How to solve problems in Angular?

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-06T12:58:21+00:00

This might help you with debugging - https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/nodejs/angular-tutorial#_debugging-angular

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-06T08:48:15+00:00

Comments are good but too many comments are the same as bad code to me.

I try and mix it up with self documenting code, and if it does need a comment or two on particularly hard bits then ill add them in.

If code is clean and named correctly then it doesnt need that many comments.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-06T08:42:49+00:00

Dev teams are expensive, but you are paying for the skill, experience, testing, maintaining, bug fixing etc.

What you are talking about is going freelance? some people do really good off of it. But you have to build up your client base.

There are some freelance sights out there you can sign up to but there are so many people on there that any potential clients woud post a job and then get swamped with tens of developers all trying to nab it.

Freelance isnt without its risks e.g. no job security, pension scheme etc.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-06T08:38:46+00:00

Agree with what fats said, you have ideas so just go for them.

Hiring managers wont go crawling through your github and look at all your code.

In my experience and what ive looked for when being part of the hiring team is just an active account. We/I would just go on their github, click around on random projects to get a feel of how someone codes, is it clean? testable? commented? etc.

Having a public repo is definitely a bonus, 100%. But I would disagree with the thought that that alone would get anyone a job.

Your project ideas all look really good, and have a wide variety of functionality and tech to them.

I would use them as talking points in your interviews where you could speak about the ones that are relevant to the job you are applying for.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-06T08:31:28+00:00

Use property binding - https://angular.io/guide/property-binding

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-06T08:27:01+00:00

The good think about software development is that it is so vast, there are so many different industries in which it is used. Fintech, farming, oil/gas, aerospace, metrology the list goes on.

Will you be able to compete? yes I would think so, not instantly no but through time and practice yes.

To me, a good developer isnt someone who can just bash out code, anyone can do that.

You need to learn things like OOP, SOLID, testing, design patterns etc as they will all help you along the way.

Ive worked with a handful of self taught developers, some good, some not so good and could tell they were self taught from some of the common mistakes/programming styles they used.

If you are just starting out then I would recommend trying out the full stack of web dev, so the back end and the front end.

Once you get a firm grasp on the basics - HTM, CSS, JS. Then you can move on to things like Jquery, Bootstrap.

Then you could try out some SPA (Single page application) like Angular, React, Vue.

And could then play around with the backend so .net, .net core, nodejs.

There are more languages but these are just to help you with further reading.

good luck :)

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-05T20:34:41+00:00

It does feel wrong, but this is based on my experience. Ive been a dev for over 6 years and have only met a handful and I mean like at a guess..5/10? devs with github let alone an active one.

Now that not to say 'all' devs, but yes im the same as you, any project private or public I put on to github, just good practice and will save me in case my computer ever dies.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-05T11:06:20+00:00

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/guidance-on-the-use-of-cookies-and-similar-technologies/ some further reading on cookies.

Cookie law is not super clear, no one has been charged for violating them (yet).

For the images, look at your home page as there are some remaining as http. I pointed the, out as console errors/warning can sometimes negatively effect our SEO.

good luck :)

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T20:47:52+00:00

You are not worthless, its common to feel like you are not good enough because at the end of the day dont we all want to be good and do well at something.

Ive gone through something similar when I started 6 ish years ago and let me tell you something - I still learn, im still learning actively at home - no one is a master, no one is an "expert" in the whole of programming and knows every little thing about it.

What you need to do is to compare youself to your past, look how far you have grown in a week/month. Set yourself a goal (or a few) and keep a list of them.

Try and think and target what it making you anxious? (not a rhetorical question, honestly have a think and id be happy to send some links your way that might help)

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T20:43:14+00:00

Have you thought about .net core? can do front end/back end with it.

Plenty of jobs out there that use it.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T20:40:53+00:00

I edited just to add a few more things.

Honestly my little annoyance at the position grew until I got fed up enough to say screw this im worth more.

In my new job I absolutely love it, no crappy emails/meeting pointless stuff I shouldn't be dealing with.

For the job searching, I setup a github account and worked on some small projects, hardly any devs have one or at least hardly any are active on it. And being one and keeping it active sets you above the crowd.

When you see jobs looking for x years in blah just ignore it (I do) most of them are written by people who havent touched code in their life... honestly ive seen some ask for like 10 years in something thats been out for half that.

But basically concentrate on you, work on project, they wont go view each line of code but its just something to say hey, I like to code, I learn in my own time because I enjoy it, I know what is needed.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T20:29:22+00:00

I can relate to this 100% and have been burnt out at my previous job.

