Special Guests: Tomas Eglinskas 

In this episode, the panel talks with guest speaker, Tomas Eglinskas, and the panel talks to him about an article he wrote via Free Code Camp Medium. Currently, Tomas is a software developer at Zenitech. The panel and the guest dive-into lessons that not only apply to being a developer, but great life lessons that everyone can learn from. Check-out today’s episode!

1:18 – Chuck: Our special guest is Tomas Eglinskas. We want to talk to you about your article you wrote on the Free Code Camp Medium. How do you get something posted/published there?

1:29 – Tomas – It’s not that hard to get something published there. You can send your articles via email and they will publish it. You can get feedback and resend it, and perhaps they will publish it.

2:06 – Chuck: Quincy and you are besties, right?

2:11 – Chuck: We should get Quincy on this show.

2:21 – Chuck: How did you get into React?

2:25 – Tomas: How I got into React is a bit interesting. It started at the university; at first it was really, really hard for me. Time pressed on and I got hooked. It’s really, really fun. That’s how it initially started.

3:06 – Chuck: Article is titled: “The Most Important Lessons I’ve Learned After a Year of Working with React.”

3:18 – Tomas: What started behind it: I was doing my bucket list. I wanted to publish something at some point. I wanted to try to write and share something from my side of things. I wanted to prove to myself that I can/could.

4:05 – Nader: What do you do now with React?

4:13 – Tomas: We do everything: frontend and backend. In my company we usually use everything with React with production and with my own projects. I have tried Angular but I like React best.

4:45 – Chuck: I am curious...How do you get past that? Where my way is the right way.

5:10 – Thomas: That sentence came from when I was learning it. People would say: this is the way, or someone else would say: no, this is the way.

People are afraid of doing their own projects and using the technology. Finding information and figure out what is right and what is wrong, but you eventually figure out your own opinion. There are so many opinions and tutorials and it’s frustrating, because there are too many things to learn.

6:26 – Chuck: Nader, what is the right way to do it?

6:33 – Nader: Yeah, I agree. It’s hard to decipher. What is right or what is wrong?

How did you come to your conclusions?

My best practices might not be the best practices for someone else.

7:18 – Tomas: Everyone is learning all the time. Their experiences are different. You have to decide what is best for the long-term. At least for me, it was practice and learning and reading from other people; from podcasts, articles, etc. I am open to say that I am not right, but want to know why it’s not “right.” Always trying, always making mistakes. I guess something like that.

8:42 – Nader: Don’t stick to the basics and become advanced. In any career right now you don’t know how to do everything, but to do one thing (topic) really well. The generalists aren’t the people they are hiring; they are hiring the specialists.

9:24 – Tomas comments.

9:37 – Chuck: There is something to be said – I think it’s good to know general things, but you are right. They are hiring the specialists. They are going to look at you differently than other people. You like your thinking challenged a bit. Where do you go to do that to upgrade your skills?

10:18 – Tomas: The silliest one is going to interiors. That’s the fastest way of feedback: what is right or wrong about my code.

Going to conferences and Meetups, and doing projects with someone else. I was doing a project with a friend – everybody used Java – but we all used it differently. We all worked together and challenged each other.

11:43 – Chuck: Talking to people – asking them: how do you do this, or why do you do it this way?

12:01 – Tomas: Don’t be shy and have a presence. I guess in America there are a lot of Meetups, in my country we don’t. In the States you have the people who do the tutorials, and such. You can be challenged everyday.

12:40 – Chuck: It depends on where you are. Utah we have a strong community. It’s interesting to say. There was a talk given my Miles Forest at a conference. He would drive to Seattle to be apart of a users group to be apart of it – he would drive 2-3 hours to do this. Eventually, he made his own user group.

13:55 – Nader: I am here in Europe now. I have seen a lot of events going on. Just all of the countries I have heard of different events. I haven’t heard about Lithuania, where you are at Tomas.

14:28 – Chuck: Get A Coder Job. Find Meetups – I will tell people to do this. They will say: There aren’t any in my area. I tell them to type in different search words. To me, it’s telling because it’s “just TRY it!” You never know what will be out there. Go look and see if there is something out there for you.

15:28 – Nader: I agree. I learned a lot through those.

