February 2022

February was busy. I packed a lot of work into the short month. My client work is now in the “active development” phase. I’m putting together several web applications based on NextJs for a local startup, and consulting for a second client on de-risking their process and preparing their codebase for launch. Both are going well, and I’m really excited to be launching these.

I didn’t have much time for running club or socialising. I did make it through to Glasgow to celebrate Gordon’s birthday - and it was nice seeing people that I had not seen since the start of the pandemic.

I managed two half marathons in the month in preparation for the 12 week training plan for the Edinburgh Marathon starting in March.

EdinburghJS

I co-organised EdinburghJS - a meetup for JavaScript enthusiasts in Scotland. In January the in-person event was cancelled due to Covid, but we were able to get a small audience alongside the livestream in February. I gave a talk on prototyping with NextJs and Airtable.

I’m keen to provide resources for developers that they might not be able to get online: a focus on networking, mentoring and sharing of opportunities. You can get technical tutorials anywhere online, but there are limited opportunities to meet local developers. That’s what I want to focus on.

We have some more talks coming up on March 17th, so keep an eye on the Twitter feed for details of the talks.

Reading

Thanks to taking a course with the Open University, I was granted access to Edinburgh University Library, so I grabbed a few books that I’d been meaning to purchase for a while. I picked up The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander which was a great meditation on the patterns that make up our homes, neighbourhoods and cities. I also dug in to Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrom, which I used for the module I’m currenty studying.

I picked up Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth in a Kindle sale. I think the concept is neat, but I would have preferred more detail.

In advance of the Interintellect Orwell vs Huxley salon I read Orwell: A Man of Our Time by Richard Bradford which was a good overview of Orwell’s life, but the references to current politics feel a little dated even just a few years on.

Have a lovely spring!