Node.js: Saying Hi

11/28/14

So, I don't like how much of my spare-time "work" is done in isolation. Video-recording myself has been really useful. It really enforces a talking to an imaginary audience, which itself helps me hear my own thoughts and more easily correct myself.

It really isn't enough, though.

I need to talk to real people. Smarter people. People with more experience. People with different experience. Other people.

And right now, it seems I'm going to be focusing on node.js for a bit. Try and get more comfortable. Maybe work towards making this site run on it.

And really, I didn't think too much about how I'm using provided tutorials and documentation to go about learning in isolation. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with using such resources, but if I'm going to use advice from other people anyways, maybe I should also work towards getting their advice in a more real-time manner. And, you know, maybe providing some sort of value myself.

What reminded me to get involved in the community was this post by a friend of mine. It's some really good advice (I think) of improving self-taught skills, and also a dislike of the implications of calling it "self-taught". You should read it, Stephan.

Anyways, I feel like I've been making some good progress along all of his points, except one: working with real people (his "On Coaching" section).

I told him as such on twitter. And followed up with some of my thinking on how to say hello to the Node.js community.

This set off a chain-reaction of... stuff. I got retweeted by some peoples, I got followed by some guy, and I decided to write this post. Then, when I got around to linking to Node.js when mentioning it for the first time in this post, I decided to click on their community page.

I've joined the Node.js mailing list, started following @NodeJsCommunity, @nodejs, and a whole bunch of HTML5-related twitter accounts, and am now working on some sort of plan to stay logged onto the #node.js channel on irc.freenode.net.

To make sure I'm not avoiding actually being social with stuff that's related to being social, I'll make sure to actually say some version of "Hi" on the irc channel.

I'm thinking of saying something along the lines of, "Hello! I'm just getting into node.js and have only been playing with javascript for a short time. I was looking for advice on best methods towards becoming a contributing member of the community. Currently, I'm going through the learnyounode exercises. Should I focus on that? I was also considering attempting an 'easy' issue on the node.js github."

Time to be involved beyond playing with tools in isolation. Got to learn to work with a group of people even in my spare time. I don't know if I'll record myself communicating with others. Seems... sketchy, somehow. Like, they might not think they're being recorded and stuff. I don't know. I'll think about it.

Anyways, I'll probably post an update on how things went at some point, Stephan.