Trial by Fire — How to Forge a Programmer
6 September 2017
Sweat is running down my face. I’m staring down a blank sublime text document. What on earth am I doing? My hands are resting above the keyboard of my MacBook pro.
There is enough friction to cuddle each of the keyboard buttons my fingers are resting on.
It’s like apologizing to them for not using them yet.
It’s late at night, and I’ve decided to jump in head first, creating my own app using React and Firebase.
How, I don’t know.
I only know that I’m going to do it, no matter what my imposter syndrome has to say about it.
I have made the decision.
My fingers move. The keyboard hives a sigh of relief in the form of a satisfying click sound.
I’m doing it!
12 September 2017
Despair, my old friend. Late nights have been a recurring theme over the past week.
If anyone hacked my webcam, I would pity them.
They’d see a wide-eyed, tired, obsessive and wild programmer staring at the screen in an intent manner.
Alas, my compulsive behavior does not allow me to go to bed before every single bug is resolved.
Not a very healthy trait for a programmer, but a trait all the same.
The Ajax requests I put into my application are silently taunting me.
Every failed one yelling — “You’re an idiot”.
Ok, they are not so silent after all.
At this point, I’m at war.
And you don’t sleep while you’re at war.
The fight continues.
13 September 2017
VICTORY. The enemy is subdued.
I wielded mighty Javascript Promises and beat them into submission.
Now I’m the one yelling at the Ajax requests. But instead of silently yelling, I’m actually yelling — “Haha, you’re working”.
Again, it’s late.
My girlfriend is not happy.
Being a gracious winner is overrated.
14 September 2017
I refactored and broke the entire App. FML!
15 September 2017
StackOverflow and various tutorial sites on the internet have become my second home.
I managed to fix the app.
16 September 2017
The app looks like trash. Like super trash, like what a toddler would create, if a toddler could code.
Imagine a toddlers drawing, that is my App. I need CSS.
I cringe. It’s time to prepare. Prepare for frustration. Hours and hours of frustration.
I am not excited.
20 September 2017
The App looks good!
I’m excited.
22 September 2017
I realize my desktop layout will never work on mobile.
I decide to create a different mobile website based on some of the components I already have.
27 September 2017
I decide to trash the entire visual direction of my website. My mobile site looks NOTHING like my desktop site.
For the past 5 days I’ve been on a brilliant coding high.
Splitting and reusing components. Resulting in a great mobile site that looks miles better than the desktop.
Sure, CSS did cause some frustration.
Yet, when you’re on top of the rainbow dancing to Bob Marley, not even CSS can bring you down.
1 October 2017
It’s 6 AM. I’ve been working all night. I’m going to press the magic button. I’m launching it!
I’m tired, but there is no sleep to be had.
Instead I’m going to sit and watch Google Analytics for the rest of the day. The world is going to LOVE my product right?
My brilliant launch strategy is to create one Facebook post. I created the post in a crowded entrepreneurship forum.
One user.
Two users.
Three users.
It’s working!
2 October 2017
I have 50 users, great success.
5 October 2017
All users are going inactive. There is no activity on the website. Bounce rate is above 80%. I’m crying in the shower. Beer might also be there. And to top it off, it’s my birthday.
6 October 2017
I decide to improve the app. First order of business is to improve the visuals of the desktop version to match the mobile.
I’m still crying, this time because I know I will have to do CSS again.
13 October 2017
Success! Another enemy conquered. I forced CSS to bend to my will and create an appealing dashboard. Yes, it’s a love / hate relationship, I don’t deny it.
14 October 2017
I decide to improve the landing page. Ugh, more CSS.
27 October 2017
I made it out… I didn’t think I would. I decided to experiment with CSS transform. Rotating, scaling, translating. My head is spinning. I can’t even…
So tired.
I’m going to wake up tomorrow and discover that this is all a dream, aren’t I? If so, please don’t give me any more dreams like this. I can’t take it.
1 November 2017
I slept for three days. It wasn’t a dream. The App looks good. I am happy.
It’s live: https://cryptodasher.com
This is a comical representation of my experience developing CryptoDasher. An App for tracking and storing your cryptocurrency information. It may be slightly exaggerated, but it’s all true.