Mid Term Goal: A New Public API
Okay, this goal is a little bigger. I want to create and populate a public API so that other people can use to create their own applications and I want to get this done before the end of 2020. The main skills that this goal provides is technical ability, organization and self-directed learning. An API is a database that someone can hit with an HTTP address to get its data. Over the course of the Web Programming program, I have worked with APIs and learned how to successfully retrieve data from them. Now building the API, that will be interesting. Also in the program, I have learned to do this using both .NET Core and MEAN stack, so the real challenge will be to populate it and host it, how hard can that be? Being able to build an API would allow other programmers to gather data from it and display it in their own applications. Many IT industries build their own APIs for their own programs, so this could become a valuable skill to learn to help find a job and increase my experience.
Long Term Goal: One of Everything
Okay, here is where you can start calling me crazy, but I want to learn as many programming languages as I can and apply them to at least 1 project throughout my career as a Web Programmer. The main skills that this goal will improve are problem solving, innovation, organization, and self-directed learning. The field of Web Programming is fast, aggressive and is always changing every day. One year, you may mainly use one language, then next year it becomes irrelevant and you are forced to change programming languages (don’t you hate it when that happens?). The only way to move forward is to continue to learn and explore new technologies as they get popular. Some will stay longer than others and different languages may become dead within a year. The biggest thing for me to do and improve as a Web Programmer is to learn as much as I can and put it to the test.