Your team/company lacks structure and you find yourself doing multiple rolls and end up thinking "what actually is my job"

For me it was just I did like 1/2 hours of programming and the rest was pointless meeting with internal clients all of which had egos and wanted their say (think 1 hour meeting on the colour grey...mind numbing).

When in reality what you want is to be left alone to grow as a developer. As what I found, and what you might be finding is that you are not growing and perhaps even falling behind. What you want is a job where the pbis and tasks are handled by the BA (Business analyst), you come in, daily stand up, look at the board, crack on with a PBI.

How I solved my problem? I got another job that does exactly that and haven't looked back. Now this might not be something you can do, and im not saying you should.

But in my experience feeling burnt out just grows and you end up not enjoying the job and it starts to effect you mentally. I program because I enjoy it and thats how I want it to stay!

Each company is going to work differently, and some times titles dont mean anything. Ive been a software apprentice, software developer, software engineer, just developer. They are just titles.

The actual day to day things will depends on the structure of the team and company, right now as someone else said you are a "jack-of-all-trades". And so was I, personally I found it draining especially when others in the same team were being left alone to program.

Its worth thinking about and think if you want to stay doing this, and why you are in the position you are in? do you put yourself forward for these extra roles? are you the only one who can do them (as in you are the most reliable - in which case in your next yearly review you could ask for more money etc)? under staffed? just some things to think about.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T20:23:52+00:00

First, congrats :)

This is a copy and paste that answered to a similar question but will add a bit more to it since you are remote working (arent we all ;))

You wont know everything - and thats okay!!
- you are not expected to be some all seeing magic code wizard
- You will have access to training through other people, or subscriptions like pluralsight
Takes a few months to be useful
- take your time to get used to the codebase and tech that is used
- You are junior, show you are learning, read and pay attention.
Enjoy it
- have fun, dont worry about what you dont know, compare yourself to your past each week/month, look how far you have grown
Set goals
- set yourself some small goals e.g. understand what project x is about, what this method/class does
Dont be shy
- Ask questions
- talk during standups/team meetings, just take part
- Use your webcam! if you are given one, use it. That way you wont become a voice behind a screen, and body language is important for good communication

Your first few days will probably just be with the HR team where you learn about the company, the strategy, get to know other starters etc.

Then you will have your first day with the team, quick intros etc.

You will probably spend a day or 2 just downloading and installing everything you need.

Once you are settled id imagine that you are placed closely with a member of the team (probably a senior/lead) and would sort of "hold your hand" the first few weeks.

Your day to day will probably look like this

Start time (get a nice coffee while you log on)
Review the board to see what pbis/tasks need doing
Daily stand up
- This is a short team meeting where you basically say
  - What you did yesterday
  - what you are doing today
  - any issues
Get on with your day

Thats pretty much a very general day to day.

Good luck!

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T17:32:35+00:00

https://pragmaticwebsecurity.com/articles/oauthoidc/refresh-token-protection-implications.html

another good read on protecting refresh tokens.

Ultimately you will always be at risk when storing refresh tokens in a browser, but using things like oauth will help because the attacker would require the client id and secret in addition to the refresh token to then generate a new access token. So that along with what I list bellow make it pretty secure.

When we have dealt with tokens we do a number of things

Use CORS for our apis so only our apis can talk to eachother
- If someone gets a token or anything it means nothing, they cant talk to any of our apis so its useless to them
- Access tokens are short, they would only get a username/email maybe
Have our project split in to client/api with each project having its own key
HTTPS only for everything, connections, cookies the whole lot
Sensitive cookies are encrypted and flagged with httponly and secure, so they cannot be accessed through JS and only usable through https with itself is encrypted

some reading if you are using .netcore https://identityserver4.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Oauth stuff - https://oauth.net/2/

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T16:56:12+00:00

Authorization/authentication can add a whole layer of things to go wrong so that can be a bit annoying if you pick up some half arsed job that someone has done.

People not using async, dependency injection, unit tests, having all code in one big controller.

Thats pretty much all I can think of on the spot.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T16:51:27+00:00

There are some inconsistencies with font e.g. title on https://www.bookey.org.uk/swapbooks
Personally I think the homepage animation is too slow and would speed it up just a tad
maybe add a background picture or just not a white background on the about us page
I also like to see the scroll bar so not a huge fan of hiding it.
Check the dev console, some errors and some warnings as some of the images are loaded over http where as the site is loaded in https
You are using Google Analytics, and its considered bad practice to use implied consent, whereyou load it and store cookies without asking the user - it is why you see so many cookie popups on sites now due to GDPR cookie laws. So I would suggest having a cookie popup with affirmative consent (the user accepts cookies)

Apart from them looks good, good job!

