For the past couple years I've been using so much Typescript and Javascript, it should probably be illegal. That's been the case for about 10 years, ever since I actually began teaching myself programming.

I never really understood the gripe with Javascript, but man-alive, Typescript eats me alive every time. Not because I'm bad at it (although still learning), it's just a colossal pain in the butt. Working with it is literally a nightmare I couldn't wake up from for a while. 

This is entirely hyperbolic of course, I think what it does, it does well, and I mean if you want any sort of type-safety I guess it's the better of the alternatives? 

I suckered myself into working with Javascript so often without learning something new, I thought I became a smooth brain. Literally, the degradation in cognitive performance and decrease in confidence is actually kind of wild.

I didn't teach myself anything new for a good long while - just sticking to the same language and the same way of doing things. Since I've been laid off, I've been exploring and learning so much more that it's actually been fun again.

Now one could make an argument that the reason I didn't teach myself anything new was because I didn't want me ego to take a hit. I mean, my self-esteem fell so fast it was but a blink of an eye and I was questioning my sanity. That really opens your eyes to your mental predisposition I guess. But that's for another day.

Anyway, this I've been laid off I've picked up Go, HTMX, and SQL (raw, unadulterated SQL). I've learned something interesting during this process. Since moving away from the Javascript ecosystem and practicing DSA, learning different programming patterns etc., I feel like my mental cognition has increased. Weird.

I've been stretching myself mentally and it's been paying off. Things are still hard and I have to watch my thought processes when learning something new because for some God-forsaken reason, I think that I should know everything I don't know even before I see it for the first time. Crazy!

But learning Go has brought the fun back into programming and I'm excited to dive deeper into this great language! Also SQL is neat, and I wish I was using an ORM or something, but I know it's for the best. 

Breaking outside of the Javascript ecosystem and taking on something new has also (I believe) made me a better programmer and when I do program in Javascript, I'll be better prepared with different programming patterns because languages like C# or Golang or whatever, force you into programming in a certain pattern, right? So then you become familiar which makes you better in my opinion. With all this practice, now you can go from language to language with an understanding of how to effectively build software using its pattern. Which before was a problem for me. I didn't really understand different programming patterns and didn't really want to learn.

Since go is a more procedural language, I'm starting to understand what that actually means which is fantastic. 

Now I might totally be wrong, I'm still getting used to what are Object Oriented programming languages, what are procedural/functional. These are things I will be teaching myself because I want to learn the lingo.

Anyway, you've made it this far and you're wondering: "What did I just read?" And for you, I have no answers. Welcome to my blog where my thoughts become word soup. 

In the end learning Go, SQL, HTMX, and DSA etc., has been a lot of fun and moving outside of what I've lived in for so long (Javascript/Typescript) has been a breath of fresh air.

Give it a try! Learn something new especially if you've been in a particular ecosystem for a long while!

For the past couple years I've been using so much Typescript and Javascript, it should probably be illegal. That's been the case for about 10 years, ever since I actually began teaching myself programming.

Learning new languages has been eye-opening.

I've exited the Matrix. You should too.

I think there are a lot of questions going around about newcomers jumping into libraries like React while having a limited amount of knowledge around the language it's built on - Javascript.

Atleast that's what I see on Reddit, just general stuff asking about which library or framework they should jump into even though they don't know much about the underlying language. Which is fine. It's good to be curious and always looking forward.

However, you'd be doing yoursel a disservice by putting the cart before the horse and jumping too far ahead of your skillset.

If you're new, you're definitely going to want to stay in the mines for a while and learn the basics of development. This means if you're learning how to style a website, learn basic CSS before using Bootstrap or Sass etc. Learn the root before an abstraction.

The same can be said for anything you're learning. Root before abstraction. Javascript before React/Vue/Svelte. HTML before HTMX or another templating language like Ember or Handlebars (is that still a thing).

The reason being: imagine you got a job and you knew React really well, you're really good at it. That's great! The work has paid off. Now what if they moved to something else, what if they ditched it all together because the web-dev GigaChads got to the C-Suite and they decided to go with Vue (gag). Now what?

Because you won't have a deeper understanding of the underlying technology, I believe that'll be a disadventage for you. Keep in mind this is ONLY MY OPINION. It's also the perspective I took when I was learning early on. I remember picking up Bootstrap, but putting it down at some point early on in order to really understand CSS and not have to rely on some sort of abstraction.

