David Hack | Portfolio · Proudly based in Melbourne

Web designer turned developer.
Working for TreeProject, a Victorian NGO.
Studying TypeScript, recently completed a React & Redux course.
Seeking work as a front-end developer.

Summary

I'm currently studying TypeScript and completed a React and Redux course in April 2022, and JavaScript, Node and Express, and PHP and MySQL courses the previous year. I work part-time for TreeProject, a Victorian NGO, as a designer and developer, run a web-startup and maintain websites through my design agency EA Digital.

Work Experience

I've worked at TreeProject since 2020, partly as a web designer but also as a developer. Part of my work has involved writing PHP calls to SQL stored procedures that pass secure and validated data from WordPress forms to a cloud-hosted database.

Through EA Digital, I've designed and hosted WordPress and Joomla websites for various clients. I also created and maintain a startup called Echo Active in my spare time.

Background

I've got degrees in Science and Law and have worked as a lawyer, in small and large businesses, and have run a successful consulting business. See my LinkedIn to find out more about my work history and studies.

My Apps

I'm now building skills with the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React and Node) and creating React powered web apps that are showcased below.

App Showcase

This Portfolio Website

This site was built with a JS framework called Gatsby. Gatsby makes use of React components and JSX (JavaScript XML/markdown) but, unlike typical Create-React-Apps, it features server-side-rendering to pre-render html rather than render it in the browser. This ensures super quick load times and allows Google and other search engines to index the site.

Key skills

GatsbyJS
SSR (Server side rendering)
SASS (Syntactically awesome style sheets)
MDX (Markdown components)
Free hosting via Netlify

View Code: My Github

MyBooks

This app lets users create a personal book collection.

It was built after completing a React/Redux course and adapted from a video streaming app. Users can authenticate via Google and edit, update and delete books. A custom React component lets users search the Google Books API and add books from a list of search results.

Book data is stored in a JSON file. Heroku's 24 hour server cycles means that new books added will be lost, please log in and add one.

Key skills

React, React Hooks, ES5 and ES6 syntax
Redux, Redux-Thunk
Google Authentication
Google Books API call made via Axios client
React Final Form
Heroku CLI & hosting

View Code: My Github

KurzTube

This app connects to the YouTube API and lets users search for and display a list of videos, select a result and play it in their browser.

It was built in the React course mentioned and features a custom hook that extracts video-fetching logic and makes it available to all components. A key adaptation I made was to create mobile and widescreen modes that are set via component state.

Key skills

React, React Custom Hooks
Google YouTube API calls
Netlify hosting

View Code: My Github

Plants 'n Things

This app is a plant shop, built with vanilla-JS, a custom Node server, Express and HTML templates.

It was adapted from a Udemy JS course. Node modules allow form validation and setting of cookies so users can add items to a cart without signing in. Encryption lets admins securely create an account and add products and images.

Product data, users, shopping carts and images are stored in JSON files. Free hosting is via Heroku and 24 hour server cycles means that new user products or admins created will be lost. Click the lock icon to view the admin console, create a temporary account and add a product.

Key skills

Node, Express, HTML templating
Cookie-session (Node module)
User management
Encryption, secure passwords (salting and hashing)
Heroku CLI & hosting

View Code: My GitHub