Hello friends!
Welcome to this week’s Sloth Bytes. Hope you had an amazing week!
Sloths Can Mistake Their Arms for Tree Branches
Some sloths have been known to grab their own arms – mistaking them for tree branches – and end up falling…
Does Tech Stack Matter?
What is a Tech Stack?
A combination of technologies used to build a software application. They’ll also create an acronym based off the technologies used.
Common Components of a Tech Stack
Frontend:
Core languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript/TypeScript
Libraries/frameworks: React, Vue, Angular, and others
Backend:
Languages: Python, Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, Ruby, Go, and more
Runtimes/frameworks: Node.js, Django, Spring, Express, Ruby on Rails, and others
Database:
PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, and more
There are other less common components, such as DevOps tools or hosting/cloud providers, but they are not always necessary.
Popular Tech Stacks
MEAN: MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, Node.js
LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP
MERN: MongoDB, Express.js, React, Node.js
Ruby on rails
.NET
Does Tech Stack Matter?
Yes, but not as much as you might think. Many general-purpose stacks can build the same kinds of applications, especially when you’re starting out. But requirements like platform support, ecosystem maturity, latency, cost, security, and team expertise can make some choices a much better fit than others.
You can start worrying about tech stack if you’re having issues with scalability and performance.
This is what matters more:
Solving the right problem
Good architecture and clean code
Team skills and collaboration
User experience and product-market fit
Remember: A great product with an "okay" stack often beats a mediocre product with a "perfect" stack. Focus on delivering value, not just using trendy tech.
If you want to keep learning
Web frameworks explained — how frameworks fit into the frontend and backend layers of a tech stack.
What programming language should you learn? — choose languages based on what you want to build, not whatever Twitter is yelling about this week.
Stop overengineering your side projects — your first version probably does not need six databases, Kubernetes, and an existential crisis.
5 system design resources — when scale and architecture actually start mattering, go deeper here.
I’ll give you all a break (I definitely didn’t get lazy this week…)
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Thank you to everyone who submitted last week
MHT210, afiqzudinhad, Anand Prabhu, Vijaychandra2, Addleo, ravener, RelyingEarth87, Drodriguezponce1, ddat828.
Advanced List Sort
Create a function that takes a list of numbers or strings and returns a list with the items from the original list stored into sub lists. Items of the same value should be in the same sub list.
Examples
advanced_sort([2, 1, 2, 1]) ➞ [[2, 2], [1, 1]]
advanced_sort([5, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3]) ➞ [[5, 5, 5], [4, 4], [3]]
advanced_sort(["b", "a", "b", "a", "c"]) ➞ [["b", "b"], ["a", "a"], ["c"]]Notes
The sub lists should be returned in the order of each element's first appearance in the given list.
How To Submit Answers
Reply with
A link to your solution (github, twitter, personal blog, portfolio, replit, etc)
or if you’re on the web version leave a comment!
Got some video ideas planned 😁
Here’s what I’m planning on making soon:
Tools I like to use
How I feel about AI programming (github copilot, codeium, supermaven, etc)
Being more productive/focusing? (Still thinking on that)
How To Use AI To Study
and maybe some other programming projects
I underestimated this AI project…
This AI girlfriend/boyfriend project is more complex than I initially thought (I did give it an advanced rating).
I’ve added database features with Supabase. They actually had a pretty neat AI chatbot template that I stole borrowed from, so now I have authentication, saving chats, and sharing chats.
The only issue is it hasn’t been updated in a year, so I have to refactor most of it and add the features I had before, such as text-to-voice and generating the AI avatar.
Hopefully, I can create a good enough version by the end of the month, make it public, and create a video about it, but we’ll see… I have a lot to do.
That’s all from me!
Have a great week, be safe, make good choices, and have fun coding.
See you all next week.