When you are confident with the underlying technology, then definitely pick up something else, learn another thing. Now that I know how to use CSS on its own, I can move onto things like Tailwind and other CSS abstractions.

The same thing goes for me and Javascript. I started with Javascript then incorporated some Meteor, some Ember, some Gulp back in the day, lots of different things. Now keep in mind it's not always linear; I hoped around a lot. But learning Javascript was crucial to me knowing how to use React. Don't get me wrong, I don't know exactly _how_ React works under the hood, though I'd love to figure that out, but I knew enough where it was time to move on.

This isn't suppose to be some grand article, but it's important for you to know the basics before moving onto big-ole libraries and frameworks. Think about your future self: "What would happen if I couldn't use this library any more and had to use it's root technology?" That's what I ask myself when considering an abstraction. I think you should too.

Anyway, go get that bread. Take the time to learn and be curious. This curiousity will pay off down the road and never forget to have fun. Don't take this as gospel; mess around and try new things, but always come back to the root. Grow your roots deep, my friend.

Take care now, bye bye then.

I want to talk about going from knowing a limited amount of programming knowledge to jumping into using libraries like React, or Tailwind, or Bootstrap even. If you like this article, let me know, if not, crucify me - it's fine.

Why learning the basics is important for beginners

# Laid off.

Like so many people in the tech sphere (but of course, not limited to tech), I was laid off. I think like most people, it comes as a shock. And shock me it did.

It’s funny because it’s one of those experiences where you see everyone else going through and you think that it couldn’t possibly happen to you, yet here we are. It looks like I’ve joined the job hunt again!

You really learn a lot about yourself in difficult times like these. I don’t believe that being laid off has to be entirely a bad experience. Just like I don’t believe bad experiences in general have to be *bad*. I want to also preface that with a giant, solar system-sized asterisk that says **this isn’t always the case**, but more or less just a generalization.

When i was given the news, my mind immediately jumped to next steps. It was funny, I had no questions to ask because my mind was already long gone figuring out what to do to move through this tough situation. In and amongst the garbage of such a situation, there is a silver lining if you can find it.

My silver lining is:

- I can pursue a new company with new projects, salary, position, etc. and that’s exciting
- I’ve learned how I react in what is a very stressful situation and when i’m pushed to such extremes, what do i do inherently - what’s the first thing i do? Do i panic? Or do i start trying to find a way out.

I don’t think you should take much from me considering my situation. I’m privileged in a sense - i have a place to stay for the foreseeable future with what are relatively few bills. I could have a house to pay for, kids, etc. While that is true, it is nevertheless a stressful situation that so many people can relate to in recent years.

I planned for contingencies like “How long can I live off debt?”, “At what point will I get a minimum wage job to just pay the bills”, “What will I do in the mean time?” I also want to talk about a big lesson that I had to learn the hard way I wish I just did earlier.

## I took advantage of those around me

During the process of being laid off, i couldn’t have asked for a better workplace to support me during this transition. I know it was a hard decision for them and if it could’ve gone any other way, I know they would have done it.

The afternoon on the day I was laid off (funny enough my manager who was also on the call, was also laid off) I hoped on a call with him and we went over my resume, talked about my time there, the troubles of being laid off, my worries and fears, and steps going forward.

He helped me polish up my LinkedIn and gave me good advice on what to do next which included getting recommendations from the people I worked with - so that’s what I did.

I spoke to my manager, teams leads, coworkers and the CEO to get something to put on my profile which was awesome because they all came through and now I have some feedback for potential employers to see; it’s also nice seeing how they felt about me.

## It’s scary

The whole darn process is scary, but yet I feel like it’s going to be okay. I don’t know how or what will happen. With so many people flooding the market, how does little ol’ me separate himself from the pack? I have 2 years of professional experience with 7+ before this just hacking away - learning. That is probably the scariest part of it all. I look around on social media and see depressing posts about how long someone has been job hunting without any luck. I know there are a lot of different factors that come into play there that i’m not privy to, but one cannot help but think that the same will happen to them.

I don’t think there is much benefit to be had dwelling on such situations and questions, so alas, we shall move on.

The worst part of it all actually, is leaving my team.

## Always have “F-you” money

Straight up, I wish I learned this sooner, but I guess it has to be the hard way sometimes.

