I took a break from the chaos of programming and took the time to set some clear goals to realign myself.

It was refreshing, but I’m excited to be back :)

Just because you can learn HTML in a day doesn’t mean that you don’t need a degree.

Did you know that your browser, HTML, CSS, Javascript, and even your operating system use linked lists, binary trees, hash tables, and other so-called “useless” data structures?

It’s important to understand the roots and fundamentals of computer science even if you won’t use that knowledge day to day.

It changes your perspective on programming once you learn what actually goes on under the hood, and makes you think twice about the impact of what you write.

It’s relatively easy to get a programming job without a degree nowadays, but it often leads to web developers claiming that degrees aren’t important to their web apps.

There is much more than just the web to computer science, and that’s something to always keep in mind.

My goals for 2018? Make less GitHub contributions.

I’ve been seeing a lot of developers claiming “JavaScript sucks” because they do stuff like:

10 + window * [“JS sucks lol”] / {a: []}

What do you expect?

Today in class a couple of people near me wanted to show me something.

Person: Check out this zero-day exploit! I hacked into the system using a cloud-based cryptographically secure MD5 hash finite automata firewall HTML code API!

Me: Erm...what exactly did you hack?

Person: *shows screen while smirking*

It was a shell simulator website running “ping https://google.com”

Client: This works correctly, but I don’t like the code.

Me: What exactly do you not like?

Client: There are barely any lines of code. You need to add more to make it better.

I...I don’t know what to say.

I’m a student who makes open source projects that are fairly popular and are used by several companies.

Today, I’m launching my Patreon campaign to hopefully fulfill my dreams of working on open source full-time.

Today is a good day.

https://patreon.com/kbrsh

I got a client asking for a free website for their company because it’s Black Friday...

There’s a fundamental difference between development and other jobs.

Doctor: Hey! My left arm is hurting and has been swollen for a while, I think it might be sprained. *pays $100*

Taxi Driver: Hey! Can you ride me over to this exact address? Thanks. *pays $20 + tip*

Construction Worker: I’m going to need this exact item in the blueprint built here with these materials. *pays $1000*

Mechanic: This part of my car isn’t working correct and it displays this exact warning. *pays $100*

Developer: Yo I need a cool free website that looks pretty awesome with like rainbows and stuff by tomorrow.

I had a client reach out to me to build a website for a company they’re starting.

The email was well-written and I was considering doing it—but then I read the last sentence.

“I think it’s appropriate for you to do it for free since I took the time to reach out to you”

Client: We have a HUGE security problem.

Me: *thinks about any possible vulnerabilities* What is it?

Client: A user can take a picture of our website and steal our content.

I’m done for today.

Me: *accidentally opens DevTools*

1.269427 milliseconds later...

Person: TEACHER! He’s HACKING INTO GOOGLE DRIVE!!!

Teacher: *glances at computer* Oh my gosh! That is ILLEGAL! Go to the office immediately.

I reluctantly headed to the office and calmly explained what happened. Luckily, some people have a bit of common sense and let me go.

Today (as a joke), I asked my class if there were any “professional HTML programmers” who could help me.

Surprisingly a couple people came over with smirks on their face. I thought they were going along with the joke.

Turns out, they were serious. They legitimately believed that they were professional HTML programmers and talked to me in such a condescending way that I was speechless.

“This is called a file. See that part after the dot? That’s what makes it HTML. HTML is an incredibly hard programming language and powers CPUs and the computer that you are using.”

I didn’t know how to respond. Hopefully they were joking.

Me: Updating the content requires replacing the child.

Person: Uh...

(In science class)

Teacher: What are clouds made of?

Me: Servers, preferably Linux.

Teacher: ?

Garbage collectors always fail to dispose of one critical thing: my code.

Understanding recursion requires understanding recursion first.

Person: I liked your personal website’s design, is it ok if I use it?

Me: A personal website should reflect your own style of design. Try creating one instead of using mine.

Person: Oh well, I liked yours more so I used it. Thanks anyway!

They literally have an exact copy of the code with different content. 😒

Person: *glances at my grades*

Me: Here we go again.

Person: I thought you were smart. How did you manage to get a C?!

It was a C (programming language) quiz. 🙄

I remember learning how to program 5-6 years ago. It was completely broken. All of these “courses” just teach the syntax of a language. They usually don’t even teach how it works or what it’s used for. Knowing the syntax is great and all, but what’s important is learning to apply it to solve problems.

A lot of other basic things are often overlooked as well. For example, introducing a text editor and the command line would have been incredibly valuable.

For a long while I was using online editors and logging the output of functions instead of actually making projects.

I’m glad I kind of created my own way of learning: by making projects. Just hopping into something was the best way to learn from me. If I got stuck, I’d simply look it up. As a result, I was able to actually apply my skills to learn.

Person: Check out this “savage” file!

Me: Huh?

Person: *Shows SVG file*

🙄

Woah. I just realized that I have 875 followers on GitHub. 😍

I know it's not much compared to the legends, but it's a lot for me.

https://github.com/kbrsh

So the person from my previous rant actually tried to make AI in HTML.

Person: I made that AI in HTML today!

Me: Oh really?

Person: Yup. *Opens HTML site*

It was a site that

1) Used JavaScript
2) Was a prompt(), and after answering it alerts "Yes" or "No" randomly.

Me: That's not AI

Person: Uhh yeah it is. It uses a neural network to answer!

Me: Actually, a neural network is a dot product of an input and vectors that are refined using partial derivatives.

Person: Yeah! That's what Math.random() and alert() do!

I left that room as quickly as I could (yet again).

Person: I want to learn to code neural networks and cool AI stuff.

Me: Look into Python or Lua.

Person: Those are too hard, I'm going to use HTML instead.

I got out of there as fast as I could. 😅

There's this guy that sits next to me in a class.

Guy: Hey, you're a hacker right?
Me: I'm a programmer.
Guy: Can you hack into my email account?
Me: Nope, I work in a different field of computer science.

In reality, I want to give him a piece of my mind.

I already know his email so I open up the login page and enter it. I click "forgot password", and it asks for his favorite teacher's name. Keep in mind that he made this account this year.

Me: So anyways, who's your favorite teacher?
Guy: *proceeds to give me favorite teacher's name*
Me: 🤦‍♂️

I change his password and log into his account. After that, I show him and tell him about how he should keep his account secure.

He left class with a priceless look on his face.

I can't quit making jokes about exiting Vim.

Please format issues and PRs correctly. As an open source maintainer it's already hard enough to respond to all of your demands.

But when you make an issue with the title of "error in app.js" with NO DESCRIPTION, and then think you're entitled to ME FIXING IT?!?

Please know that we do this for (mostly) free, and try to make our lives easier by giving us a detailed description of what is going on.

Thanks.

I love the feeling of closing a ton of tabs after finally fixing a bug.

I hate all of these rants about JavaScript being a terrible language.

In reality, it's one of the easiest languages to work with. This makes it easier for new programmers to write messy code, but is it the language's fault?

People get mad about the things that happen when you multiply "undefined" and a string...what do you expect?

You also have the freedom to choose from a variety of tools the community has created to solve existing problems. People just don't realize that they don't *have* to learn everything, you just learn as you need them.

Don't blame JavaScript for you bad programming, terrible type conversion needs, and great tooling.

Person: Hey, I heard you are good at programming, can—

Me: No.