I started a new repository called PlayingWithReact. I’m using it to play with the library by testing out ideas and any material I’m learning. It’s also being used to walk through interesting tutorials I find. I think I’ll create “Playing with X” repos for all of the things I’m focused on learning.

Lots of great reading this week! I devoured Tom Verducci’s The Cubs Way. The book is truly a must read for any Cubs fan, possibly any baseball fan. Verducci gives a deep account of how Theo Epstein and his staff turned around the entire narrative of the Cubs. The book also touches on the players, coaches, and how the Cubs won the 2016 World Series. Once known only for losing, the Cubs way is now winning. One notable takeaway was Epstein’s acrostic of traits of what it means to be Cub:

C - Courage
U - Urgency
B - Belief

Beyond that I continued forward with Musashi. It just gets better and better. I’m about 50% of the way through it now. I should have it done in three or four weeks worth of reading.

Finished

PluralSight Course(s): Getting Started with Phoenix, JavaScript Best Practices, React.js: Getting Started

Book(s): The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse

Currents

MOOC Course: Mastering the Software Engineering Interview

PluralSight Course(s): Implementing and Securing an API with ASP.NET Core, Building a RESTful API with ASP.NET Core, Getting Started with .NET Core on Mac and Linux

Book(s): Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

On the Next…

In the week ahead, I’m going to try to start fewer new courses and to push through at least one of the .NET Core classes I’ve started. I’ve been neglecting them in favor of JavaScript and Elixir based materials lately. There’s no problem with that, but I’d like to knock at least one of them out this coming week.