friends and see you in 2022!
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Nick Taylor
Nick Taylor | Sciencx (2021-12-31T04:32:21+00:00) My 2021 Year in Review. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2021/12/31/my-2021-year-in-review/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.