Year End Review – 2022

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

John Lennon

#January2022

Just 15 days before my flight to Germany, I got infected by COVID. Back then, it was mandatory to present a negative RT-PCR test result to fly. All I prayed for was a negative report before my flying date. Thank god all went well. It was a blessing in disguise because I had already gotten infected from it once; I felt I won’t get infected again and wouldn’t have to suffer it in a new country. 😅

#StruggleIsReal

It is challenging to settle in a new country and adjust to its culture. Since this was my first time living away from home, it was challenging to take care of myself. Cooking, doing dishes, buying groceries, and so many other household chores were new to me. It wasn’t easy initially, but now it has become a part of my daily routine. I’m thankful I had to go through all these because it has taught me to do these things by myself and not to depend on someone else to do it for me. 😊

I used to learn something new every time I stepped out. Like, How public transportation lines are connected? What does that signboard mean?

Luckily, at my workplace, I’m surrounded by gems who are so kind and helpful. 💎

#Travel

One of the main reasons that we decided to move to Europe was to travel. I had already been here once a few years back and loved it. Now I live here and can enjoy this beauty often!

The first trip was to Prague, Czech Republic, in March. We just planned it a week before and went for it. It was one of the most beautiful train journeys I had ever experienced. There was also a restaurant inside the train; we enjoyed the view while dining. 🚂

Here is a snippet of it :

There were so many amazing trips throughout the year. 

• 

  Prague

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Fun fact about traveling in Europe: Taxi 🚕 charges from Airport to my apartment is more expensive than a round trip to Italy via Flight. ✈️

#LiveLifeEveryday

There has been a significant improvement in my lifestyle. My work usually gets over by 6 PM. After that, I mostly go out for some physical activity like fitness, swimming, walking, or something exciting that is taking place in the city. I have also started to play table tennis regularly now (I was runner-up at my company’s ping pong tournament). During weekends, one day mainly focuses on household chores & Entertainment, and another is for relaxation. “Relaxation” – is essential for mental health, which I had not given importance to formerly in my busy, chaotic life.

#LifeLessons

Two biggest life lessons I learned this year:

1. Respect and be kind to others no matter what type of profession they are in

In Bangalore, blue-collar workers are treated like servants. At restaurants, workers should take your plates and clean the tables, and we don’t even bother to say “Thank you” to them. 😔 

My perspective on them has completely changed now. They are humans and have a life just like us. Can they be treated like that because they don’t have the skill to do a high-level job? 😳

Here, I feel the pinch if I see a student working part-time at a restaurant. 😢

Vibha & I always try to put our plates back and clean the table before we leave the restaurant.

It’s the mess we made; let’s clean it too!

2. Always be thankful for whatever you have

Are you getting nutritious food three times a day? 

You are already leading a more luxurious life than me 🙂

#Ups

I have liked participating in hackathons since I learned about them (7 years back). I even missed my classes to participate in the hackathons. I never won even once, but I like them because it pushes us to build something new, and it’s always a great learning experience.

Office organized a hackathon at my workplace. I had already planned my vacation on those dates & thought I wouldn’t be able to participate in it. 😞 I changed my mind two weeks before it and submitted my idea. Though I was on vacation and exhausted (just gotten back from my Dubai trip), I still participated. I was alone in my team and built the entire project. In the end, I hadn’t had proper since the last few days, and my body started to shiver (that’s how hackathons usually end for me), and I couldn’t attend the closing ceremony either. Guess what happened the next day? 😎

I woke up and saw messages congratulating me for getting first place. I WON A HACKATHON for the first time. 🏆

#HomeIsWhereTheHeartIs

Such a nice feeling to be away from cold and Falafel döners. Honestly, the only thing I missed most about India was the food. Apparently, (just for a few more days) I’m enjoying the sun and food here.

Wishing you a very happy new year. 🥳
Have a great year ahead. 🎉

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My journey of getting started with reading books

I have hated reading books since my college days because they don’t give me practical knowledge, and I would instead do something hands-on to learn from that experience.

