

The adventures of Matt Lawrence and Mike Karan through the world of web development, web design, and small business management. As web development agency owners for the better part of a decade, they’ve worked with all sorts of technologies, through the rise of responsive web design, the revolution of serverless computing, and the popularity gain of many no-code tools for small business owners. They commonly discuss foundational web development technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript - including popular frameworks and tools such as Tailwind CSS, Svelte, WordPress, Vue, and more.
Episodes
Wednesday Sep 05, 2018
Learning New Technologies
Wednesday Sep 05, 2018
Wednesday Sep 05, 2018
Learning new technologies can be a difficult thing to start, let alone master. In this episode we discuss how we started with new technologies and how to expand those introductions into mastery with a given framework, plugin, or other product.
Segment 1 - Getting Started
- Identify Objectives
- Ensure that your selected technology cover as many of your objectives as possible
- Sometimes your objective is just to learn a given technology - with no specific project objective(s)
- Do the "My First App" example
- Most documentation have users go through a first introductory app to get them started quickly
- Use this first app as a way to get your foot in the door - use it as a foundation for your project, or as a learning platform
- Documentation Open
- Don't shy away from documentation - I always have it open!
- As you look up each and every piece of a given technology you're slowly learning its ins and outs
- Eventually you won't need the documentation to complete a given task
- Easiest Start
- There are typically a lot of different ways to get started with a given technology (ie install via npm, use via CDN, etc.)
- Use the easiest starting point - probably the one that compliments your existing development environment - so that you don't get caught in a rut trying to learn how install something
- Find the fastest route to learning
Segment 2 - When to Learn New Technologies
- Personal vs Client Work Projects
- You must find the balance between learning something new, or using something familiar because you're working on your client's time
- Let the client know what you're doing or planning, they may want you to work on learning a new technology - maybe they want a new feature
- Do extensive research into a given technology to prevent issues down the line, costing you time and your client needless money
- Performance
- Sometimes performance becomes important when applications get large, make sure you use the technology that best compliments your objective and gives the best performance
- For example: NodeJS is good at concurrent connections
- Popularity
- Popular apps typically have a job market
- Learning React or Angular, as of writing this, would put you in a good position for finding a job
- You can also participate in an up and coming technology to get into a growing community
- Need
- Sometimes you have no choice but to learn a new library, framework, language, etc.
Segment 3 - Get Up and Running Quickly
- Researching
- Google your issues
- Check documentation
- At this stage ensure that the tech can cover all your needs
- Watching/Reaching Tutorials
- Before commiting, watch some YouTube tutorials to see if you like any of them
- If you continue working with the technology you now have a reference/video series to learn more
- Documentation
- Great documentation can make learning a lot easier
- Bad documentation does the exact opposite, makes it harder
- Community
- Take a look at the community and try to avoid toxicity
- Check various communities (ie Reddit, Discord, Stack Overflow, etc.)
- Your own "My First App"
- Choose a simple function that might be a single piece of a project
- Gives you a good view on learning and implementing
Web News - Cell Phone Longevity & Endurance
- Battery life on cell phones is typically not great, after several product generations of fighting for better battery life (specifically more capacity), it seems that consumers have given up to a degree
- Android seems have issues managing background tasks
- Apps dont' close completely sometimes
- Sometimes they close too early from the "recent apps"
- Manufacturers try and combat this by having various battery management software added to their Android versions
- More efficient processors like those in the Snapdragon 600 series offer more efficient battery usage, but don't offer flagship speed like those in the 800 series
- Flagship phones have the best features and specs, but typically lack in battery life
- Android phones seem to drop in battery performance when you're on the go - GPS turns on a lot even when not navigating
You can find us on...
No comments yet. Be the first to say something!