## The space in between jobs

I’ve thought about what would be some good things to do while I job hunt. So far my list seems to be something like this:

- blog a little more
- keep hacking on my own personal passion projects and see if i can make a few bucks with them
- learn data structures and algorithms so i can go into my next job more knowledgable
- consume more programming related content and live in this world (i genuinely do love it)
- be active on twitter

I figured I should probably release this blog post that has been sitting by since I was laid off. I'd like to say things are going to plan. I'm blogging more, diving into DSA and building projects while learning new languages.

I'm working on a podcast hosting platform just to scratch an itch, and for this project I'm using Go and SQL which are two new languages for me. I love the thrill of learning these new things.

Anyway, I think that's all for now. What will the future hold? Who knows. I guess there's always McDonalds.

Laid off.

Keeping this short and sweet for now because I just ran into this issue that happens infrequently to the point where I have a hard time remembering how to fix it, so here it goes.

Running your Next.js application in Docker on a VPS like DigitalOcean can be a bit of a brain exercise when it comes to think in more abstract terms about how to set it up correctly.

Now this post is probably going to grow as things become more fleshed out so let's consider this a journal of sorts.

Onto the first piece of information to remind my silly-self in the future.

## Set the proper URL environment variables
This bit me the last couple days until one day after a nice pump at the gym and a shower, I clued into what the solution was.

The issue was, the UI portion of my Next.js app wasn't able to communicate to the API within the same application. This comes down to 2 (in my case) environment variables that need to be properly set: ==NEXT_URL== and ==NEXTAUTH_URL==. 

The second variable may be unnecessary if you're not using NextAuth.

Anyway, in local development, ==NEXT_URL== will probably be set to something like `http://localhost:3000` and this tells the UI portion of the framework what url to hit the api with. 

When you're running this in ==docker==, this url needs to be the name of the docker container it's running in. For example: `http://web:3000` because in my docker compose file, my container name is ==web==.

That's it's proverbial localhost so instead of going outside the container to the URL in your browser, it needs to go to the container name itself.

Now there is another environment variable we need to set called ==NEXTAUTH_URL_INTERNAL==. From my understanding and experiences, the ==NEXTAUTH_URL== is responsible for handling callbacks from providers for example. It should be the URL of your website whereas ==NEXTAUTH_URL_INTERNAL== should be the docker address of your container.

If you weren't running it in Docker, you could probably get away with just pointing it out localhost. Now that I'm writing this, is there ever a case where that would point to an actual domain? I don't think so.

## Mounting environment variables via build secrets
Another thing that tripped me up was learning how to securely use your environment variables during your docker build. Because each ==run==, ==copy== etc., commands create layers which become cached, they can be inspected. 

If your build image doesn't get pushed to docker hub then I believe you're fine, but it's probably a best practice to get used to just not copying in your environment variable file in general.

To mount your variables during build time without exposing them in anyway, we can use build secrets. This is handy for situations like private npm packages where you need to authenticate in order to download them. In my situation it was pro FontAwesome packages.

### Mount it
In your ==Dockerfile== wherever you want whatever command to have access to your variables, you'll add this: 
`RUN --mount=type=secret,id=env,target=/app/.env npm run build`
This will mount your environment variable file into the target location from which your ==npm run build== can access them. 

But that's not all.

In our ==docker compose== file, we need to declare a secrets block like so 
```
secrets:
  npmrc:
    file: $HOME/.npmrc
  env:
    file: .env
```
and then we need to associate our web service with these files. 

```
build:
	context: .
	secrets:
		- npmrc
		- env
```
Now we can install our NPM packages or run scripts and have access to our environment variables without exposing them to the world. _I cannot be held liable if you get hacked_.

Ok, have fun.

In this short, but potentially growing, post, I want to let you know how I run my Next.js application in Docker on DigitalOcean. This also incorporates Next Auth!

How to use Next.js in Docker on DigitalOcean with NextAuth

Before we get started on this little article, let me give you some backstory. I'll try to keep accurate headings so you can skip through the article if you'd like.

The best thing that's happened to me in recent years, other than getting a job in web development, was starting a running routine.

For years I tried to start such a routine, but I always failed to keep going after the first run - literally. I didn't have a goal, a destination over the long term. 

