This weekly roundup highlights what we believe to be the most thoughtful and/or interesting discussion of the week. We’re also be highlighting one particularly cool comment in each installment. 🙌
The DEV Community is particularly special because of the kind and thoughtful discussions happening between community members. As such, we want to encourage folks to participate in discussions and reward those who are initiating or taking part in conversations across the community. After all, a community is made possible by the people interacting inside it.
Discussion of the Week
Props to @nombrekeff for crafting the excellent prompt “How do you motivate yourself to work on personal projects? As a profesional developer“:
Keff’s prompt is super relatable. We’ve all been there… you finish up your work day and wanna get going on that personal project but just feel drained of energy and can’t muster the motivation to move forward.
I love a good prompt that elicits personal advice and guidance, and this prompt definitely fits the bill. There was lots of excellent advice around building up energy, focusing on the purpose behind the project, and lazering in on the benefits that finishing the project will bring.
If any readers have ideas for building up motivation, don’t hesitate to chime into the thread!
Comment of the Week
Big up to @danwalsh for their response to @ioanat94‘s awesomely instructive article “Do’s and Don’ts of Creating Your Portfolio Website“:
Really great article and solid advice. 👌
From my own experience a DON’T that I always recommend is “don’t use progress bars nor percentages against your list of skills.” For example:
- JavaScript – 95%
- HTML – 99%
- CSS – 99%
- TypeScript – 90%
- Figma – 80%
This is problematic because the values are too subjective. Does the above mean you know 99% of the CSS spec (even the draft spec) by rote? How do you measure that 5% difference between JS and TS? And how do you compare 80% “skill” in a design tool (Figma) against “skill” in a scripting language (JS)?
In my experience, it’s better to just list the skills and then show (rather than tell) your skill through your well developed and designed portfolio site and accompanying body of work.
Dan’s point about showing your skills by demonstrating it through your portfolio site’s design & accompanying body of work versus telling folks how proficient you are in A, B, & C with arbitrary completion rates is golden. As Dan points out, using completion rates really begs more questions than it provides answers. Rather than making someone feel confident that you are adept in a specific technology, instead it might suggest to them that you are an unclear communicator. Thanks Dan, that is really great advice for anyone working on their personal portfolio!
If others have thoughts on this topic, please hop into the thread and let us know!
What are your picks?
There’s loads of great discussions and comments floating about in this community. These are just a few we chose to highlight. 🙂
I urge you all to share your favorite comment and/or discussion of the past week below in the comments. And if you’re up for it, give the author an @mention — it’ll probably make ’em feel good. 💚
