Listen Notes 2.0: laying the foundation of future fast iteration
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Last week was the first time that I got a chance to work on my projects full-time. It was a very productive week. So, here comes Listen Notes 2.0.
TLDR of Listen Notes 2.0
What’s new on the surface?
What’s new behind the scene?
- Set up new web frontend development framework: webpack + React + Redux
- Delete the code of unpopular / half-baked features
- Clean up & refactor a big chunk of backend code
Why Listen Notes 2.0 is important?
- It lays the foundation of future fast iteration. Well, in the following weeks, you’ll know what does his means if you continue following the development of Listen Notes :)
What’s new on the surface?
The new UI design is significantly inspired by Google’s UI :) The primary color is inspired by Pinterest & Quora. Familiarity is good for users.
The new logo is quite self-explanatory: Magnifying Glass is pretty standard to mean “searching”. And podcasts are distributed via RSS, thus the RSS icon.
I ensure you that I’ll get a better web UI design and a better logo design later by getting helps from real designers (maybe contractors?). But for now, it’s good enough to launch and move on.
What’s new behind the scene?
A lot happened behind the scene.
I developed Listen Notes 1.0 early this year, when I explored some half-baked ideas & wrote some half-baked code. As a result, the code base was not in a good shape.
I took the opportunity of developing Listen Notes 2.0 to delete half-baked code and do some refactoring. This effort should pay dividends in the future.
The tech stack of Listen Notes 1.0 looked like this
- Backend: Django, PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch, Redis
- Frontend: React, Redux, webpack
For Listen Notes 2.0, I replaced React with Preact for a smaller sized JS bundle. Other than that, all remain the same. It’s the first time I use Preact, which turns out to be a pretty positive experience.
Why Listen Notes 2.0 is important?
As I said in the beginning of this post, this is the first time that I work full-time on my own project — well, this means I’m an indie hacker, or an entrepreneur, or just unemployed. I actually feel wonderful to be able to work full-time on things that I enjoy. Hopefully I can survive long enough to take Listen Notes to the next level.
The code base of Listen Notes 2.0 is in a pretty good shape now. I’ll iterate from here in full speed (hopefully 😀).
Okay, please try Listen Notes 2.0 and let me know what you think about it: hello@listennotes.com