What changed for me was a couple of things: deciding to join the military and reading/listening to Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins. I recommend that book to anyone struggling to do anything because it helped me kick myself into gear with his no-BS attitude. I won't go into too much detail because I think it would be outside the scope of this post. 

In short, I always gave up way too early, I never pushed myself through any hardships in exercising. Raining? Nah. Snowing? Nah. Sunny? Nah. There was no winning in my mind and I knew where the problem lay, but I felt powerless to change it. I felt like no matter what I tried to do, I was always at war with myself.

I was a big guy at the time, about 277lbs at my heaviest. I was sad, unaccomplished, and the least confident I'd ever been. When you're that big, nothing is fun and everything hurts when you're exercising.

## I decided to join the military

In October 2019, I decided I needed some structure in my life and to give myself meaning. I was working at a job I partly enjoyed, but I didn't want that to be the end game. Overall, I wasn't happy with where things were headed, so I decided "hey, let's do something big". I was looking for a purpose in life and the military seemed like the best option. I'll probably write another small post about how I retaught myself grade 10 math after being out of high school since 2011, in 2 months and scored incredibly well on our CFAT which is the "Canadian Forces Aptitude Test".

So, after I made this decision, I stumbled across the book [Can't Hurt Me](https://www.amazon.ca/Cant-Hurt-Me-Master-Your/dp/1544512279) by David Goggins. I wasn't sold on it because self-help books (not saying this is one), and books like them, I thought were just weirdness. 

But, this book changed my life.

I remember listening to this book twice for a total of just over 30 total hours before I said enough was enough. It spoke to so many insecurities in me and the mental battle I was fighting and had been fighting for years. At peak hopelessness, I learned that even though I was 265lbs (at this time), I could still make myself out to be something more than the nothing I felt I was.

Hearing about David Goggins torturous upbringing, the troubles in school, the fight with his weight and battling his mind in the same way I was, was reassuring me that I wasn't alone. He also talks about how he overcame all of these shortcomings and more, not just to put them aside and work alongside them, but to deal with them for good.

He ultimately became a Navy Seal, applied for Delta Force, became an Army Ranger, and is now an Ultra-marathon runner. His book resonated with something deep inside and ended up unlocking my mind to find its potential.

## It started in October

I concluded that if I was going to do this - join the military, I needed to dive in full speed. I went from not running, almost ever, to running nearly every day and yea, looking back, it was probably not the best. But run I did.

I ran about 1.88km every morning at 5:30/6:00 before I left for work. I knew that if I left it for after work, there was a 100% chance that I would be too comfy/tired/"I'll do it tomorrow". I needed to short circuit that and give it no chance to be a thing.

It was hard to get up and run at all and at that time. I'd end up sitting on the front steps for 10 minutes staring at my shoes while fighting a mental battle that was trying to get me to go back to bed. I'd already made it out of bed and that was a win, but this is where the rubber was going to meet the road and everything I felt throughout my life and everything that I was feeling then, was going to be the deciding factor of what happened next.

My rationale was, that it doesn't matter (to a degree) how long I sit here, as long as I don't go back to bed or leave this step. Eventually, I put one shoe on after the other, and when that happened, it was easier to stand up and walk out the door for what I knew was not going to be a fun time. Half the time, the key to literally putting one foot in front of the other, was just not thinking about "it". Did I want to put on my shoes and leave? Not at all, but I didn't think about it, I just put 1 shoe on and the next, etc etc.

The night before, I did myself as many favours as I could. I laid out in the open the clothes I was going to wear. This took out the guessing game and lessened the time it would take to get to the next step which lowered the risk factor of going back to bed.

I had my shoes placed on the steps so I could sit down and put them on. I chose the time I was going to run at and how far I was going to go.

My friend who was a marathon runner also helped me greatly. He helped keep me accountable. Thankfully, he was getting ready for work at the same time I was getting up to run so I'd text him every morning about what I did that day; how far I went and how long it took. I did that for months.

After the first run, it was almost comical. I felt dead on my feet and as I sat in my computer chair, my breathing was 100% wheeze. Every time I inhaled, it sounded like a gaggle of children laughing deep inside my lungs. My chest was tight, it didn't feel too good, but after that day, it never happened again.

So anyways, I was losing 1.5lbs a day just by interval running for about 22 minutes every morning! This was fantastic.

