My Developer Adventure: The "Dev Retro 2022" Experience

My Developer Adventure: The "Dev Retro 2022" Experience

📍MLH - local hack day

My 2022 began with a hackathon; it was my first time participating in any MLH event. There were several sessions on Twitch that were really involved, and I learned a lot from fantastic individuals. I was a member of the 'HEKORS' guild, which exposed me to other developers involved in MLH-LHD. Joining our guild was the best option I could have made because we were chatting on our hekors discord server and sharing our progress and other information.
In LHD, I was in the top 2% of performers in our guild, and I completed all of the assignments that were assigned to me.

This gave me confidence that I could create new projects and master new talents that were tough to me; also, the voyage of collecting swags began immediately. My career as a developer began here since I produced some excellent starter projects in javascript, python, and html/css.

All of my projects and challenges from this hackathon can be found here - Devpost

MLH stickers pack :)

MLH sticker swag pack


📍 Started learning Web Development

Web development will be the most in-demand skill in 2022ll, and I found it really cool to learn because I was learning to build something that can solve real-world problems. I learned about various syntaxes in HTML and CSS, and the W3 Schools website was very helpful in this, as it had all the CSS properties and you could also try yourself what a particular syntax can do and how it behaves. After completing the Free Code Camp responsive web development certification, I began working on tiny projects. This was the period when I updated my github profile and began creating repositories.
Please consider following my github profile! -


📍Making projects

I had a rudimentary understanding of HTML, CSS (CSS frameworks such as bootstrap and tailwind CSS), and some javascript, so it was time to construct some applications. To obtain a basic understanding of how this works, I wrote some code along the guidance of Angela Wu course, the Net Ninja video channel, and other YouTube channels. My GitHub repository contains all of the projects.

Implementing after learning is the most difficult part for me, but what fun is there if there are no bugs? And, while I was getting my hands filthy with CSS after a few efforts, I was still working out Javascript. W3 School once again aided me, and I'm now studying javascript on a regular basis due to the high demand and diversity of frameworks and libraries in javascript that enable the construction of dynamic applications with better components.


📍Hackathons

The toughest steel is forged in hottest fire.

The most remarkable thing of being a developer is participating in hackathons and contests where you have to produce a project within a specific time frame. Hackathons give us the opportunity to interact with other developers and build projects, and expand our domain of knowledge.

In 2022, I participated in a number of hackathons, the most of them were remote, but they were all extremely fascinating, and I was able to complete several solid projects in the web development domain.

⭐️Dotslash 5.0 hackathon - Made a static web page on health and fitness, used bootstrap for styling and positioning components. It was a wonderful chance to interact with the builders, though I was participating as a single candidate, but I learned to manage so many other things apart from coding. Made a presentation for pitching round, coded the website in 24 hours, had sleepless nights, interacting with the speakers, and followed up with speaker sessions. Dotslash project Github Repo link and website link

Dotslash was my introduction to hackathons that is why it is so special for me, it taught me how the hackathon works, after which there was no looking back, I was taking part in almost every hackathon remotely. So here are some hackathons I did take part in -

⭐️Tech Kutumb - It was a tech event that was my first in-person hackathon experience, organized by Symbiosis College in Indore. Before the project show, there were speaker sessions, and there were about 9 teams with hardware projects. My team and I created a web 3 project that would detail the transactions that occurred recently using meta mask wallet. I used next JS, and alchemy platform for building this project and the whole UI was made with next and taiwlind CSS.
I am honoured to tell that I secured first position in the project exhibition

This was one of the most significant accomplishments in my 2022 developer career; the reward inspired me to do more programming and construct more and more applications. Participated in many other hackathons as well, and it was a wonderful experience.


📍Open Source

This year, I also began contributing to multiple open source projects through many month-by-month events such as Hacktoberfest and SSOC (social summer of code), though I missed a couple of open source programs this year, I was able to complete some, and this year gave me a better understanding of how github works, what a Pull-Request is, how to raise a new issue, and how to contribute to projects. Open source is a great way show credeability, collab with other developers and review code for the same.

List of some contributions I made this year :

⭐️ Github wrapped of 2022 :

You may also help with the project's documentation, such as the readme file, which contains information on the project and how to run it in your local browser. Readme files may be altered to seem both nice and basic. Same with the Contributing file which contains guidance/help regarding how to contribute to the project. Here are my badges that I got after completing hacktoberfest 2022. And check my SSOC certificate here.


📍Meetups, Events, Tech Fests

This year, I was able to attend numerous meetups in Indore, despite the fact that there were no offline/in-person events in early January and February. However, the calendar was jam-packed after August.

So here are some snippets of events that I attended in past few months :

⭐️Meetups and events like this are extremely beneficial to developers and learners like us because they allow us to connect with the dev community, network with people who share our interests, and attend speaker sessions where senior or experienced devs share their experience and deliver technical knowledge. I got a fantastic opportunity to attend these meetups, and I also won some swag items that I can now use :D.


📍Conclusion and 2023 goals

This year has been a terrific roller coaster trip for me, because I was trying out so many things and this is what programmers do they love to build and address real world issues. I am now leanring and investigating more into web 3 and will be constructing some great applications as well in this area.

My goals for 2023 are -

  • To learn multiple javascript framework and libraries.

  • build projects that can solve real world problems

  • get better at designing

  • to more and more open source contributions

  • document my journey while learning and implementing

  • be a active dev community member

  • get a remote internship in web domain


Thank you !

Thats it from my side, thanks for reading my journey as a dev in 2022, Hope you liked this.