Happened: Midpoint

This is the sixth project update for my project “Happened” and participating in the One Side Project challenge. You can find my previous posts here.

The past few months I’ve been saying that I had figured out what I wanted to do and that what was most important right now is that I needed to code. Just code. Not designing, not figuring out, not learning new things; coding.

I had many excuses. The part of my week I’d set aside for side projects had changed and was no longer available. Work was both more important and more interesting. I didn’t like JavaScript. So many excuses.

Last month I vowed to “just do it”; I did.

What worked? Getting back to basics. For me this meant firing up VIM and typing code that was approximately what was needed until I was done, the programming equivalent to a writer banging out a page quota on a typewriter. No editing, no API referencing, only reconciling things with the design I had written down.

I still never found “side-project time” but I did find time. A few minutes in the morning while the coffee brewed, an hour on the train when I couldn’t sleep, a weekend slot between gardening and a bicycle ramble. In true Side Project fashion, I made time out of nothing and did my best.

I was only able to get things done when I stopped wasting what little time I had on the things that weren’t actually coding — I was using a really great IDE to code with, but I was using it in trial mode and kept having to renew the trial before I started coding. This wasn’t possible if I was on weak wifi, so often I’d be on the train and “not able to code”. The IDE also meant that while I was coding I was also trying to edit my code and make it perfect. JavaScript is still not comfortable to me and I labor over “getting it right”.

The basic functionality is now in place, the app is now what I had wanted to be using months ago. I’ve come to the most fun part of a side project, the time I get to start using it!

This month:

• I wrote the code powering the list-sharing features.
• I wrote a full-text search that can then be saved.

Next month:

• Bring the client up to date with the API features.
• Screenshots of the app in action for next month’s post.
• Find hosting and practice deploying.
• Start using my app!!!

And as always, give this article a 💚 recommend if you enjoyed it, and follow One Side Project Challenge for my future updates and other inspiring side projects.