I did end up running into injuries as would be expected and I didn't know how my body would respond to this sudden stress of running, but in reality, I didn't really care. If I ended up having a heart attack while running and died on the side of the road, I was okay with that because where I was currently headed, what was the difference?

My biggest recurring problem was the shin splints. They hurt a lot and they were a constant presence. I decided that even with shin splints, I would run because it was either we go somewhere pain-free, or we go somewhere in pain, but there was only one outcome - going somewhere.


## I hit and surpassed my 1km non-stop running goal

I remember my first goal was to run 1km without stopping. I think I ended up hitting this goal 1-2 months after I started running, I can't quite remember. It happened on the day when my quads were yelling at me, my shins hurt, I really didn't want to run and I almost used my 1 allotted rest day for that week. Funny enough I ended up running and hitting that goal. I was ecstatic! 

Piggy-backing on that success, I went out again the next day for my run and ran 250 meters further than the day before which was 1.25km! Once I hit those goals, 2km non-stop came even quicker.

From there on I kept up this furious pace and even added in weight training with my friend 3 times a week. I ended up going from benching 80lbs to 150lbs in a month, but unfortunately, that ended because COVID decided to make its grand entrance.

I remember going out for runs where it was -21c and felt like -27 at 5:30 in the morning. It's hard to describe how cold that was. I went out wearing three top layers and two bottom layers and when I got home, I couldn't feel my sides or my quads. It was amazing. It was amazing because months earlier, I wouldn't have gone out even if it was a beautiful 21c day with partly cloudy skies.

Throughout COVID I was still running outside and using my stationary bike at home. I ended up going from 0km running per week to at most 35km a week with multiple 5km runs and a 10km run. Keep in mind, when I say run, most of the time I'm talking about interval runs.

In the spring of 2020, I ran my first 5km run with my friend who was in the process of becoming a cop! He was quite in shape actually, but he helped me finish that milestone when I wanted to quit at the 2.25km mark. I was so tired and my mind was telling me that there was no way I was going to complete this. But, my friend never let me stop and I didn't want to let him down even though I was checked out mentally. By the 4km mark, my feet were numb (that still happens and I don't know why perhaps my shoes are too tight?).

I finished the 5km run without walking.

After that, however, things sort of died down because now I was in a place where proper training would be needed. 

Shortly after completing that run, I thought I needed to do this by myself to prove to myself that I _could_ do it. It was a drizzly Tuesday and the sun was hiding behind some dark clouds. I threw on my jacket and drove to a trail that I ran at. Long story short, I completed that run without walking (5km).

## The injury that took me out in 2021

In June of 2021 however, a lot of things changed. I ran into a particularly nagging injury where my left ankle was in pain. Some days were better than others but running/walking was always an issue. The pain was felt behind my achilles, in between my ankle and my achilles. I don't know why I felt it there, but it hurt to walk or move my foot.

For the next six months, I ran maybe three times. I was worried I would do some significant damage to my foot and I thought maybe it would be best this time to rest. 

Over these six months, I ran less, I walked less. I decided I wasn't going to join the military because as a last-ditch effort, I applied to the company I'm currently working at and received an offer. The military was always a plan B. It was a tool to get me motivated enough to change the course of my life, and if everything else went to crap, it would at least give me a job that would be interesting for a moment.

When I received my offer from This Dot, I tossed aside the plans for the military (obviously) and as a result, the driving force behind my running was also gone. Because see, I was running and working out so hard to prove to myself that I could take the military requirements and surpass them. I wasn't waiting until I got to Basic Training to get into shape. I wanted to be so fit that instead of worrying about how I was going to make it through the runs and the other PT sessions, I wanted to be able to help others get through it.

My reason for running was gone, my reason for getting up was gone, and this all leads us to where I am right now. Sitting here at 253lbs after reaching my low of around 227-230lbs a year and a half ago.

## Where do we go from here?

There will be a follow-up to this post. It's on my heart to talk about what I learned about myself and my mind over the couple of years I was working out and running. While the injury sidelined me a long time and I didn't do much running through that winter, I've still learned a lot about myself. To the point where I am not worried about the future. I enjoy running. I learned what it takes to get me out and exercise. I learned how to work with myself to a degree, but I've still got a lot to learn.

Anyway, I'll save that for the next post. I know this isn't programming related and I debated whether or not to post this, so if you made it this far and read the whole thing, I very truly appreciate it.

