2014 Blog Update, status and learnings, Cory Rylan.
Cory Rylan
So its time for my year review of 2014 and what I am planning for 2015. So I'll cover the good parts and not so good parts.
The Good Parts
First of all I graduated with my bachelors in Computer Information Systems (Computer Science) with my Industrial Graphic Design minor. This year was my first full time year as a web developer. I had some great opportunities to learn and grow. Some of the awesome things I have been able to learn and work on this year include:
- Deep dive into JavaScript
- JavaScript testing and TDD
- Working with NodeJS for tooling and build processes
- AngularJS
- Sass CSS preprocessing
- CSS Architecture including BEM/SMACSS
- Browser/Mobile Performance
- Style guides and Pattern libraries
I added 12 blog posts. Not much but its a start. I had the chance to go to three conferences. I have started some fun side projects such as losemycookies.com.
The not so good parts
2014 was a pretty good year so this year is list is short. I had my first project canceled so that was a challenging learning experience. My skills in SQL and backend work have suffered from me deep diving into front end web development. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing but I would like to work on those weaknesses.
I only wrote 12 blog posts. I will be attempting to double that this year if not at least write one post a week.
Stats for my blog
My blog this year had 1,473 visitors and almost 10,000 page views. A huge improvement over 2013. My blog was visited from over 90 different countries. My top locations were:
- United States
- Brazil
- United Kingdom
- India
As I improve on writing more I hope this continues to grow over 2015.
New for 2015
2015 I am setting quite a few goals to work on.
- Write a blog post once a week
- Get into speaking starting with lunch and learns or meet ups
- Start using ES6 JavaScript
- Continue working with AngularJS
- Improve my backend skills
- Work more with NodeJS
- Get familiar with new web standards such as Web Components, FlexBox and Service Worker
I can't wait to get started and will continue writing and posting my progress. Happy new year!