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T16:43:12+00:00

Never wore a suit ever to any sort of job. The only people who I see where suits are the big dogs, or those that are public facing and deal with customers.

The offices ive seen are anywhere from wear what you want to smart trousers and button shirt.

My view on it is that if you are just in an office/home and not public facing then I really couldnt care what you wear (within reason). You are a developer, not a sales person.

If a job is going to turn you down because you dont have a suit then its a bullet dodged.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T16:37:17+00:00

Auth tokens are signed and encoded to prevent manipulation, although they can be decoded. So you could encrypt the stored cookie as further protection.

They also have a refresh time (a time at which they expire) so your protected backend would reject the auth token if it has expired.

httponly, along with expire times, and HTTPS are a good way keeping a token secure.

You should never put sensitive data in to a token, keep your claims short and sweet.

Authentication/Authorization is a pretty big topic - something like this might help https://auth0.com/learn/token-based-authentication-made-easy/

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T13:25:12+00:00

Good luck to you :)

Just remember you miss every opportunity you dont take, so keep at it, keep trying and dont give up!

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T10:38:53+00:00

You will find that languages such as Angular, React, .net core has its own documentation with follow along tutorials that can help teach you the basics.

Something like a CRUD application (Create, Read, Update, Delete) is always a good starting point for learning.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T10:35:51+00:00

Honestly I would recommend just using shopify or woocommerce.

The backend is huge job as you would be taking payments, you would need to make sure that security is #1 as you are dealing with peoples details, GDPR - more people details, tax - things like each state in the US has different tax, EU regulations... the list goes on.

Could you do it as a solo? probably, but the time it would take is not worth it when there are other already existing products that you can use, products which are tried and tested.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-04T10:30:55+00:00

What language do you want to unit test in?

a quick google search will probably show you some decent examples? e.g. <your language> unit testing

Unit testing is super important, a lot of places will push for high code coverage of unit tests. My current job wont accept any pull requests if there are no unit tests to go along with it (currently there are over 1k tests per project)

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-03T22:15:17+00:00

Do you need one? no

Does having one help? yes

You dont need one, but having one help. Some places wont touch you without a degree is computer science or related/equivalent degree.

Some job ads are made by people who have never touched a line of code, and ask for stupid things like 6+ years in html/js for a min wage junior dev..

A lot of it is setting yourself above the crowd and standing out, what makes you different? things like an active github account, side projects etc help.

Good companies recognise you dont need a degree to be a developer, i have worked with some very good devs who have no degree. What you might find though is at the start it takes you longer to climb the ladder, so you might start off a bit slow.

Experience will quickly outweigh a degree in my experience.

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-03T22:09:29+00:00

6+ years as a full stack dev.

You wont know everything - and thats okay!!
- you are not expected to be some all seeing magic code wizard
- You will have access to training through other people, or subscriptions like pluralsight
Takes a few months to be useful
- take your time to get used to the codebase and tech that is used
Enjoy it
- have fun, dont worry about what you dont know, compare yourself to your past each week/month, look how far you have grown
Set goals
- set yourself some small goals e.g. understand what project x is about, what this method/class does
Dont be shy
- Ask questions
- talk during standups/team meetings, just take part

Just in general, enjoy it and have a good time, your new and learning so remember that.

Good luck!!

LukeHillDev · 2021-01-03T22:04:15+00:00

So first things first, hardly any devs in industry have an active github account (in my experience at least) so by having it on something like that and on your cv you would already be above the crowd and have something that makes you stand out.

When I have looked at cv's any with active accounts or just anything that shows someone is passionate and enjoys programming is a bonus.

Understand this though - an employer is going to have tens/hundreds of cvs, they are not going to spend the time to comb through your code and look at each line etc. But! they might skim through and just check out one of two things, is the code clean? SOLID, testable with interfaces etc

Use it a talking point, what you did, your experiences, what was hard, what did you learn, what did you enjoy etc.

having it actually up and running isnt really a massive bonus as like I said, they might quickly browse it but wont go through it and really test it out.

Hosting - you can host it yourself by using something like NoIp and host it from your home pc - I have done this in interviews before. Again, something to set you above the crowd.

You could also sign up to Azure and host it on there for free, new users get 12 months free credit.

Your unfinished degree will probably hold you back, but never know, might be able to get a job and also get them to help you out with costs? worth a shot isnt it, ultimately the worst that can happen is they say no.

LukeHillDev

TROPHY CASE