I went from 277lbs to 227lbs in 1.5 years. Now things have changed. This is my running journey.

How I went from 277lbs to 225lbs in 1.5 years #DevsWhoRun 

I think having confidence is one of the most epic mind-games known to man. It's not about your skill necessarily, but it's about how you perceive yourself in relation to your peers or coworkers.

It often comes down to being inside your own head convincing yourself of things that aren't always the case. We've all been there, especially in new situations where we feel like we need to measure up and at a moments notice, all of a sudden, we don't feel like we belong and that's actually normal, believe it or not.

This post is about my experience as a junior developer and how I've dealt with and managed this feeling; and how I still deal with it!

So, let's talk about **"How to gain confidence as a junior developer"**.

## What it feels like

So, what does a lack of confidence feel like? I'm so glad you asked! I write this knowing my current coworkers will see this, potentially, and in that case, "hey guys and gals, thank you for helping me get my confidence on track!".

I've been developing websites for about 8-9 years at the time of writing this, and yes, I know, posts about imposter syndrome are such low-hanging fruit, I wonder why that is? I mean, that's rhetorical.

My lack of confidence has always been tied to how I perceive myself in relation to my peers. I work with some pretty brilliant people and sometimes, when my brain goes into a fog and I'm asked a relatively simple question, that's when I feel the most "unconfidant".

In my opinion, a lack of confidence could go hand-in-hand with imposter syndrome, I guess that's not so much of an opinion as it is a matter-of-fact.

The feeling of not measuring up can be overwhelming and I'm sure if you've felt this in any sort of capacity, you know what I'm talking about. The feeling that everytime you speak they might think that you don't belong there, but we will actually get to the reality of that soon.

## The truth

While we all feel this way at times and we think that we should probably just be quiet, the fact of the matter is we should do the opposite. The more we hide away and refuse to break out of this mental jail we've put ourselves in based of our false perception of reality, the greater that hold will become and the less likely we will be to grow.

Everyone from the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed junior developer to the most senior of developers feel this uneasiness often. You can ask anyone you know who you deem to be smarter or more gifted or insert adjective here than you and they will say the same thing.

### You have a decision to make

We come to face-to-face with a very interesting problem.

1. On one hand we can stay safe and secure in the eyes of others while battling our own demons. We can keep thinking that we will never measure up as we stumble blindly through our career making it harder on ourselves than it needs to be

2. On this hand, we can speak out and dispel these myths we've been leading ourselves to believe about the word around us. This brings us out of our own darkness and on our way to the light

I've had many conversations about this exact topic because it's one I've struggled with for a while - I've already said that, but knowing it can be managed and for a large part, put aside, is comforting. Even more than that, knowing that people feel the same as me across the experience spectrum is reassuring.

So we have this big decision in our way. Either we cower, or we rise up and shake our fists in the air! Think Braveheart or Gladiator, whatever get your heart pumpin'.

What do you want for yourself? Do you want to:

- live in constant fear and state of unease?
- always feel like you're not good enough?
- stagnate where you are?

The list goes on, but I think you get what I'm saying. If we want more for ourselves and our mental health, I don't think we can sit idly by as our own thoughts keep us trapped.

## It doesn't go away

That's the truth; it doesn't. All we can do is manage our expectations of ourselves in order to keep these intrusive thoughts at bay.

Everyone is on the same playing field where we are all just trying to do the best we can and make cool things in the process. We try to help others succeed while helping ourselves too.

Do you know how many times I've spoken to others with years of experience and heard their thoughts on this? Probably not, but nonetheless! The answer is: a lot.

Along with experience in code, or design, or whatever the case is with you, also comes strategies to deal with these thoughts.

## Tips for managing your confidence

I asked my very close friend and fellow developer what he would say to a junior developer who expressed these same feelings we've covered in this post.

For reference, he is a very talented and experienced Ruby on Rails engineer and I keep his words close to heart.

> "1. Unless you wrote this here language, you cannot measure up to    time and experience - everyone has their part to play and we wouldn’t hire you unless we thought you couldn’t hack it.  
> 2. All questions are dumb to someone. All questions serve a purpose to someone… the questions you ask are YOUR questions and anyone who thinks they’re dumb or doesn’t answer them, has no right to be in this field.  The only way we can get to where we need to go is by getting there together."