After many years, lately, I realized I could only do some things hands-on due to time constraints and instead was required to read books to learn about a wide range of subjects and expand my knowledge.📚

In my daily job as a software developer, if I encounter any technical problem, I will look for a solution on StackOverflow or some discussion forum where I can find the answer.

But where should I look out for problems I encounter in real life? 🤔

Like, 

• How can I get more things done in less time?

• How to make crucial decisions?

• How to handle a challenging situation?

• On what things should I focus more, and what should I let go?

I have discovered that you will find an answer to any problem in books.

May you think, “Really? How can we get a solution from a book to a problem I’m experiencing in 2022 ?” It was the exact thought I had in my mind too! Let me explain it to you. 🙂

You may feel that the problem you are going through is unique to your life and situation, and there is no easy way to find a solution. But No, that’s not the case. Hundreds and thousands of people have already faced the problem you are facing today!

Books share the ideas and perspectives of how people handled those problems and blossomed in them. Books are like StackOverflow (more than that) that share principles and knowledge about improving our well-being and learning.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.

The man who never reads lives only one.”

^{– George R.R. Martin}

How did I get started?

I wanted to invest more time in self-development, but I needed to find out if books could help.

I mostly enjoy things that I can relate to my personal life, so I decided to read books that I could relate to (not something like an autobiography).

I found some books with compelling titles:

• “80/20 Your Life! How To Get More Done With Less Effort And Change Your Life In The Process!“
• “How to win friends and influence people“

I was able to apply my learnings immediately and see the impact instantly.

Sometimes I get to read motivational/insightful quotes on social media, and I like them as they make sense, but I would forget them right after closing the app.

That’s different with books.

For example, this quote:

“People who can put themselves in the place of other people who can understand the workings of their minds need never worry about what the future has in store for them.”

The way the author narrates the principle with supporting real-life incidents is excellent. He shares actual incidents from his experience and shows how applying these principles has improved things. These short stories help us understand how valuable the principle is and helps to incorporate it into day-to-day life. 👌🏻

Reading has introduced me to new ideas and perspectives, broadened my understanding of the world, and helped me see things from different angles. 🧠

I never knew I could learn so many things from the books written ages back. Upscaling vocabulary & communication are sided benefits. 😉

Reading has become a joyful activity now.

I plan to continue this habit and hope to see more positive results in the future. 🍀

2021 wrapped

If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!

Richard Branson

Life is all about learnings. We learn from our experiences.

Thank you InMobi 🏁

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

Nelson Mandela

I visited InMobi for the first time around 7 years ago (2014) for an hackathon. Looking at the enthu of the people and the fun I had, I felt some day I should definitely work here. In fact, I was ready to work for free back then. 😀

• 

  Hackday 2015

• 

  Freedom Hack

• 

  Hackday 2014

• 

I never imagined I would actually get an opportunity to work here. I should thank the interviewers (Naren, Diwaker, Vinay & Manohar) for selecting me. Cracking UI interviews are always hard. 😀

First few months at office was amazing. I was so excited, I used to literally spend 10 – 12 hours in the office. It was not just work, but involved fair amount of fun as well (playing badminton, parties & pubg 🙂 )

I feel lucky to be part of this organisation which helped me to grow a lot both professionally and personally.

My journey here has been as fun as this video (although it was WFH 🏚):

It was a very tough decision to make but I needed to quench my thirst for new adventures. I’m gonna absolutely miss working in this amazing environment and folks here.

I will always be proud that I was part this organisation. #InMobianForLife

Year End Review : 2020

2020 has made me realise the importance of each and every small thing in life, how we cannot take anything for granted. It has made me appreciate what I have rather than feel bad for what I don’t.

It has been an emotional roller coaster ride for all of us this year! Each and everyone has been affected in one or the other way because of this Covid pandemic. A year which will be highlighted in the history of mankind. Time to leave all the bad things that have happened this year and carry forward the good things to 2021.

It’s the last week of the year, I’m sitting here in front of the Indian Ocean, watching this beautiful sunrise and writing this post.

Breathtaking view from my bed

Personally, I had both hard times and good times.

