As mentioned here, it depends what your motivations and career aspirations are. Working at startups (worked at one mature startup, then consulted for a bunch of small ones) gave me experience dealing with customers directly and delivering high impact in a short timeframe. Working in a big company is teaching me to think really big (reach big customers, scalability/performance, high ROI, etc) and giving me the opportunity to learn from many, many brilliant people.
This brought back a lot of (good) memories for me. I was new to Javascript and picked up MooTools to help me with my first big project at work. Really glad to find out that a lot of the MooTools devs work on React now!
It looks like it. There is the Ergodox (https://ergodox-ez.com) and the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard (https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/), which were/are both crowdfunded and have an ergo layout. I've also seen in a forum where someone hacked their Ms4000 to have Cherry MX keys.
I splurged and got myself a used Happy Hacking Pro 2 keyboard, just to see what the hype was all about. It's quiet, blank, and very fun to type on.
I also have a Leopold Otaku with Cherry MX brown keys. It's not as quiet as the HHK but I like the tactile feedback. I like the tenkeyless form factor better than the HHK because I use arrow keys sometimes.
And before those 2 expensive ones, I had a MS Natural ergonomic 4000 which was a good, inexpensive and comfortable keyboard. I had the one with the very stiff space-bar but I think the newer versions' keys were less stiff.
Good luck on your search. My dream keyboard would be one with the MS 4000 ergonomic layout and the keys of the HHK. But I've spent enough on keyboards for awhile. :)
Algorithms/data structures classes are a good start.
I hear that the Coursera algorithms classes by Prof Sedgwick (Princeton) and Prof Roughgarden (Stanford) are very good. I think the Princeton ones might not be available after the Coursera switchover so would recommend downloading the course content if you can. There were some threads on HN in the last week about it.
Also MIT OpenCourseware has Intro to Algorithms which I hear is good too.
I've done a little bit of python and nodejs and quite a bit of java in Windows. It's pretty much all doable unless you rely on libraries that are linux only. Java was a little less painful than python and nodejs. Also, when I discovered ConEmu and started using that with msys git bash, development in Windows wasn't too terrible for nodejs. For python in Windows, I used the anaconda ecosystem, but I much rather prefer developing python on a linux machine.
I've used OpenShift and it's pretty straightforward to use. I don't feel like it's as easy to use as Heroku, but it got the job done. If I left my app idle (I think for 24 hrs or more), I noticed that it took awhile for it to awake when I tried to access it again.
People have mentioned some great blogs! Another one that came to my mind is Jennifer Dewalt, who built 180 websites in 180 days to teach herself coding: http://jenniferdewalt.com/
I eat ramen a few times every month, and I usually add eggs (poached, sunny-side up, etc.) and green onions. My mom always made ramen like this. :)
If I am craving niurou mian but don't have the time to make it, I add some soy sauce, sometimes a bean paste, cinnamon, star anise, ginger, and sugar and let the broth simmer a little longer.
Yes, programming courses get better and more interesting. The interesting ones aren't usually called "programming classes" -- they are usually some kind of theory or design classes that make you solve problems and build stuff. Maybe you can find something on Coursera or these other online courses where there is programming involved, but it's not the emphasis of the class. I am pretty sure when you take a class that challenges you, it will really whet your appetite for more.
I know UC Berkeley has a lot of their CS class pages online. You can check it out and see what kind of stuff they teach.
I started my mechanical keyboard search (or journey?) on an IBM Model M, but it was a little too stiff and big for me. I now use a Leopold Otaku tenkeyless (https://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=leopold,tenkeyle...), with Cherry browns. I wasn't sure which Cherry switches to get, but from doing some research, people seemed to agree that Cherry brown switches were good for all-around keyboard use (gaming, typing, etc.). While I like my MS Natural 4000 (especially for the leatherette wristpad), I really enjoy typing with my mechanical keyboard better.
I would also recommend a key sampler, as @wattson mentioned.
Debian Wheezy at home (I learned Linux on Debian, so I guess it's kind of habit when I pick a distro); CentOS 6.6 at work. After hearing a few things about Arch, though, I will give that a try. :)
Started learning ReactJS by trying to implement a very simple vim interface. This is my first side project where I've actually gotten somewhere with implementing basic functionality and then committed it to github. The project isn't close to being done (read: I'm kinda aware that it doesn't work ideally), but my goal is to commit code once a week.
Thanks! I'll need to check it out for sure. I wanted to do all of them in the MI series but didn't get around to it. Lately I've been trying to play through some old games so I will put that on my list.
I played Escape from MI (which I am assuming is kiiiinda similar to Secret of MI) and Grim Fandango. Loved both.
* possible spoiler alert *
Both are puzzle kind of games. There isn't anything like the insult fighting in GF. Both storylines are fascinating and suck you right in. Great voice acting and sidekicks. I think (if I recall correctly) both games make you travel to different places.
I found that GF moved me a lot more emotionally than MI (subjective, yeah) and I think it's probably because the GF storyline is a little darker/serious (not to say it didn't have funny moments). When I finished MI, I felt accomplished. When I felt GF, I felt like I was saying goodbye to friends that I'm not sure I would ever see again. That kind of feeling.
I could go on and on, but I don't want to spoil it too much more. :)
You might want to get a FasTrak (if you haven't already), if you are driving. It sure beats digging for change for the toll. :) Or if you carpool during certain commute hours, you can be in the toll-free lane.
It kind of depends what you're going to use those technologies for (i.e. what kind of webapp you want to build), but you can learn a lot about web technologies by building a simple blog, if you don't have something particular in mind. That will give you a direct, quick exposure to both backend and frontend technologies. Or you can search for tutorials and demos, then hack them to do more.
I'm sure others will have great suggestions, so I'll pitch a few to start with (I don't have a particular ordering in mind):
SQL (yes, this isn't really new technology);
NoSql or something similar;
Some kind of web framework, e.g. Ruby on Rails, which will provide you the interface between database and frontend (and much more);
Some familiarity with web servers (just because you have to worry about that for your web framework)
Apologies in advance if I put the technologies in the wrong group...
Great advice about facing problems head on, instead of running or avoiding. I started doing that when my anxiety was at its worst, and I've been feeling much better since.
I had been at the company for several years and felt like I was just wandering -- pretty much self taught in a lot of things, for better or worse, so I didn't understand a lot of things still. Pretty much everyone else on the team was/is a senior engineer, and when we would have discussions, I would be quite lost... but I was too afraid/proud to ask for help to understand. I would always feel anxiety during meetings especially, because everyone gave input and I had nothing to say.
I decided that instead of boiling myself in my own anxiety about not knowing how things worked, I would go ask another engineer to help me understand. Reaching out and asking for help (and deciding not to care what people thought of me) helped me realize that it's "ok" (to some extent) to have imposter syndrome.