A senior front-end software engineer in London
Bare bones of a project using NextJS, React, Strapi and PostgreSQL - trying to do more b/e stuff! 1% complete at most...don't judge me!
Date started: 01/08/2023
https://github.com/jamesthemullet/londonlisthttps://londonlist.vercel.appI wanted an app that would allow me to create shareable to-do lists for my active London life, and from a technical perspective to use Strapi and postgres.
Well I've learnt how to use Strapi, how to set it up with dev/prod, and how to read from it. Otherwise, mostly I've done very little on this project so far, but am using CSS Modules which is new to me.
Ask me in 2025...
Bare bones of a new project using NextJS, React, PostGres and Vercel. Like 25% complete tops so don't judge me much.
Date started: 17/06/2023
https://github.com/jamesthemullet/20TwentyScorehttps://20-twenty-score.vercel.appThis started because I thought it might be a cool little app, and perhaps something I could publish for people to use.
My idea is that you could keep scores in a database, so I learnt how to hook up postgres to a NextJS app. Granted I've mostly only done UI, but I do have the auth established, using NextAuth. Also used it as an opportunity to practice writing unit tests, along with React Context which is something I'd used but not set-up previously.
Well, there's still plenty to do, but I did make my life harder by not thinking in advance about how to keep state across the different components - not entirely sure the context is split most efficiently, but it works!
World Of Winfield. This is my personal blog, have moved it over to using NextJS, GraphQL, React and Emotion Styled Components. Also has pipeline checks.
Date started: 21/05/2023
https://github.com/jamesthemullet/worldofwinfield-nextjshttps://worldofwinfield-nextjs.vercel.appI wanted to redesign my personal blog, as it was pretty dull-looking and I'm quite colourful in real life.
This was the project where I started using Github Actions for my pipeline checks, and also using Husky for pre-commit checks.
Not sure I would do anything differently, though I think I did rush to try to complete it...I do need to do a little cleaning up.
Random Recipe Generator - a small project that I did with the graduate at work who I was mentoring. Mostly this was just to give her practice on React and Styled Components, but also I took the opportunity to practice TypeScript and use Vite - which is lush - so speedy!
Date started: 21/09/2022
https://github.com/jamesthemullet/random-recipe-generatorhttps://random-recipe-generator-gamma.vercel.app/We were doing a hackathon at work, and I decided my priority was to help a junior engineer upskill on the new tech stack we were moving to.
Nothing really, I was just helping someone else learn.
Maybe I should have been more selfish and took the opportunity to learn something myself...like Remix or Svelte for example.
James Winfield. I decided to look for a new role a while back, to see if I could improve upon M&S (I didn't). I realised my old portfolio was OLD and ugly, so this is a headless WordPress site, using NextJS, GraphQL and React. Oh and Tailwind for the CSS...not sure I'm a Tailwind convert but good to try these things. Also has pipeline checks.
Date started: 06/09/2022
https://github.com/jamesthemullet/jameswinfield-blog-next-newhttps://www.jameswinfield.co.uk/I got a bit annoyed at M&S for some reason I forget now, but realised that my portfolio was the same one as before I was ever an engineer
I didn't do anything crazy for this, I just took a NextJS template and redesigned it a bit. It was my second NextJS project, the other being a work project that was already set up, so I learnt a bit about how to set up a NextJS project from scratch.
Not sure I would have done much differently. It was really good practice for the technologies we were moving to at M&S. I realised that I wasn't a Tailwind convert as I was forever having to look up classnames which slowed me down.
DJ Mix Of The Week - my first attempt at a headless WordPress blog from 2021. I have a few blogs and just used to use WordPress and a bit of custom PHP, but really wanted a way to use React, so I could practice for the upcoming new tech stack at M&S. So using Frontity (before I realised about NextJS) was an ideal route. Looks good too, I think?!
Date started: 28/05/2022
https://github.com/jamesthemullet/djmix2022https://www.djmixoftheweek.com/I was looking for a way to rebuild my blog, and also practice my React skills. I read about Frontity and decided this would be a good way to do both.
I learnt about headless architecture, and how to use React with WordPress. I also learnt about the Frontity framework, and how to use it to build a blog...and the drawbacks of it.
Well, I would use NextJS as it is easier to use, and actually supported - Frontity is no longer supported by the developers. Plus NextJS has much more functionality and is more flexible. I ended up doing some pretty hacky things to get pages/functionality that require data from all 150+ pages (eg promise.all that runs 16 times on one particular page)...plus some basic things are simply not supported like sitemaps. It looks pretty though...in my opinion.