I want to highlight a few amazing things that happened this year

📱My first native app on Play Store

Though I work as a web developer full time, I spent some time during weekends and learned React native and built a short news-reading app called “Outshorts” (You can read more about it here). Few days after that I presented my learning journey at ReactJS Bangalore online meet-up. It always feels good to share new things I learn with others. 😇

🏆 Got promoted at my workplace

Sometimes a small appreciation boosts your motivation to do more. There was a project which had a very tight schedule to go live. I was put into a team where I had not even met half of them physically anytime before, but we were able to collaborate well and was able to deliver the project on time. We also won a team award for our efforts. I enjoyed working on this project since I got an opportunity to dirty my hands once again with the Apollo GraphQL Client. Later, I presented a talk at my workplace on getting started with GraphQL and demoed our application too.

👩‍❤️‍👨 Got Married

I can’t believe I finally got married to my bestie amidst the Pandemic. I couldn’t invite many people because of the situation, but we’ll surely celebrate in the future. 🥂
I have built a special site for that, if you wanna know more about it check-out: https://lion-and-duck.in

If you are on Instagram, you can follow us @lionandduck

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A post shared by 🦁 Lion & Duck 🐥 (@lionandduck)

📚 A lot of learnings

The new normal (work from home) has made me learn so many things at home. I have learned to cook, I cook some exotic foods. I have learned to have a better work-life balance. I take time off from work and do things that make me feel good. I’m following a good food diet and exercise regularly. I’m upgrading myself by learning new skills in tech. Currently, I’m building an app with NextJS. Hope I’ll be able to roll it out shortly. 🤞🏻

Lastly, Let’s take care of our family and help people around us and pray that things become better in 2021.

Best wishes. 💐

⏪ Rewind – 2019

This is at the Hard Rock Hotel 🎸

2019 has been a long year for me. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and play in the real world. I took risks, learned lessons, gained more perspectives, and became a much better person than last year. 😇

I started 2019 with a mindset to do things that I had never done in my past. It is okay if I fail, but I wanted to fail fast and leverage over those mistakes.

“Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.” ― John C. Maxwell

I got rejected from 6 German universities and received 1 late admission letter. I realized that I enjoy developing things than just studying theoretical ideas.

I left my first job where I worked for around 3 years and joined a start-up to work with a technology stack, which I had a lot of interest but no hands-on experience. I learned to adapt to new things and grasp them quickly.

Last year, the US Consulate rejected my visa for no reason. Sometimes things will be unfair, we need to accept it. This year I got a Schengen visa with multiple entries. I flew out of India for the first time. 😀

The scariest thing in my life was when I was flying alone to the Netherlands. 13h+ long journey, with no known people around me. Anything could have happened! I managed to survive in a country🇫🇷 where I had great difficulties in communicating with them because of their language.

But this trip made me gain more perspectives and understand how to live. I also fell in love with travelling. ♥️

Some of my favourite tech people who are doing amazing things in this world are Indians. This has inspired me to focus more on things that I do every day and become best at it. The goal is to work towards it continually. 💪🏼

I didn’t know how to drive a car. I bought my first car, and I learned to drive pretty well now. 😇

Currently, I’m working for a company for whom I was ready to work for free 3 years back. But now, my skills have got me there.

Being far from dear ones made me realize how important they are in my life. I learned to value them when they are with me. 🤗

I’m happy that now I can financially afford to feed my people whatever they ask for. 😇

I traveled a lot in the last 2 years. The airport is the place which has brought a lot of emotions. The joy of seeing your dear ones after a long time, the excitement before flying, the fear of getting deported, the satisfaction of coming back to the motherland. The airport is magical. 💫

Most of the things which I did in this year were for the first time. I was able to do all this well because of the situations I had been through in my past.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Jobs

Put your heart and soul in whatever you are doing, and do whatever you love to do. Things will start going in your way one fine day.

