An Ordinary Frontend Developer's Musings - 2023

2023: Ramblings of an Ordinary Frontend Developer

2023 arrived with the full lifting of COVID restrictions. But the cold winter also helped the virus spread faster, and my grandmother was taken by that biting cold. I remember it vividly—on my way to work, riding the subway, my dad called and said, “Grandma’s gone.” I broke down crying right there. My grandma was so good to me; she often visited me in high school and bought me delicious food. It was my first experience losing a loved one. Seeing my mom cry nonstop, and then the heart-wrenching sobbing when I got home—it was truly painful.

Not settling for the status quo

Back at work, I still thought about my grandma often. I worked at an e-commerce internet company in Hangzhou, with a dev team of a few hundred people. During my internship, I had a great leader from whom I learned a lot about programming and development skills. Later, for some reason, I was transferred to another team and my leader no longer mentored me. I didn’t really like my new leader—maybe I had an attitude problem at the time, but I just wanted to work with my original leader. The technical atmosphere in my new team wasn’t great. I’m not a very disciplined person, so I felt like I was doing repetitive CRUD work every day, my personal growth was slow, and I didn’t have much sense of achievement at work. I realized that being with the right people and the right circle is really important. So I decided to step out of my comfort zone. After that, I started looking at outside opportunities, studying every day, going through interview questions, etc.

Becoming the Planet frontend assistant

I seemed to be really lucky! Planet Xiao Y told me that the Programming Navigation was hiring a Frontend Assistant, so I signed up. I want to thank Xiao Y here—he gave me a chance, and I successfully became the frontend assistant. Later, Yupi held a meeting with me and another frontend assistant to review requirements. I was really excited at that time, and I was very motivated to develop the tasks Yupi assigned me. Later, Yupi said he wanted to start his own business and asked if we wanted to join. I was very happy. I had watched all of Yupi’s user center courses, and I thought it was amazing that he could lecture so well live! (Live streaming and recording courses are two different things.) I felt I had to seize the opportunity, so I quit my job. My manager talked to me for a long time, saying the market was bad, etc. But the hardest part was my parents trying to stop me. I argued for a long time, and eventually, despite their lack of understanding, I came to Shanghai.

Systematic learning and improvement

To be honest! Renting an apartment in Shanghai was the first time I had ever rented. I really have to thank Wenqiang. That Saturday (rest day—you know what that means for a working person, right?), he helped me find a satisfactory apartment, and the “boss” (Yupi) treated us to dinner (how touching). Then began my happy work life. I really learned a lot here.

• Learned how to do requirement analysis: whether a requirement is needed and how to implement it.
• Learned how to do technical research: what technologies can achieve the goal, and the pros and cons of each.
• Learned how to write more maintainable code, how to develop more efficiently without repeating the same code.
• Learned how to consolidate technical knowledge and write proper documentation.
• Learned how to submit clean, well-structured commits with minimal changes.
• Learned how to make pages more beautiful and user-friendly, and many development tricks.
• Learned how to deploy websites, configure nginx, do SEO optimization, etc.

Besides these, I think I’ve also improved a lot in communication and expression. Now I can understand others and express my own ideas more clearly. When dealing with tricky problems, I’m more confident and can face them in a better state. For example, before, when faced with many problems, I would give up; now I try to solve them and overcome them. Working with the “boss” has also broadened my horizons—I can see more aspects of things than before, and I’ve encountered things I’ve never seen or heard of, giving me new feelings about many things.

AI’s impact on me

If you talk about 2023 but don’t mention AI, that’s boring! AI is undoubtedly the protagonist of this year. Now my work is completely inseparable from AI. I think of AI as my assistant (like our Yu Congming AI assistant). It truly helps me save time and solve problems.

• I use Yu Congming AI assistant to help me write positive reviews on Dianping.
• I use devv.ai to help me solve programming problems; 90% of the answers are directly usable.
• I use ChatGPT 4 to help me with tricky solutions—it always helps me resolve problems well.
• I use perplexity to research information; it can search the web for my topic and provide citations.
• I use Claude to help me polish my articles—it always finds shortcomings and tells me how to improve.
• I use GitHub Copilot to assist me in programming; it always suggests what to do next with every enter and blank line, and I just press tab.
• In my spare time, I also use Yu Congming AI to generate pretty girls to improve my aesthetic sense—because a good frontend developer must have good taste.

