jwang1000 Blog Introduction

Welcome to my blog!

...ok, I could not have sounded more like an early 2000s blogger than that. I'm hoping not to get back to the days of when everyone and their dog had a Wordpress or Tumblr page. Rather, I'm trying to add my perspective to various topics and events, just as one more opinion for the masses.

I don't plan to write very frequently, but I can see two main different types of posts that I'll be making.

Travel Posts

The classic of everyone starting their own blog. I'll try not to be that guy that brags about all the places he's gone to just to show off. I doubt the places I'll be visiting are unique at all. I'll try to write about experiences that are actually unique to my trip, such as funny encounters or once off events.

Oh, and food photos. The best part of travelling is food, of course.

To get it started off, here are a few photos from my previous visits to Europe and the US. (I can't include the food this time, unfortunately - too many photos!)

If you didn't see on my main website, I'm from Vancouver, BC, Canada, so the US counts as travelling for me. :)

Dev Posts

The other main type of post I'll be making is about software development and computer science.

No, I'm obviously not going to go into detail about what I'm actually doing at work. NDAs and all. But general things like development/design philosophies and big topics in the tech world are fair game. So are posts about my experience in CS at UWaterloo.

As preparation for starting full time work, I'm going to be reading Clean Code by Robert C. Martin. It's a highly recommended book for devs, but in recent years I've seen some debate online about how useful or helpful it is, even for beginners. I'll be coming in with the goal of critically evaluating how applicable the advice is, 15 years on. I'm sure there are some specific things that are outdated, but design philosphies aren't necessarily bad even if they're old.

Of course, the elephant in the room is my experience. I've only worked in internships before, so why would you care what I have to say?

Truthfully, you probably shouldn't listen to my advice if you're experienced. What you should get out of this is my perspective as a new dev. What things do I find confusing? What things do I think are right/wrong? From the experienced devs I've worked with, it's useful to step back and see how a newbie approaches topics, designs, and other things that you're used to. There might be oversights in documentation or tutorials (including books like Clean Code) that you haven't noticed because you already know the information. Or maybe I might mention something that you haven't thought of before, simply because it's not the way you've done it before.

Alternatively, maybe you're less experienced than me. You might be in university and looking for an internship. I've found six of them myself, totalling two years of experience in internships. It's part of the UWaterloo experience, and my advice in this case does apply to you. Even though they're only internships, there are plenty of things to think about.

Other Posts

Occasionally I might post about something else. I do like a variety of other things, like music, games, books, movies, and TV. Specific things include Bach, Chopin, music theory, music composition, Valorant, Minecraft, Cities: Skylines, Kerbal Space Program, Star Wars, MCU, Lord of the Rings, and much more. If I have a unique encounter or experience here, you bet I'm writing about it.

Conclusion

Well, hopefully I didn't sound too cynical. I'm aiming to set the level of cynicism at about 35%.

I'm obviously going to be busy and as of time of writing, this blogging site isn't finished construction yet. I'm aiming to have a couple posts about Clean Code soon, since that was my motivation for creating this blog in the first place. After that? Who knows.

If you want to get in touch, my contact page is always available on my main website!

Until next time, here's a picture of a family of Canada geese. They're much nicer in the Netherlands than in Canada.