A list of all the things I'd love to accomplish in programming! ⭐⭐⭐
This repository is inspired by one of my former Dev Bootcamp students and current Software Engineer at Uber, Ginny Fahs. You can find her blog here: https://blog.prototypr.io/wondering-if-youre-a-real-developer-yet-try-making-a-bucket-list-281275482155
I populated this list with ideas from this blog post, too: https://medium.com/@jbnv/a-bucket-list-for-programmers-e6a8c568d05d
✅ Done:
- Attend a hackathon. (AngelHack San Francisco 2014)
- Push code to GitHub.
- Open the computer’s terminal.
- Use a text editor.
- Learn to use a keyboard shortcut as a habit.
- Write tests for your code.
- Attend an engineering conference. (ForwardJS SF 2015)
- Read a book about coding. (Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, started June 2015)
- Open your browser console.
- Hide API keys from the public.
- Deploy a project. (Nuzzle on Heroku, November 2019)
- Create an Airbnb clone. (Nuzzle, November 2019)
- Create a dating app. (Datesy, December 2019)
- Write an app specifically for a mobile platform. (Datesy, December 2019)
- Get data from an API. (Pinterest API, January 2020)
- Help other people learn to code and debug. (Le Wagon TA in Buenos Aires, January 2020)
- Complete a timed technical challenge on HackerRank. (Outco Fundamentals Test, February 2020)
🚧 Doing:
- Learn to use a Sublime shortcut as a habit.
- Write a functioning Web application in JavaScript (without a framework).
- Make your own Website. Buy a domain name representing your name and set up a website with that domain name.
- Complete a mock technical interview.
- Apply for a software engineering apprenticeship.
- Post a question on Stack Overflow.
- Contribute to an open source project.
😍 To Do:
💻 Career
- Complete a real technical interview.
- Get paid to code.
- Ship your project to a store. (App Store, Play Store, Chrome Store, Alexa Skills Store, so many stores!)
- When someone asks what you do, respond with "I'm a Software Engineer."
- Speak about something engineering-related at an event.
- Mentor a junior developer.
- Teach a class on programming.
- Write a technical blog post.
- Have an estimate accepted without ridicule or derision.
- Do something that causes a lot of trouble for your employer. Clean it up. Tell epic stories about it forever after.
- Serve on call. Resolve a major issue in the wee hours of the night, on a weekend, or on a holiday.
- Wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea. Spend the wee hours developing that idea.
- Contribute an article to CSS Tricks.
🎟️ Conferences & Events
- Participate in a hackathon.
- Attend An Event Apart.
- Attend DefCon.
- Attend RailsConf. Watch DHH speak IRL. Meet DHH IRL.
- Attend SmashingConf.
- Attend CodeLand.
📚 Books
- Read Real Programmers Don’t Use Pascal. Contemplate how easy you have it these days.
- Read 99 Bottles of OOP by Sandy Metz.
- Read Practical Object Oriented Ruby by Sandy Metz.
- Read Developing Large Web Applications: Producing Code That Can Grow and Thrive.
- Read The Elements of Computing Systems.
- Read Eloquent JavaScript.
- Finish the entire You Don't Know JavaScript book series.
💡 Learning
- Build something nontrivial using hardware logic gates.
- Write a functioning program in either COBOL or Fortran.
- Write a functioning program in assembly language.
- Write a functioning program in C.
- Write an NPM module.
- Develop a REST API.
- Write something that interacts with the physical world.
- Write a virus. Release it into the wild.
- Set up a continuous build and deploy process.
- Create a programming language. Write a compiler or interpreter for the language.
- Use a machine-learning technique.