

The Unexpected Benefits of Weekend Projects - netvarun
http://blog.semantics3.com/the-unexpected-benefits-of-weekend-projects/

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eslachance
From the article:

 _Pick a project in an area that you don’t have much background knowledge or
experience in or one that requires a different stack of technologies from what
you are familiar with. Use a different kind of database (eg: try a project
using a graph database like Neo4j) or a different library/framework or even
better, use a completely different language. It will not only make you a
better engineer, it might just help you understand and improve your core work
in different and better ways._

I think this is a lesson that is critical when trying to get better at
anything, programming or otherwise. While researching an alternative to the
documentation authoring tool we were using at work, I stumbled upon their
training videos, and I have to admit, there were a lot of eye openers on how
we could change the way we use the current software. This happens simply
because different people have different methodologies, so following tutorials
for one language, software, tool, can lead to realizations that apply to all
of them in varying degrees.