Best wishes for the new year ahead – 2020. 💐

Euro Trip 🇪🇺

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”

I can’t say how much I loved being in the Netherlands. 😍 I went to the Netherlands without any expectations, but it turned out to be a great place to stay. People out there are very friendly, public transportation is very convenient, stunning architecture, picturesque canals, tasty and healthy food. Amsterdam has tons of things to see and do. From canal cruise to the panoramic view of the city from Europe’s highest swing. Everything is amazing. 👌🏻

Uilenstede

I stayed in a place named Uilenstede (pronounced as `hal-in-stede`), Amstelveen which is about 30 minutes away from Amsterdam city via tram. Uilenstede is more like a residential place where you find more dutch locals. Though their native language is Dutch, most of the people speak English also. 😊
People are very kind, newsboy, shopkeepers, a helper at a restaurant, everybody greets you with a smile when you pass by. 🥰

Traveling in Europe is super easy. It just takes a couple of hours to travel from one country to another country via bus/train which is cost-effective. Sometimes traveling via flight is cheaper compared to train fare. Initially, I didn’t have any plans to visit other countries, I was stunned by seeing the Netherlands, I wanted to explore other countries as well. I took a bus to Belgium and France. 🚌 That was one of the best decisions I made because you get to see many things if you travel by bus. 😁

I’ll highlight a few experiences from these 3 countries. 😇

NETHERLANDS 🇳🇱

Amsterdam Central Station 🇳🇱

• • Repeating this, the locals are very friendly. 🥰
  • Public transport is great. All signboards both in English and Dutch. You can travel by Bus or Tram or Metro. Fares are less compared to France’s public transport. 🚎
  • You can hire an electric Tesla at Schiphol airport if you are an eco-friendly lover and want to experience a ride in Tesla.  🚘
  • The country is very clean and no pollution. Only bad thing I noticed in Amsterdam was, people smoke in public places. 🚬
  • Most people speak English and try to help if you are in need. 🗣
  • Less population. I went to a bank (ABN AMRO), it was quite a big building, but there were only 2 people to serve and also a handful of customers. 👫
  • People take care of their health and fitness well. Most of them commute by cycle, eat healthy food and exercise regularly (There was a gym next to my place.) 🏋🏻‍♂️
  • Days are long, it used to be bright even at 9:00 PM. ☀️

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FRANCE 🇫🇷

Eiffel Tower 🇫🇷

• • Numerous great cafes. Fewer options for vegetarians. Tasty food. 🍕
  • Eiffel tower in Paris is amazing. It is so huge. You get the best view at night when it sparkles. One of the most attractive tourist spots. 🗼
  • Souvenir sellers at Eiffel tower are a bit annoying. They force you to buy things if you say no, they will follow you until you buy from them. 😣
  • Public transport is sometimes crowded and metro stations are a bit dirty. Not all signboards are in English. 🤯
  • Only a few speak English. Hard to find them. I felt they don’t like English speakers, they were asking me to speak French. 🤔
  • I was lost when I reached there. Nobody understands English, I didn’t have a mobile network, no google maps, I struggled to reach my hotel. 😓

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BELGIUM 🇧🇪

Antwerp, Belgium 🇧🇪

• • I wanted to try their fries, burgers and waffles. They didn’t disappoint me at all. 🍔
  • Fast-moving people. You get packed foods in supermarkets. You can just grab them for breakfast/lunch and eat on the go. 🥪
  • Belgium chocolates are very popular. They have a huge museum to showcase their work – Chocolate Nation at Antwerp. 🍫
  • Language won’t be a big problem. You can find people who speak English. 😇
  • Building with beautiful architecture in Antwerp. ⛪️

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All in all, I had a great experience exploring various cultures, food, people. This travel helped me gain more perspectives in life. These amazing memories will cherish forever and motivate me to travel more. ✈️

I always believed that we need to plan everything well before going anywhere, but that’s not always true.

“Don’t listen to what they say. Go see.”

What are the reasons for you to like a place ? Is it History 📖 ? Food 🍱 ? Art 🎨 ? Or the local people 👫 ?

Define PropTypes To Your React Component

Not using PropTypes in your React application ? Start using them to improve the developer experience and make your colleague’s life simpler. 🙂

PropTypes is a package that does runtime checking of props and also you can use them to document the typeof and required props to your react component.

Sometimes, people may do a mistake in passing the right props to your component.

• They may either miss out passing the required props.
• Or they may pass a prop of a different type.

These issues can be handled well by using PropTypes.

