Top Reads for 2017
2017 was my first year out of full time education and into full time work. I learnt so much every single day, and read a ridiculous amount of articles. When I sat down to write this post, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things, and assumed that the quantity had outweighed the quality.
After reviewing and collating my top five articles, I realised there was a huge amount of great content that was published this year. This year’s is mostly focused on code-y articles, but there were plenty of non-tech articles that made their way into my purview this year. I subscribed to and read a bunch of stuff on Nautilus and The Atlantic.
Anyway, here they are in no particular order, my top five articles of 2017.
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Deploying ES2015+ Code in Production Today
It'd be nice if we were able to all the latest features in Javascript, but we also have the imperative to support users on older web browsers that can't interpret these features. For web developers worried about the bundle size of their web apps, this neat hack allows you to selectively push bundles without transpiling chaff to web browsers that DO support modern Javascript features, and ensure that only older browsers receive the older code.
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One Bite At A Time: Partitioning Complexity
Sometimes we all get overwhelmed by the complexity of the code we're writing. This is especially true when you're modifying a huge legacy codebase. Kent Beck has written a great meditative read on how we can keep calm and make changes iteratively, rationally. A few of these techniques you'll pick up along the way in your journey as a developer, but this compilation is really awesome. A must-read if you're a budding web developer starting out on your career.
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Web Components: The Long Game
Web components still seem to be some way off, but this great article highlights the value of having a browser-native component standard; sophistication of tooling proportional to the problem at hand. It's ridiculous to have a whole bundling platform just to write a single reusable component. Web components, and the associated standards that help enable it, promise to bring back what Alex calls Ctrl-R web development. It's worth watching the linked conference talk Alex did as well. I'm keen for the future.
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To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies, Then and Now
Important reading for anyone who stills believes that the rise of pseudo-employment companies like Uber is only a good thing. Employee welfare measures and career advancement opportunities are being eroded for those not fortunate enough to have had tertiary education and the professional network it brings with it. I won't say anymore, just read it.
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Stop making learning to code easier
This great read goes through some common pitfalls that people (including myself) encounter when learning to code through sites like CodeAcademy. The intent is great, but these programs don't teach you critical skills required for developing code; debug logs, hypothesis and test-driven development.