One thing I’m really bad at is sticking to a schedule I’ve set for myself. If someone else needs me to be somewhere at a certain time, I will arrive early. But I’m hopeless at motivating myself to do things just for myself.

So in the spirit of self-improvement, I want to start posting a weekly roundup of things on the web that I’ve found interesting over the past seven days. There are two rough categories, with a little overlap: the practical tech and development things I’ve liked, and the more philosophical, meta stuff that’s made me think. I figure it will give you folks some good things to read and think about, as well as training myself to stick to a schedule. Sound cool? Okay, here we go.

The Practical!

The 12 YouTube videos new developers mention the most

I’m constantly on YouTube when I’m not working. I like to think I watch a healthy mix of tech and educational content, and let’s-plays. All the videos on this list are really useful to those of us just Starting out. And MPJ is on the list! Who doesn’t love that guy?

CSS in JavaScript: The future of component-based styling

Now, I’ve been working with CSS for years, but I hadn’t done any new learning on the subject in ages until recently. Now I want to devour as much as I can about component-based styling, so this feels like a great starting point. This article talks about Aphrodite, which is high up on my need-to-learn list.

Pair programming is hard

That’s a lot of truth in one headline. Northcoders had us doing pair programming right from day one, so these techniques are really familiar now. I’ve learned about the sort of person I prefer to pair with, but I also learned a lot about the sort of partner I am. I have to slow my natural pace right down in order to explain what I’m doing when I’m driving, but partners really like my natural teaching tendency to encourage when I’m navigating. Apparently I also say “let’s give it a whirl” a lot? Didn’t realise this until my friend Joy pointed out that folks who paired with me started saying it too!

Podcasts for Programmers — Part 1 — Beginners

Every so often, I go through bouts of insomnia. Right now it’s a bit of a problem, partly because I’m off-schedule, so to speak, and partly because my hayfever is being a heinous beast lately and keeping me awake. Podcasts save my sanity during sleepless nights, so this list is most welcome. (If you need recommendations for non-tech pods, my top three are Welcome to Night Vale, Dear Hank and John, and Story Not Story.)

I made my first open source contribution within 200 days (and how you can too)

The headline of this made me giggle, knowing that my friend Jacob got a pull request to Node accepted within days of starting bootcamp.

Color Theory: Brief Guide For Designers.

You guys have no idea how many hours of my life I’ve wasted on colour scheme creators when I’ve been building websites. Pretty sure it amounts to whole weeks.

How to Write a Perfect Error Message

As a very detail-focused designer, I love getting pointers on how to present little things like this.

The Philosophical!

Why striving for perfection might be holding you back as a newbie web developer

Hi, my name is Jo, and I’m a perfectionist. Sometimes it’s a blessing, but mostly it’s a curse. This post has some good Advice that I’m going to try hard to stick to:

My advice is that when you’re learning, build something until it works correctly and looks decent, and then forget it and move on. Don’t look for perfection.

Why You Shouldn’t Take Advice From Almost Anyone

I found this one fascinating. It’s certainly something I’ve been guilty of in the past, and without going into too much detail it landed me in some bad places. I wish I had read this years ago.

An amateur’s guide to turning impostor syndrome into an asset

I’ve felt like an impostor in everything that I’ve ever done – when I played classical guitar at national level as a teenager, when I was onstage leading a band at uni, when I was in front of a class of thirty-odd children as a teacher, and even now as a newbie developer. Turning that creeping horror into an asset is something I could really use.

Link of the Week: this list of public APIs

How insanely useful is this?! Urge to build Studio Ghibli wiki… rising… grrrhk…

Hey, I would really love your feedback on this post. Were there too many links? Is my commentary on each article useful to you? Let me know!