The second issue of Weekly Digest in March is here! 🎉

Read about where you should build you “kingdom”, what to do to make sure that users will use features that you have created, get to know mroe about microservices and see the smallest hash table!

Business and (side)project section

1. Don’t build your castle in other people’s kingdoms

https://howtomarketagame.com/2021/11/01/dont-build-your-castle-in-other-peoples-kingdoms/

If you are creating something (game, software, your own brand) it is important to make sure that it will not vanish unexpectedly because of… the platform you use. Social media where do you promote, marketplace where do you sell - it is not your land, you are only lending space. And landlord can cut you off. Interesting article about, mostly, creating and selling games, but it also applies to personal brands or software.

2. 5 Years of Indie Hacking

https://allisonseboldt.com/5-years-of-indie-hacking/

How it is to be an indie hacker for five years? It was worth it from a money perspective (spoiler: not yet)? But there are valuable lessons learned over this time - like what is the value of community and passion for the product.

3. When users never use the features they asked for

https://austinhenley.com/blog/featurestheywanted.html

Have you ever written some feature because users wanted it but in the end, they did not use it? Probably the answer is yes. So read the story about creating a tool to support code reviews built during an internship at Microsoft. Interesting story and outcomes - most important seems to “keep your users in the loop” and “user’s workflow is everything”!

Developer section

4. All JavaScript and TypeScript Features of the last 3 years

https://betterprogramming.pub/all-javascript-and-typescript-features-of-the-last-3-years-629c57e73e42 JavaScript and TypeScript are evolving and new features are constantly added to them. This is a comprehensive list of features that were released in the last three years. Good reading if you want to catch up!

5. The World’s Smallest Hash Table

https://orlp.net/blog/worlds-smallest-hash-table/

The Advent Of Code finished a long time ago, but interesting write-ups about solutions are still popping up. This is one of them - written in Rust solution for the 2nd-day problem. I think the most valuable lesson here is that hardcoding values (like writing a simple hash map) is sometimes a good enough solution!

6. Don’t Start With Microservices In Production – Monoliths Are Your Friend

https://arnoldgalovics.com/microservices-in-production/

Microservices - you love them or hate them. But are they the answer to all project problems? Probably not. And you should start with a monolith - it is simpler to work with (like adding new features or fixing bugs), and easier to deploy a single piece than five or ten.

7. Contracts you should never sign

https://vadimkravcenko.com/shorts/contracts-you-should-never-sign/

Every one of us needs to sign some papers. And we should not do this without reading it carefully. This is especially important when signing a contract - things like non-compete clauses, one-sided termination clauses and other not-so-good clauses. Worth reading!