I also posted a tweet asking about how to grow confidence.

![How important is confidence as a developer? Confidence to speak up vs staying silent. Confidence to add your own ideas even if you think you’re not entirely qualified. How can you grow that?](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/rv9flsof/production/031ec295d6fe219be9e7baf9aab2cdf5bef8a90d-1640x880.png?w=450)

And here were some of the replies.

![My take—There are times to speak up and times to be quiet. It depends on context (boss, co-worker...)As for how to grow it? Politely share your honest opinion whenever asked. Being honest garners respect (usually ). As respect grows, you’ll be asked for input more often.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/rv9flsof/production/a5d8157cc7ca11d21ba19c43c117a5d541c92a3a-1640x1104.png?w=450)

Now these people have a lot more experience than me, so what they have to say means a lot.

The going theme is if you want to gain confidence as a developer, you need to step out, show yourself that your ideas and thoughts are valid, get feedback, feel a bit better, ask another question, feel a bit more validated, and you keep repeating this.

However, even though our ideas won't always be validated, maybe we come up with an idea that isn't necessarily the direction to go, that's totally fine too. That allows you to learn and grow which in the end still works to build your confidence.

## Perhaps you aren't at a place to contribute with ideas yet?

These are a few notes I've written down that I try to practice often:

- Help other devs with their own work and be involved with troubleshooting. Even offering to just be a rubber duck (someone to bounce ideas off of, or just being there to be someone they can explain their thought process to)
- Your opinion is important: share it even if you're unsure of its merit. 
- Ask questions; speak up; get noticed
- Putting yourself in these situations will get you used to the feeling, but eventually you'll see that your ideas are valid and people are pretty decent
- Bonus: a good work environment certainly helps

## Give yourself a break

Don't judge yourself so harshly and as I write this, I need to take my own advice and will forever need a reminder. Take it easy. You're okay, it's going to be okay. Everyone started out exactly where you are. Your own experience and thought process is unique; you have value.

There's no secret sauce or magic button to poof this all away, but there are things we can do to manage these thoughts. Lean on those around you. Be vulnerable and let them know what you're feeling. Give them the opportunity to support you and help you, as everyone should.

Take a break, take it easy, don't judge yourself too harshly. We're gunna make it.

These are some things I've learned about gaining confidence as a junior developer.

How to gain confidence as a junior developer

# What is Reddex?
Reddex was built for Youtube narrators who source their stories from Reddit. It's a very niche product, but the time it saves is invaluable. Without it, the time it would take to create a video is substantially increased by a large factor.

When I say niche, I mean there are no other alternatives like it that does what it does or even comes close to. It specifically caters to narrators/storytellers who find their stories on Reddit.

It makes the process incredibly fast and easy while giving helpful tools to content creators.


## The problem

The current process for acquiring permission to read a fiction story from any particular subreddit goes a little something like this:

1. Scroll through hundreds of stories to find one that meets a certain criteria. This could be number of upvotes, number of comments, or the story's title.
2. Either come up with a new DM message every time, or open a notepad with your saved greetings (with potentially more than one depending on if you've introduced yourself before).
3. Go back to the story and copy the title into the DM subject line
4. Copy your greeting into the body of the DM.
5. Send.

This process can take a relatively long time; maybe anywhere from a couple minutes to over 5 minutes. If you're doing this for every story, you're going to be doing it for a while.

## How Reddex solves this problem

Reddex allows the user to input the subreddit they'd like to query. It then returns up to 1,000 posts from that subreddit and gives the user sorting options via upvotes, reading time (calculated in-app), whether it's a series or not, or keywords.

Reddit doesn't provide such features, so on its own, it's still a handy tool.

When you register, you're able to queue an unlimited amount of stories. Each story will pre-load one of two greetings saved to your profile based on if you've contacted them through the app before. This takes the burden off the user to decide which message to send.

If there are no saved messages, the user can also input their own.

This takes the 2-5 minute process and allows the user to theoretically find any number of stories very quickly using the sorting options. The time it takes to go through a of 25 stories (for example) would take on average 1 second per story if the user has pre-saved introductions.


Hey, I'm Tyrel Chambers! I'm a passionate developer who cannot help but pursue fun ideas. Really. Sometimes, I just want a break!

Recent posts

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How to gain confidence as a junior developer

Articles I wrote for This Dot

Projects

Reddex

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