Random newsletter #1
Training for one arm pull ups, history of JavaScript, and movies I saw this week
Hi,
This is my first newsletter. An experiment. I don’t expect any readers, but I do like to write and I want to experimenting with “putting something out there”. I think its fun to share things, and I also things its very beneficial to learn to publish things publicly. This is my low-hanging fruit approach to try and publish something for others to see.
Anyway, in the small chance that anyone reads this, let me just tell you that this newsletter will involve many random subjects, with me just trying to find out what I like to write about. It will probably be more of a public journal than a newsletter. I don’t know if it would be interesting for people to read, certainly I wouldn’t be that interested in reading other peoples journal. But I have to start somewhere, and as long as no one is reading this newsletter I have nothing to worry about!
Training: one arm pull-ups training
One of my goals until the new year is to be able to do a one-arm pull-up. I have been working on this on and off for a few years, and have actually succeeded in doing exactly one one-arm pull-up about two years ago. This time I want to train for it seriously, and hopefully be able to do a few reps in the long-term.
So last week I started the “3-5” strength training protocol for training one arm pull-ups (which I got from Andrew Huberman, a Neuroscience researcher at Stanford who is producing a really high quality podcast about topics such as exercise, sleep, memory and focus):
3-5 reps
3-5 sets
3-5 minutes rest between sets
3-5 times per week
So far it has been around 3 reps, 3 sets, and 2-3 times per week. It is going well but I think it is too early to say anything about progress. Feels like I am stronger though.
This weeks tech note: A short history about Javascript, node, and bundlers
JavaScript appeared 1995, created at Netscape to make web pages more dynamic (was completely static before JavaScript).
It grew in adoption and became standardized. But it could only run in browsers. So Ryan Dahl created Node.js, which is a back-end JavaScript runtime environment. In other words, he made it possible to run JavaScript outside of browsers, just as you would run python or c++.
With node came the ability to create JavaScript modules, separate JavaScript files that you can import into another JavaScript program using an import statement. This standard for formatting and importing modules was called CommonJS.
Being able to create modules and using imports was great. But it could not be used for browsers, only when running the JavaScript in node. Browsers don’t support this kind of import system, in the browser you only import pure javascript files using the html tag <script></script>.
To be able to use the incredibly useful module system for browsers, some smart people created bundlers. A bundler takes your JavaScript files, which is formatted with modules and imports, and compiles it into JavaScript files that are ready for the web browser. In addition, these bundlers took care of annoying browser-specific nuances, making sure that your JavaScript files worked as expected in all browsers. Basically, bundlers made it much easier to code for the browsers.
Now there are many bundlers out there with various features: compiling your JavaScript modules into files that work in the browser, optimizing and minimizing your code for you, convenience-loaders for images and sass files, and live-refresh when the files change (that is what the localhost:3000 server is for, if you wondered). Currently, webpack remains as one of the most popular bundlers.
Of course, you can always code in the old way, but learning to use bundlers will make it easier for you to write JavaScript for the web (or web apps, if you will).
Movies and Tv-series: Bullet Train and Sandman
Loved Bullet Train. Made me laugh a lot. Great action too.
Loved Sandman too. Such a dreamy series. The imagination of Neil Gaiman is really out of this world. Was a pleasure cruising a long this story of Gods, Humans, and their dependency of each other.
See you next time,
Eric