For example, check out below code snippet :

React Component Without PropTypes

Here, we are passing prop firstName with the boolean value true and not passing lastName prop.
But WelcomeUser component is expecting firstName and lastName prop of type String.

This kind of error will not be thrown to the developer.

Code Sandbox Not Showing Error

If the component is expecting many props, it will be hard for the developer to figure out what kind of props these are.

To solve this problem, we can define PropTypes to our WelcomeUser component.

React Component Without PropTypes

Any developer can just go through the PropTypes of WelcomeUser component and easily understand what all are required props, optional props and the data type of props.

If there is something wrong with the props, it will throw the error in the console during runtime.

Code Sandbox Showing Error

You can define PropTypes similar way to class based components as well.

React Class Component With PropTypes

PropTypes provides various validators which come really handy!
If you want to play around, give a try here – https://codesandbox.io/s/react-proptypes-dxgtq

Code Sandbox

 

Thank you BETSOL!

“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”

Thank you for hiring me 😇

6th October 2015 was one of the biggest turning points in my life. I was going through a rough patch in life, but that’s when BETSOL hired me. I got my first job. This also boosted my confidence tremendously which later helped me take up and achieve big things. Thanks to the recruitment team (Santhosh, Divya, Deepika, Shrita, Pavan & Prarthana) who believed that I had the potential to contribute to the organisation.

Thank you for letting me do what I love ❤️

It’s been 3 amazing years at BETSOL. I never felt I worked even for a single day because I love what I do each day. Everyday has been a new day with new excitement. I still remember the first task I worked on. SwiftCode program was great as I like sharing knowledge with people. 🙂

Above & Beyond Award

Thank you for keeping me surrounded with wonderful people 👫👬👭

I acquired some great skills while working with people here whom I won’t forget forever. Learned front-end development and problem solving skills from Prarthana, never give up attitude from Sandeep, solving critical things being calm from Akshay, handling any kind of team/critical situation without panicking and how to be a leader from Abhijith, solving complex problems with simple native approaches from Akyuna, understanding other people’s feelings/conditions (empathy) from Jeremiah. Surrounded by superheroes (Chaitanya, Harshith, Megha, Prakhar, Raj, Shrinidhi, Suthanth, Vishnu and lot others) felt like I’m working with “The Avengers”. *We save the world* 😛

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Thank you for the amazing experience 💎

I got an opportunity to work with various kinds of people. I experienced both ups and downs. Good times kept me happy, but it’s the tough times which made me learn things the hard way!

A water droplet on a lotus petal shines like a diamond, but the same water droplet elsewhere may not have the same value. BETSOL was definitely a right place for me to understand my strengths and shine.

Thank you for the goodies 🎁

Who doesn’t love goodies ? Part of my wardrobe is stuffed with BETSOL’s merchandise. I have treasured things which I received from BETSOL from day 1.

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Thank you for my baby duck 😍

She

Me

When a savage lion was lonely in the jungle, it was this baby duck which made the lion kinder, and motivated lion to aim high and work hard. 😇

Mind endorsing my skills on LinkedIn ?

I’ll endorse you back in return. 😉

Wanna know what next ?

Follow this blog, interesting stuff coming up. 😛

Debugging Node.js application using Chrome DevTools

During the development of any software application, sometimes a developer may need to debug the code to understand the flow of execution or even to fix a bug. I have seen JavaScript developers prints the output/value on the console using console.log() to debug the node application.

This is definitely not an efficient way to debug the code. You have to log the values in various places, hence you need to repeat console.log() multiple times. Also, you need to take them off before committing your code. This would  slow down the development time and mess up the code.

Debugging your node application using Chrome DevTools is one of the simple and efficient ways.

Here are steps to debug your node application.

1. Run the application using --inspect flag.

Once your server up and running…

2. Open this URL in your Chrome browser : about:inspect

3. Click on Open dedicated DevTools for Node

You will get a dialog box where you need to provide your application end-point and click on Add connection

You can click on the Sources tab and navigate to your application folder. You will be able to debug your code here.

In the below screenshot I have kept a breakpoint on line 8 where I’m finding out the parameter sent to the /number route which is 30.

You can debug your server-side JavaScript code just like how you debug your client-side JavaScript code.