Continued my web security studies. Looking into the bcryptjs package. I have read a bit about hashing functions before so it is not completely new material. There is still a lot to take in with this topic and I honestly am not entirely show how I should organize my thoughts and notes.

The inherent problem with studying a new topic is you are not aware of how deep the topic goes. How many different concepts are included in it or what it will take for you to get a firm grasp of the material. The first challenge that I have to overcome is exposure. When you gain enough superficial exposure to a subject or field of study you can start to make connections and place it in a pile with related ideas. Once you have performed a rough sort you can then go in and really get to organizing and confirming what belongs where.

For now, I have started this process by cleaning up my crude notes on cybersecurity and going through the linked playlist on using PassportJS User Authentication. Hopefully once I cover this material I can have enough exposure on the subject to start organizing my notes in a semi-organized pattern.

So much to learn so little time. Exposure first, then notes and skill building second.

TLDR;

Okay, so here are the highlights of what I did:

• Backend -> Continued reading through some of the concepts mentioned in the web security section. I finished reading through the core information and I started going through the linked playlist on using PassportJS User Authentication.
• React -> Went through the React docs on the useReducer and useContext hooks. I think I might just start using the useReducer hook more often in place of useState. It is pretty convenient. There are still some more hooks and concepts I want to go over and improve my notes with.

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Goal For Round 8 of the #100DaysofCode Challenge

This is my eighth round of the “#100daysofcode” challenge. I will be continuing my work from round five, six, and seven into round eight. I was working through the book “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. My goal was to become more familiar with algorithms and data structures. This goal was derived from my goal to better understand operating systems and key programs that I use in the terminal regularly e.g. Git. This goal was in turn derived from my desire to better understand the fundamental tools used for coding outside of popular GUIs. This in turn was derived from my desire to be a better back-end developer.

I am currently putting a pause on the algorithm work to build some backend/full stack projects. I primarily want to improve my skills with the back-end from an implementation perspective. I have improved tremendously in terminal and CLI skills but I lost focus due to how abstract the algorithm concepts got. I wanted to work on things that were more tangible until I can get to a position where I could directly benefit from improving my algorithm skills and theoretical knowledge. So that’s the focus right now. Build my backend skills and prove my full stack capabilities by building some dope projects.

Again, I still have no idea if my path is correct but I am walking down this road anyways. Worst case scenario I learn a whole bunch of stuff that will help me out on my own personal projects. Best case scenario I actually become one of those unicorn developers that go on to start a billion dollar company… You never know LOL.