Just a brief recap/update on my current studies:
Last week was both of my kids’ birthdays—what a busy week! I didn’t have much time to sit down for dedicated study sessions, but I have been studying various topics nevertheless.
First, since AWS requires so much attention, I spent much of the week reviewing lectures and video courses on topics I’ve already covered. A recap on The AWS Well-Architected Framework, another review on Databases in AWS (pretty weak in this area still), and a bit of progress on Decoupling Workflows, which is the latest section I’ve been studying. I’ll dig into this a bit more soon, but another project has come up that will require some of my attention (more on this in a bit).
Second, I just finished Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and a primer on the pre-Socratic era (via the History of Philosophy With No Gaps Podcast). This was my free-time reading subject and I’d like to invest more time into studying this, but for now it’s just for fun. Maybe I’ll finally have a reason to read one of my several copies of The Histories, hah.
Lastly, a friend expressed interest in having me update their Wordpress website. Web development and design was an area I studied about 2 years ago, but I didn’t spend a lot of time on Wordpress, mostly just CSS grid/flex. I’ve spent some of my study time focusing on this again, both to get up to speed to help out on this project and to expand my offerings as a freelancer.
What Have I Learned
Catching up on Wordpress development basics here, but the main thing I’ve been focusing on is the new(ish) Gutenberg block editors that are available. These tools are basically visual WYSIWYG editors but in the style of CSS elements. I’m pretty impressed with these tools over the site builders I’ve seen in the past like Elementor and Divi. Using the blocks feels much closer to designing with containers and CSS elements. In any case, I’ll be spending the week re-creating design elements (headers, footers, hero sections, CTAs, forms, etc.) and getting used to where everything is in Wordpress core and the block editor I’m using, Kadence.
Keep an eye out for updates, although they may be a bit sparse here while I cram to learn this new tool and workflow.