What do think humanity's purpose is? You believe that colonizing space will protect us from extinction-- what purpose do we have to as a species to go on?
When you fork a Github project, you'll have to examine the code to see what it's doing and how.
With HTML and CSS, it's mostly visual but you can find improvements on semantics or simplifying what's there. If you can improve performance by rewriting a javascript function into CSS, such as animations, submit a pull request with your suggestions.
With Javascript, look for bugs and improve the code that's written. Javascript easily becomes a mess and is often referred to as spaghetti code when it becomes hard to manage.
Overall, look for ways to simplify the code, even if it means more code overall although usually it means less code.
Two examples:
Thanks for the feedback! Do you know of any interesting engineering problems that I can try solving? Perhaps a project like this:
https://haseeb-qureshi.github.io/n-queens-visualizer/ The blogger used it for his own portfolio. It solves the 'N/Eight Queen Problem'. I actually tried doing it myself using JS and I ran into a lot of problems.. My skills may not be that far along yet.
I actually tried doing it myself using JS and I ran into a lot of problems..
Excellent. Keep trying until you succeed. In the interest of giving practical advice instead of hand waving, I'll just say that the n-queens link you provided is something that I would expect a good JS developer to build in, say .. a day. You will get there, and it's OK if for now it takes you way longer. "one day" is provided, of course, that I'm not being naive about what the implementation requires. Currently I think it is a collection of JS implementations of algorithms for which the pseudocode can be found on Wikipedia + a simple simulator that runs said algorithms one iteration at a time. (Interesting that the speed can be edited. I guess that rules out setInterval) Let me know if I presumed too much :) Definitely do it for fun, practice, confidence, github, etc... but I wouldn't make it the first thing on a resume unless there's something novel going on there.
Try this: Find a thing and make it faster. Like way faster. Often, there is some operation (F) that is called many times on some type of object (X) and it's possible (perhaps using linear algebra) to improve performance by figuring out a way to express many operations on single items into one operation on many items. I.e. F([X1, X2, X3, ...]) instead of F(X1), then F(X2), then F(X3), ... and so on.
> Perhaps a project like this... n-queens-visualizer
Ugh, projects like this feel like a homework puzzles that will have multiple extant solutions. As an interviewer, I'd prefer to see something more authentic.
Is there nothing you want to see exist in the world? No actual problem you, your friends or family face that could be made easier with a little single page app? This could be something tiny like experiments for a better UX pattern for an app that frustrates you e.g. adding a friend in social network X or hashtag auto-completion etc. That lets you show creativity without committing to a large succeed/fail project.
Closing the loop of identifying and resolving problems indicates a good engineer. If you can't come up with a long list of problems you see in the world I would be concerned!
I know html, css, js, jquery, and a little bit of php. I know how to make websites responsive. I know how to make AJAX calls (although, I'm a bit rusty). I have some knowledge of design.
>Who are you intending to showcase them to?
I plan on displaying the projects on my portfolio site for recruiters to see.
What exactly do you mean by 'target it like crazy'? Do you mean that I should create a project that relates to the company that I'm applying to?
Using your example.. I could create a vehicle page for the 'Model Y' Tesla car (which hasn't been released yet), and make the design similar to the other model pages.
Exactly - work out who you're sending your resume to and target with laser focus on them, find out what they do, and highlight your ability to do all the junior FE Dev parts of that - don't pretend to be a Creative Director or Marketing Strategist or Head Designer if there are people way more experienced that you easily findable on LinkedIn at the company (or on the other hand, if it's a two person agency or a 7 person startup, try to demonstrate that you can cover those three roles as well as FE Dev). If it's for recruiters, it's a bit harder, but try to do the same thing using currently open job ads as your guide (but as soon as you get a nibble from a recruiter, then find out who the comoany is and follow the rest of the plan).
Make sure your portfolio clearly demonstrates that you can do the sort of stuff you'd need to do for them.
For your counter-example, yeah that's the idea - but don't _just_ make it about "similar design", make sure you can explain how you've used the existing Tesla.com css stylesheet, javascript and jQuery libraries, and that your page uses the same media queries and is mobile friendly and responsive in the same way as the rest of the site.
