It is already summer 2020 and some people are saying that it does not seem that summer is here yet. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the transition from spring to summer did not materialize. To me the big thing is that when summer starts days start getting shorter. Living in a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul we understand what short days in winter feel like.
As you know I am a promoter of never stop learning. A few post back I suggested a project on the Travel Planner System post in this blog. I thought that I listed the technologies that I will be using so I can refresh and catch up with new features before starting the design and implementation phases. I went back to the post and determined that there is no table.
The table in question suggested the use of Angular. After spending some time 
with it during the past few days, I decided that perhaps it would be simpler and faster to use React instead. With that in mind, I will do some homework on React in the next few days.
I used to purchase and read technical books. In the past year or so, decided to take some courses on-line. Some courses are relatively new so the material is useful and the examples work. Other courses probably worked well when they were released, but tools and frameworks change and things kind of work. I could probably load older versions of the software and tools and give it a try, but in my opinion I want to learn and refresh current material since I would not be using a few years old Angular framework to start a new project. With time new tools are released and gain popularity. Why learn an old IDE which is in the downfall when there are much better and popular ones.
Yesterday I powered up the Windows 10 computer I use for development of work related stuff. After opening Visual Studio 2019 Enterprise Edition I noted there was an update. I decided to install it. First the installer was updated, then the actual Visual Studio. The software downloaded about 2,000 modules and then installed them. When the installation completed, I had to reboot my computer. The computer took several minutes to display the logon screen. I then opened two copies of the IDE. One is for the libraries and the other for the actual product. Great, I was ready to start my work day. The entire update process took about 90 minutes!
I am and have been a member of the Association for Computing Machinery for many years. Among their benefits is the ability to access O’Reilly learning materials. Yesterday I had trouble accessing the materials, but with a short email message to the ACM Member Service representative assigned to my 
account I shortly was able to access the materials. Today will spend some time searching and hopefully taking some React courses. Will let you know my findings in a future post.
After this short post, I will get back to work. It seems like it is going to be a warm and sunny day in this area.
If you have comments or questions regarding this, or any other post in this blog, or if you would like for me to serve of assistance with any phase in the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) of a project associated with a product or service, please do not hesitate and leave me a note below. If you prefer, send me a private message using the following address: john.canessa@gmail.com. I will reply as soon as possible.
Keep on reading and experimenting. It is the best way to learn, refresh your knowledge and enhance your developer toolset!
One last thing, many thanks to all 1,188 subscribers to my blog!!!
Keep safe during the COVID-19 pandemic and help restart the world economy.
John
Twitter: @john_canessa