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Episode Info

  • Episode: CW 014
  • Published: April 6th, 2015
  • Tags: javascript, reactjs,nodejs
  • Duration: 8:55

Transcript

Summary

Today I will fill you in on the large project that I was working on, its launch, and my CodeWinds focus and content planning for the coming year.

The links and show notes for this podcast are available http://codewinds.com/14 as in episode 14.

Backstory

First, I want to start with an apology, I left you, my community, hanging without any explanation for too long. So I wanted to give you a little of the back story and update you on where CodeWinds is going.

When I launched CodeWinds in 2013, my goal was to bring you the latest web developer news and training which I would deliver through my blog, podcast, and video courses. Well just after I started working on content, a local enterprise reached out with an ultra important need to rapidly build a scalable resilient platform for a large client. I didn’t even know the specifics of their client until the launch a year later. Well this enterprise was MasterCard. Our client turned out to be none other than Apple, and we were building the MasterCard ApplePay system. Wow.

This was such an awesome opportunity to apply my knowledge and skills to such an important project. When I joined the team, I intended to continue delivering CodeWinds content in my spare time, however the project demanded more of my focus than I anticipated, especially as we approached the launch. We poured our hearts into making sure that our platform was battle ready. And what happened on launch day? … well everything just worked.

It was one of those priceless moments when everything comes together, like a symphony of technology and collaboration. The launch was described by some the senior staff as being possibly the most successful MasterCard launch of all time. It was complex, involving so many partners, yet it came together beautifully. I was blessed to be a part of this amazing team.

Regrets

Yet in all the success we had with this project, I failed you my CodeWinds community. I focussed so completely on the project that my content creation ground to a halt. I should have communicated with you, so you wouldn’t be left hanging and wondering what had happened. For that I am truly sorry, and ask for your forgiveness.

I’m back and focussed on CodeWinds

Fast forward to today, what’s in store for my future and that of CodeWinds. Well I am happy to say that I’m back. After much soul searching, I departed from the MasterCard team to work on CodeWinds fulltime. My desire is to bring you the best leading edge full stack web developer content.

React.js and other course plans

In the past few months, I have been doing a deep dive into React.js and its family. I’m so excited by the development and innovation going on in the React.js community.

“I believe the ideas and technology developing from the React.js community will profoundly influence how we build web and mobile apps.”

I’m currently planning a course on React.js and then will follow it with other topics like ES6, Hapi, Node, building resilient systems, and using HTML5.

I’ll offer this material in a variety of ways, but the primary mechanism will be online courses with training videos and exercises that you can follow at your own pace or in conjunction with those in a class. These will be real world projects similar to that which you would build at your companies.

I don’t like the simple hello world style examples which are so far removed from our real projects that it is hard to see how you really would do things in practice. So these will be real projects solving real problems including proper testing and error handling. I’ll deliver these video lessons in bite sized chunks that build on each other, so you can go directly to a specific topic or learn from beginning to end. I’ll continue to blog and produce this podcast with related materials to complement all of these areas.

Provide your input

To be successful in this endeavor, I really depend on your input for the technologies and training you would like me to cover, especially the key topics or questions that you struggle with when building complex web applications. I just want to make sure I am working on the most pertinent topics for you. So if you could just spare a few moments, I would really appreciate your input, head over to http://codewinds.com/topics which will redirect you to a Google Doc.

Check out the major categories, questions, topics, and provide your own. If you see existing ideas that resonate and interest you, please add a +1 next to them so I can gauge interest and priorities. If you have ideas for the types of apps we might build, please add that as well. I’m open to all your ideas and needs, just add them to the doc.

Thanks for your support

I want to thank you for staying with me through this prolonged start and I am excited about what we’ll be able to accomplish together in the future.

I hope you are subscribed to my leading edge member list because you won’t want to miss the next episode of the CodeWinds podcast on React.js with Michael Jackson and Ryan Florence. We had a fantastic discussion about React.js and I think you’ll start to see why I am excited about everything coming out of the React.js community.

Michael Jackson and Ryan Florence React.js training discount

Michael and Ryan have launched some React.js training starting this April and for CodeWinds listeners you can get a $300 discount to their San Francisco training this April 16-17, 2015. Use the link: http://codewinds.com/reactsf

The links and show notes for this episode are available at http://codewinds.com/14

If you would like to keep up on the latest in web developer news and training, follow me on codewinds.com where you’ll find this podcast, tutorials, and video training covering javascript, React.js, and Node.js.