As it comes to the end of a year, and looking into next the normal considerations around resolutions and what I can do better start to cross my mind. My aim now is to move away from just pulling together random bits of code, and actually build and finish some projects. Writing a blog, documenting my projects and discussing the process is hopefully going to lead to a deeper understanding and force me to produce higher quality and completed projects. Now when the new year starts, I am going to be ready to document what I am doing, and my configuration is ready to be as effective as possible.
why start a blog?
Throughout the year, a lot of professional feedback has been around communicating complicated information. It isn’t something I have to do often, but when I do it tends to be important. By writing more documentation, especially around things I am learning, I will get to practice that skill and when it matters again I will know what to do.
Documenting projects as I go mean I get to see the challenges as I go through them and reflect on that. Quite often I can struggle through to find a solution, and when I get there it seems easy. Hopefully these notes will help me to see where I keep getting stuck.
Maybe someone else will find this in the aim to move from an Advanced Beginner into a competent developer and this can help them structure their learning (assuming what I do works, otherwise it’s a guide on what not to do!).
At the end of the year, I will be able to look back at what I have actually done. I find whilst learning a skill the failed attempts can be off putting. Looking back at a github full of training forks and unfinished projects can feel like a failure. This documentation will hopefully be able to narrate the learning and journey.
Putting myself out there is a challenge, so I am hoping that the confidence gained from doing this will be beneficial on its own.
why reconfigure neovim
I have been using Neovim from a fork of kickstart for around 6 months. It aims to be a starting point to do your own configuration. Obviously this turned into just using it without knowing what it could do.
Starting from nothing means I know exactly what is in my personal configuration. It now only has what I use and I know how to access everything.
Deleting all and starting from scratch meant I couldn’t hide behind another configuration. This is the way I want to approach all my learning, really getting into the weeds to understand what is happening.
Learning what it can do to be able to think about what I would like from it.
It taught me how to consider configuration, when to load and what needs to be considered when developing something that would be used. I still have ideas of adding options to my plug-in so it can be changed (even though I set it up how I want it already).
conclusion
Hopefully this first post gets me started with something rather than being concerned about post number 1 being perfect.
Moving on these pages should cover:
The projects I am working on, including any interesting parts of solutions or concepts that are required.
Project pages to provide a detailed look at what I did, what issues I had and what I learnt from doing them.
Anything else I find useful, or want to explore in more detail.