Wow, I've Fallen Behind

The last couple months have been really hectic for me and unfortunately I didn’t get much done on my recipe side project.

I ended up getting a fair amount in using Ruby on Rails 5.1, but never was really able to really get a rhythm going and am still not sure that I want to write it in Rails.

This past weekend I decided I really wanted to get back into it. It might not have been the best weekend as I had a graduation party Saturday night and a Phillies game Sunday with the family, but on Friday after work I decided I was going to sit down and look into React.

Looking at React made me realize that outside of work, I might have fallen behind some with where things currently are in the world of software and web development. For the last several years, all I’ve really done are some basic websites and stuff for my jobs in the .NET world. I haven’t really dug into a side project or kept up which can definitely be harmful for software developers.

Looking at my calendar, the month of August thankfully doesn’t look too busy. I’m hoping that I can spend some evenings digging into several new (to me) languages and technologies. My plan to start is to look at ES6, React & Node.js. I figure others might pop up during my exploration so I’ll just have to see where I wind up.

Back to this past weekend…

On Friday, I ended up starting out with the Tic-Tac-Toe tutorial on React’s official site. I’m still getting used to the syntax and some of the new functionality of ES6, but I think I’m beginning to understand the basics of how it works. I still have a ways to go before I’m ready to really start developing, but sometimes the first step is the hardest. I think this is basically is my problem. I’m overwhelmed by how far it seems I’ve fallen behind, and am struggling to take that first step up the ladder to climb out of this little hole.

I’m confident that if I put my mind to things, I can do it, I just have to avoid the distractions that pop up and really focus. I still want to do my recipe site, but I might end up writing it in something other than Rails depending on how this all goes.