AI has really helped me with so many things, saved me so much time, and solved so many problems. I can’t live without AI! I also hope everyone can use AI to improve their own efficiency.

Professional skill improvement

In terms of technology learning, in 2023 I studied:

• Vue 3, Vite
• webpack
• React 18 new official documentation
• Next.js 13, built my own blog
• Some fundamental principles, read source code of several libraries, and found that reading source code can actually be fun—the sense of achievement from understanding is great!

Recently, I’ve been listening to Zuo Erduo Haoshi (a senior programmer) on Geek Time audio, and I also bought his biography “The Legendary Programmer’s Leveling Guide.” Through his stories, I was again reminded: “There is no shortcut to learning.” Continuously learning and mastering basic knowledge and related technologies helps us better organize and solve problems. So, in 2024, I hope to deepen my understanding of frontend and computer fundamentals, and truly grasp those basic, underlying concepts. I won’t overly pursue the latest, cutting-edge technologies—just knowing about them is enough.

Life changes

In terms of life, first of all, I started using WeRead this year. I use fragmented time to read books like “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant,” “Hackers and Painters,” “The Little Prince,” “Intimate Relationships,” etc. I just read whatever. Recently, I’ve also been using Duolingo to learn English, replacing the time I used to spend scrolling through Douyin—it’s also a great tool for fragmented learning. Also, I think my romantic experience is something I really want to summarize. Through that relationship, I gained a clearer understanding of myself, learned a lot, and became more confident! I have to thank that intimate relationship. I really like a phrase I often see: “Life is an experience!” I hope everyone can try more things, step out of their comfort zone, get to know others—that’s also a process of knowing yourself better.

A methodology for consolidation

There’s another very important skill that I think everyone needs to master in the AI era: the ability to index knowledge. I believe a strong indexing ability is a great tool to improve our work efficiency. When encountering a problem:

1. Know the root cause.
2. Ask the right question.
3. Find the right tool to ask.
4. Find the seemingly correct answer and verify it through practice.

Being able to do this is impressive! I think this SOP applies to any problem. By repeatedly handling problems this way, forming a mental model, it will definitely make my life and work go more smoothly.

Here are a few points I feel need summarizing:

1. To find the cause of a problem, I need to improve my professional skills and knowledge base, know where the problem lies, have a vague idea of how to solve it, and leave the rest to the internet.

2. For how to ask questions, I think reading “How To Ask Questions The Smart Way” is enough. It’s a book I believe anyone who wants to ask questions should read. Link: https://github.com/tvvocold/How-To-Ask-Questions-The-Smart-Way

3. Here are the indexing methods I commonly use:

   1. Google search bar
   2. GitHub search; GitHub issues
   3. devv.ai
   4. ChatGPT
   5. Asking experienced people, etc.

2024 Outlook

For 2024, I hope to achieve these flags I’ve set through continuous action.

1. At work, I hope to be more focused, pay more attention to details, and improve my ability to work independently.

   1. Flag: Use the technologies I’ve learned to improve work efficiency and reduce repetitive work.
   2. Flag: Be more careful, think more at work, do a good job, and raise my own requirements for my work.
   3. Flag: Be more proactive, actively report problems encountered at work—both good news and bad news—in a timely manner.

2. In technology, I hope to re-study frontend fundamentals and computer basics in depth, and apply them to work.

   1. Flag: Read a JS-related book, take notes, write code demos, etc.
   2. Flag: Study React source code.
   3. Flag: Create some scaffolding or tools that improve efficiency.

3. In life, I hope to have more time to read, travel, and experience new things.

   1. Flag: Read 12 books.
   2. Flag: Travel to a new city.
   3. Flag: Go to a concert (hopefully).

Pessimists are often right, but optimists often succeed! Go for 2024!