2019 was a big year for me using VS Code before the beginning of the year I was still using Notepad++ along with Visual Studio as my daily IDE’s. But in January I tried to use VS Code every day for 30 days and I haven’t stopped and along the way, I also convinced a few of my Co-workers to convert over as well. I remember reading the 2018 Stack Overflow release their annual Developer survey results last December, one of the interesting things that I noticed was that VS Code had risen to the top as the Most Popular Development Environment among Developers and Admins with 35% of 75,398 respondents claiming to use it which is pretty cool for a tool-less than 5 years old. What makes VS Code so popular is first it’s platform agnostic, then the design is clean simple and how easy it is to create and add an extension to the marketplace. That means depending on the type of task programming or administration you want to do at that time VS Code can help you accomplish it. Ok so here are some of my favorite plugins I use.

Part my role at Coyote involves me work with community orginzations. In early 2019 Coyote’s Software Development group became involved with Code Nation, an 501c3 organization based out of New York, which is focused on equipping students, in under-resourced high schools, with the skills, experiences, and connections that give them access to careers in technology.

Code Nation’s approach is using a volunteer teaching corp of hundreds of professional web and software developers, that provide tuition-free coding courses and work-based learning programs to students of these under-resourced schools. Code Nation focuses on Latinx and Black students, 45% of these students being female.

Earlier this month I dropped by my friend Kelly Johnson’s podcast she is just starting up The Daily Grind Podcast check out our conversation as we talk about Pickleball, Jaycees, Software Conferences, and what i do as a Developer Advocate.

Click here to subscribe

It’s been four years since I wrote my last update about what plugins I’m using on my WordPress platform. I’ve gotten more simple about the plugins and what I need them to do for me. Last time I wrote a post about the plugins their were seven and now I’m only running five.

The second week of October annually is Jaycee Week, it’s the week where we as Jaycees celebrate the founding of our organization in 1915 by Henry Giessenbier Jr. Ironically this month marks my 14th year as a member. So what better time of the year than now to share with you why I Jaycee? I joined the Jaycees to help make my community a better place. But I stay a Jaycee because it gives me the opportunity to be a Young Active Citizen, who can create positive change within my community. What’s the difference? Well making my community a better place is about helping my fellow-man or women with their need and creating positive change in my community is about fixing the root cause that is causing hardship to my fellow-man or women. This is one of the most important things the Jaycees have taught me and have given me the ability to do. Most of the time people tackle problems with a one-time donation or one day of volunteer work, but as Jaycees, we focus on making a sustainable impact.