2021 Flashback
M. Zakyuddin Munziri
@zakiego
Originally written in Bahasa Indonesia.
Growth.
One word that best describes this year and the word that rings most in my head. In this writing, I will try to summarize what I have learned throughout this year. The arrangement is not chronological, but starts from what I think is most important, then followed by others.
Table of Contents
Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset
Growth Mindset
In short, a growth mindset is the belief that we can continue to grow to be better. While its opposite, the fixed mindset, means closing oneself off, not wanting to grow, being satisfied with what is. I highly recommend listening to the explanation in this video.
One time, I was asked to help work on something. With pleasure. However, the thing I didn't like was, he repeatedly said, “Wow, I can't do things like this. It's so difficult”. Even though he was just watching me do it.
That statement describes how his mind works. From the beginning, he already considered it difficult, then because it was difficult, he was reluctant to learn. Even though that's the essence of learning, because something is difficult, we learn.
To be proficient in a field, we don't have to be talented. Besides, I don't care much about talent. We don't have to get a certificate from birth that we are good at math to become a mathematician. As long as we have the will and take the time to learn it, yup, we will become proficient in that field.
Like the classic saying, water is able to destroy rocks, not because of the magnitude of its power, but because of persistence and discipline.
Make mistakes and learn.
Learning to Fail
Since childhood, we were raised in an environment that considers making mistakes a disgrace. We are not allowed to be wrong at all. If we are wrong, it means we are despicable.
I also lived for years with this kind of thinking. A mindset that finally prevented me from moving. I was afraid of being wrong. I didn't dare to go anywhere.
But lately, I realized. That being wrong is a sign that we are growing. Just imagine, if as babies, we were not allowed to be wrong, we were not allowed to fall, could we walk like we do now?
In one of his videos, Mr. Mario Teguh said, when you learn something, allow yourself to be wrong 10 times—of course, this is just a figure of speech, not an actual number. At the beginning, surely many mistakes will be made, maybe up to 4 times. But over time and with increasing experience, the mistakes made will be rarer.
Gary Vee once said the same thing. We want to make 3 right decisions without a single mistake. But Gary, differently, he wants to make 118 right decisions and 92 wrong decisions. For him, the desire to be perfect, without fault, is the embodiment of insecurity. He is not afraid of mistakes. He doesn't care about other people's opinions. As long as those mistakes don't make us die or are outside our business, then there are no problems to worry about.
These pieces of advice finally changed my mindset. One of the impacts that might be most visible is my ability to speak. For those who have known me for a long time, surely know that I am a quiet person, afraid to be in front. But now, I allow myself to be wrong when speaking in front of other people. I learn.
I made a podcast just to practice telling stories. Speaking alone for 10 minutes forces me to prepare what I want to tell. Forces to think sequentially. Forces to speak while thinking. Not easy. And I still stutter in speaking. But most importantly, I continue to allow myself to learn and make mistakes.
Exploring the Coding World
Luckily, throughout 2020 I learned a lot of Excel/Google Spreadsheet formulas. This basic skill became my provision to learn coding. Because actually the concept is the same, there are commands that must be typed. It's just that when coding the commands are more complex.
If divided, there are at least two periods this year. First, learning the data world. Second, learning the web world and its friends.
Data World
DQLab
The first programming language I knew was R. DQLab became the place where I learned since December 2020. With a system of text material, exercises, and a provided console to run programs, I quite recommend it. The price is very cheap compared to Datacamp, especially for a period of 3-6 months.
Only in March did I move to Python. It took quite some time, because the syntax is different from R. But this language became the language that I still use until now. Lastly, DQLab also provides classes to learn SQL.
Datacamp
In the same month, using Visual Studio Dev Essentials, I was able to get free access to Datacamp for 3 months. Datacamp is arguably very expensive, but the material is indeed complete. Unfortunately, this package from Microsoft no longer exists.
However, there is still another way to get free access to Datacamp, by using Github Education. Just by registering there, you can get free access to Datacamp for 3 months.
Web World and Friends
I started seriously exploring the web world in June. The first framework learned was Hugo. Without ever learning the basics, I saw other people's code, then I just changed it.
Only in July did I start seriously from the basics. At FreeCodeCamp I learned basic HTML and Javascript. I highly recommend it. Easy and free. After feeling enough, I tried the framework Next.js and Tailwind CSS with tutorials from Array ID.
Because I felt my Javascript basics were not solid yet, Mr. Eko (Programmer Zaman Now) came as a savior. With his video for 8 hours I spent in a few days.
I was curious about mobile application development, luckily React has a version for mobile which is React Native. At first, I thought React Native was an advanced version of React.js, it turned out to be different.
When the wargabantuwarga project was crowded and the project used Typescript, finally I learned again, they said Typescript is more safe, able to minimize errors. It turned out to be true. Even almost all projects I make now use Typescript compared to Javascript.
Then, because I was very ambitious with programs that have faster capabilities, I learned Golang. The channel Cloud Engineering with Imre was the trigger, in his videos with the Go language.
Early December, I returned to learning the data world, precisely Data Engineering at Datacamp. But because it has to be hands-on and cloud is not free, so it's not as fast as learning “languages” in the learning process. In between times, I was also learning Dart as the language of Flutter to make mobile applications. Lastly, or more precisely the last day of 2021, I was reading the documentation of the Rust language. A language that works at a low-level but with an easier language.
I admit indeed this end of year I was greedy for many languages, because once you can do one language, it will be easy to learn other languages. generally the way it works is the same, what is different is only the commands.
Closing
One word that really left an impression on me from Mas Iqbal Farabi, “you can't delegate your growth to others”. The responsibility to grow is our own responsibility. We cannot tell others to learn, but our intelligence increases, we cannot. Nowadays almost everything we want to learn is available on the internet, it's just whether we want to use that resource or not.
When I am lazy, I always have reasons to justify that laziness.
