How to: May 9, 2025
1. Learn Next.js by building your own Dropbox-style file storage app. This beginner-accessible course will help you learn full stack JavaScript using modern tools like React and PostgreSQL. You'll also learn how to design intuitive user interfaces, database schemas, file hierarchies, and more. (5 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/code-a-dropbox-clone-with-nextjs/

2. Kubernetes (often shortened to k8s) is a powerful open source tool for deploying services to the web, then monitoring them and scaling them as needed. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive handbook that will teach you key k8s concepts like Pods, DaemonSets, StatefulSets, and more. If you code along at home, by the end of this handbook you'll deploy an app to a k8s cluster in the cloud. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-kubernetes-handbook-devs-startups-businesses/

3. On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, I interview Shashi Lo. He's a software engineer at Microsoft who grew up the child of refugees. He dropped out of art school and taught himself programming by building projects for local businesses. He shares techniques he uses to continue to learn skills even while he's busy raising his 4 kids. (1 hour watch or listen in your favorite podcast app): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/from-art-school-drop-out-to-microsoft-engineer-with-shashi-lo-podcast-170/

4. Improve your C++ programming skills by building your own audio plugin. freeCodeCamp is proud to publish this intermediate course by a developer and 3x Grammy-nominated producer and saxophone player. You'll learn native app development with the open source JUCE library, which is used in a lot of Digital Audio Workstation apps. (8 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/improve-you-c-skills-by-coding-an-audio-plugin/

5. Finally, freeCodeCamp also published this Front-End Performance Optimization Handbook this week. You'll learn JavaScript tricks to ensure your web apps load quickly. You'll learn how to minimize file size, make fewer server requests, optimize images, and more. There are tons of techniques in here that I hadn't even heard of. This is well worth reading if you're serious about improving your web development skills. (full-length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-front-end-performance-optimization-handbook/

Quote of the Week: *"An ideal code review would be a small set of code changes that are easy to understand. You can pretty much read the code like a paragraph and understand what’s happening. Smaller pull requests help you avoid regressions, and save time for both the code author and the code reviewer."* — Shashi Lo on this week's freeCodeCamp podcast, talking about best practices he's learned while working as a dev at Microsoft