August 2025 Wrap Up

Whoa, I’m actually working on one of these early… mind blown! Normally I’m scrambling on the last day of the month (or even in the next month) to get this done. Look at me—I’ve peaked! It’s only downhill from here. Anyways, this was a fantastic month for learning. I finished data structures and the AI project, I’ve got solid direction with SilentMemoir as my personal project, and I started the JavaScript course for those slow moments at work. I’ve also picked up The Rust Programming Language book because I like the idea of working a little closer to the metal but with safe memory management (you can call it a skill issue, but it doesn’t bother me). Lastly, I may or may not be pivoting on this whole GitHub Pages thing.

My Man Boots🐻

Finishing the First Half of the Coursework

That’s wild to type. I’m halfway done with the main coursework for boot.dev. I knew it would happen eventually, but actually being here feels incredible. I can only imagine what it’ll feel like when I finish all of it.

I really enjoyed finishing data structures and seeing the different ways to write code that’s actually fast—well, as fast as it can be in Python (preview to my Rust section, hehe). Then I honestly didn’t enjoy the AI Agent project as much as I thought I would. At first it seemed really interesting, but as I got further along, it just didn’t spark joy for me. I really didn’t want to go digging through the Gemini docs to make sure I got everything I needed.

Here’s the thing though: I actually don’t mind digging through docs on projects I’m interested in (preview to SilentMemoir). The AI project as a whole just kinda fell flat for me. I’m glad I did it because I like the feeling of completing tasks, but the project was just… meh.

SilentMemoir

Okay, so I’m currently so hyped about working on this! Maybe that’s because I had two back-to-back days to actually work on it, so I was able to get a lot done. That rarely happens right now.

First, I started by going through the Textual tutorial on their website to get the basic idea of how it works. I built that, then started reading through the docs so I had at least a foundational understanding of what’s possible (spoiler: it’s a lot). Then yesterday and today I was actually able to sit down and just start from scratch.

It started off slow because I had to figure out what I actually needed to start a program. But the more I worked on it, the more familiar I felt with Textual, and the faster I got at coding it. That has never happened to me before because I’ve always either been learning something completely new or feeling unfamiliar with how the system works since I didn’t know the docs. That’s exactly what happened with the AI Agent.

Those coding sessions were actually really cool, exciting, and totally addicting! I still made errors, but because I knew exactly what I was trying to do with my code, I knew where to look to find the bug and fix it.

So here’s where the project currently stands: I have the basic flow between screens done. It’s nothing fancy quite yet—I still have to build out each screen and the functions to go with them. However, figuring out how to set up each screen and then navigate between them was incredible.

What’s next is building out each screen. I’m going to start with the home screen (the easiest), then just move through the screens in order from there. This is forcing me to learn CSS because that’s what Textual uses to style their apps, so I guess it’s time to face CSS head-on instead of letting my friend Claude vibe code it out for me.

Link to the project here: https://github.com/pndaRN/SilentMemoir

JavaScript

Look at me turning into a web developer—learning CSS and JS. Watch out world!

The reason I started the JS course on boot.dev is twofold. One, I wanted to start a course I could work on while at work but didn’t want to jump into the Go courses yet. Two, the more I learn about software development, the more I’m realizing how beneficial it is to be a well-rounded programmer in basic frameworks, with JS being one of them.

I think for a while I was mentally putting myself in a box since I’m going through boot.dev. “I’m only learning backend stuff,” I kept telling myself. However, I’m finding that if I want to do things myself and work for myself, I kinda need to know a bit about everything. I watched a video where AnthonyGG said that unless you’re working for a FAANG company, it’s actually better to be a generalist programmer, and that just opened up my mind to so much more. I don’t know why that particular moment made a lightbulb go off, but it did.

So here I am, learning JavaScript like the good frontend developer I apparently am becoming.

Learning the Ways of the Crab

As mentioned above, I bought the Rust programming book to start learning Rust. I know the book is online and all the info is free there, but there’s something about having a physical book to flip through and reference that I really enjoy. I’m able to remember more and flip back to sections where I think the info I’m looking for is located much easier when using the actual book.

The reason I chose Rust is because in my quick research into languages that work closer to the metal and are efficient, Rust kept coming up in conversations. I also like how it’s safer memory-wise than C out of the box. Plus, I love that it’s completely statically typed and you have to declare if something is const—I feel like it forces me to write cleaner code in the long run.

I’m also very interested in the speed of Rust. I’ve been listening to a lot of a podcast called The Standup, and Casey Muratori talks a LOT about thinking about efficiency and how Python out of the box just… isn’t. The idea of programs being fast for everyone is something I really like.

So that’s why I picked up the Rust book. I’m going to go through it pretty slowly and do all the example projects at the end of each chapter so that when I finish the book, I’ll have a thorough understanding of the language. This one’s going to be a long haul for me, and I’m excited to slowly grind through it.

So I Am Building a Website

I guess I’ve gone full webdev! I was having a conversation with a guy at the rock climbing gym (yes, I’m one of those crazy people) and he’s studying software development, so we talk about the things we’re working on while resting from climbing. I was trying to explain my struggles with Ruby and Jekyll in building a site to host my journal, and he just looked at me and simply said, “Why don’t you just make a personal website?”

And that was that. No other comments on it—it just clicked in that moment (I’ve had several of those “aha” moments this month, lol). So instead of trying to use a system to kinda do what I want, I’m just going to do what I want by building my own website!

I’m going to use Svelte to build it because I like the concept of Svelte as a frontend framework, and I don’t want to touch React with a 10-foot pole. I’m hoping to launch it at the same time I launch SilentMemoir so I have a project to showcase alongside the website. When that will actually happen is a great question.

To Wrap It Up

This has been a fantastic month for my programming journey. It feels incredible to go out on my own and figure problems out—that’s why I wanted to start this whole thing to begin with. To me, programming is just word/logic puzzles that I get to solve. Sometimes it’s so frustrating when you can’t figure something out, but the satisfaction you get when it finally works? Incredible.

I feel like this month was the first time I actually sorta know what I’m doing—or if I don’t know how to do something, I at least know how to look up how to do it now. So yeah, I’m really happy with where I’m at.

My biggest challenge moving forward is not starting too many things and actually finishing them. I hear this is everyone’s struggle as well. Luckily, I’m happy with what I’m learning right now and excited to have a general roadmap to follow through on!