I guess working on personal projects is the main way to acquire new knowledge. As a Frontend engineer most time at work I use React and set of technologies coming with it, and there is almost nothing else. It's fine for the first several years but then it all gets identical as your knowledge grows and you learn how to solve different tasks.
So to continue learning I work on some small projects with technologies that will never get use at work. I usually do not share them and they remain incomplete as I lose interest in them after I've learned new stuff. Of course, not all of them get abandoned and sometimes I have strength to work on them after I've achieved all of my goals. Here are a few examples:
I've released this app this August. I wanted to learn how to use web workers and create a PWA. And on top of that knowledge I now have a cool application for my everyday work and 600+ starts on github (github.com/rtivital/omatsuri). I do not track people who use it, but I'm sure that it brings some value for developers, so I'd consider this as success.
This is a project of different kind. Back in 2015 when I was learning JavaScript for several years I did not feel any progress so I've decided to create a community to push me forward and give me several points of view on my learning path by discussing my thoughts. I've been working on it for 3 years and stoped all hard work in 2018 when I got my current job as I've reached the level from where it's impossible to improve this way. Over three years I got 18 000 subscribers, I've built a blog website and got lots of stars to my github profile. So this is also a success although this project is now abandoned.
I guess working on personal projects is the main way to acquire new knowledge. As a Frontend engineer most time at work I use React and set of technologies coming with it, and there is almost nothing else. It's fine for the first several years but then it all gets identical as your knowledge grows and you learn how to solve different tasks.
So to continue learning I work on some small projects with technologies that will never get use at work. I usually do not share them and they remain incomplete as I lose interest in them after I've learned new stuff. Of course, not all of them get abandoned and sometimes I have strength to work on them after I've achieved all of my goals. Here are a few examples:
Omatsuri
omatsuri.app/
I've released this app this August. I wanted to learn how to use web workers and create a PWA. And on top of that knowledge I now have a cool application for my everyday work and 600+ starts on github (github.com/rtivital/omatsuri). I do not track people who use it, but I'm sure that it brings some value for developers, so I'd consider this as success.
Frontend Raccoon
vk.com/jsraccoon
jsraccoon.ru/
This is a project of different kind. Back in 2015 when I was learning JavaScript for several years I did not feel any progress so I've decided to create a community to push me forward and give me several points of view on my learning path by discussing my thoughts. I've been working on it for 3 years and stoped all hard work in 2018 when I got my current job as I've reached the level from where it's impossible to improve this way. Over three years I got 18 000 subscribers, I've built a blog website and got lots of stars to my github profile. So this is also a success although this project is now abandoned.
Thanks for sharing! That's actually the kind of stories I'm looking for!