15:59 – Tomas: It is a dream to be an organizer of event but people are afraid that nobody will show. Nobody expected for people to show-up, but they did! Don’t be afraid – you’ll have a great time!

16:44 – Chuck: React is revolving so you need to be up-to-date – good point in your article.

People want to reach some level of proficiency.

You have to keep learning.

How do you stay up-to-date with all of the new features? How do you know what to look at?

17:58 – Tomas: Don’t forget fundamentals. Now understand React from under the hood. You must know the reason behind it. I think that is the basic thing and the most important one, at least in my opinion. We get so wrapped up with the new things, but forgot the basics.

18:41 – Advertisement – Digital Ocean

19:27 – Nader: I am always checking Twitter. This is a good place to start, because I will see something being discussed and then maybe a year later how it all comes together. Twitter is real time. I follow the few top dozen important people through Twitter; Facebook people and other important people. They will talk about what is happening NOW and proposed things. Also, following people through Medium as well as GitHub.

21:01 – Tomas: I agree about Twitter. It’s fun to see what people are talking about. Things that you normally don’t hear through normal avenues.

21:27 – Nader: What interests you for the future? What do you want to specialize in?

21:41 – Tomas: As I progress, and I know more things (than I did before) I find that I want to KNOW more, in general! I am focused on React and try new things. I think about DevOps, but it’s important to know at some level different things as a whole: the backend and the frontend, too. Why is DevOps is important in the first place. I like to understand the system as a whole. And little by little I want to specialize in the frontend, too. It’s good to know the whole infrastructure, too.

23:23 – Nader comments.

22:45 – Tomas comments.

23:55 – Nader and Tomas go back-and-forth.

25:15 – Tomas: How big is your workshop?

25:24 – Nader: We just did one in Croatia. It depends really 2 days, etc. Different lengths.

25:47 – Chuck: Nader, how do people find these different workshops?

25:54 – Nader: Just follow me through Twitter!

26:11 – Tomas: I would like to attend.

26:19 – Chuck: What was one of these lessons that were the hardest for you to learn?

26:33 – Tomas: Not sticking to the basics. When you can show things that are more advanced. When you push yourself to know advanced topics then you are pushing those around you, too. You are encouraging others to learn, too! So that way both, you and the other people, aren’t stagnant.

27:51 – Chuck comments.

28:00 – Tomas: It’s not even “fancy” it’s knowing the basics.

Tomas was talking about tutorials and other topics.

30:02 – Nader and Tomas go back-and-forth.

30:24 – Chuck: I think it’s telling and what you are pointing out in your article.

Some people get to a level of proficiency, get the job, and then they go home, and that’s it. They aren’t pushing themselves. I’m not knocking these people.

But there are people out there saying: Here is what I learned, this is what I want to share.

31:29 – Tomas: Yes, share your knowledge!

31:43 – Chuck: Other thing I want to talk about is another point in your article.

32:07 – Tomas: You will look at your code a few days/weeks later and you will say: Wow, I can do this better. Don’t bash yourself; learn from it.

The most interesting screw-up was when I deleted a GitHub...

33:43 – Chuck: What is your good / bad story, Nader?

33:55 – Nader: My first job and have written the most terrible code. Go back a week / month later and notice major issues. The first year writing React was rough / interesting times. I learned a lot, because you are learning how the different architectural things work.

34:48 – Tomas: What was the hardest thing to learn?

34:56 – Nader: Something being “buggy” and over-complex. It wasn’t the original Flux, and it was a variant. Everything after Redux was easier. If you understand Redux then it’s pretty nice.

36:07 – Thomas: I think Redux was the biggest headache for me. When you are starting off it’s magic.

36:38 – Tomas: I like when people don’t over-engineer things. I am happy from time-to-time if you need Redux, great, if not then that’s fine.

37:28 – Chuck: Let’s do picks! Where can people find you, Tomas?

37:35 – Tomas: Medium. There are other things I want to talk about, so Medium is a good platform. A little bit of GitHub, too. I follow Twitter people, but I’m not active. In Europe, people use Twitter – we follow the famous people, but aren’t that active.

38:45 – Advertisement – Get A Coder Job!

Charles

Nader

Tomas

Special Guest: Tomas Eglinskas.