My weekend project turned into a 3 years journey
Anthony's note-taking app journey spans 3 years, evolving from a secure Markdown tool to a complex Electron/React project with code execution capabilities. Facing challenges in store publishing, he prioritizes user feedback and simplicity, opting for a custom online deployment solution.
Read original article
Anthony shares his journey of how a simple note-taking app turned into a 3-year project. Starting as a basic tool for secure note-taking in Markdown, the app evolved into a complex project involving Electron/React development and integration with Monaco. Publishing on Apple and Microsoft stores proved challenging due to certification and validation processes. The app transitioned from a text editor to an executable notebook, allowing code execution within the editor. Users requested more features, leading to continuous development over years. Anthony then ventured into online deployment, designing a cluster for users to deploy applications and dashboards. He opted for a custom solution over Kubernetes or Docker. Despite feeling dwarfed by larger competitors, Anthony remains passionate about enhancing the app's features and user experience. The journey serves as a lesson to dream big but avoid unnecessary complexity. Anthony's dedication and user feedback continue to drive his project forward, emphasizing the importance of perseverance in app development.
Related
The demise of the mildly dynamic website (2022)
The evolution of websites from hand-crafted HTML to PHP enabled dynamic web apps with simple deployment. PHP's decline led to static site generators replacing mildly dynamic sites, shifting to JavaScript for features like comments.
Groqnotes: Generate structured notes from audio using Groq, Whisper, and Llama3
The GitHub project "Groqnotes" is a streamlit app utilizing Groq, Whisper, and Llama3 to create structured notes from audio content efficiently. It offers rapid transcription, markdown styling, and download options. Access online or set up locally.
Show HN: Eidos – Offline alternative to Notion
The Eidos project on GitHub offers a personal data management framework as a Progressive Web App with AI features. Customizable with extensions and scripting, it leverages sqlite-wasm technology for chromium-based browsers.
Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)
The article discusses creating a ~/bin/ directory in Unix to store custom commands, avoiding name collisions with system commands by prefixing custom commands with a comma. This technique ensures unique, easily accessible commands.
Show HN: Field report with Claude 3.5 – Making a screen time goal tracker
The author shares their positive experience using Claude 3.5 Sonnet to track screen time goals. Claude proved reliable, fast, and auditable, aiding in reducing screen time through visualizations and goal setting. Despite design flaws, Claude improved performance with accurate metrics and visualizations, benefiting the author's screen time tracking.
14 commentsThat got me thinking about the structure of language, how to model space-time and essentially how to build a programming language capable of building visuals through time similar to how one how would build functions in lambda calculus.
I spent countless hours on this and its become an obsession. I have hundreds of pages of scribbles and built 20 implementations trying to approach the problem another way, got stuck somewhere and restarted. Im closer than when I started but I am burnt out. I really wanted to build a sensible prototype but short of that I just feel like I'm nuts and its all close to worthless.
I'm a developer and I started 3 years ago, a simple app as a weekend project. But this project took on proportions that I did not expect in my life. If you’ve ever had a side project spiral out of control, you might enjoy reading about my journey. Would love to hear your stories too!
Cheers, Anthony
I think this statement is more personal than the author intended
I think part of why we underestimate difficulty is, it's hard to see anything but the happy path. The complications are harder to anticipate. And for each of the solutions to a problem, we also only think of the happy path to solving it. And so on.
- Couldn't execute the tutorial notebooks without first paying for a subscription
- Specifically surprised that executing a bash script locally is an "Advanced feature"
- I've "exceeded my limit 1/1" for deployed jobs, I'd love to see how/where this is deployed but I don't see a link. It's the default myapphtml job.
EDIT: Found the link to the deployed web app. Was confused because it has a column label of "Frequency"
I had a weekend project that also ballooned, into a 3 month one. I made a chrome extends the built in device viewer to display more than 1 device view on screen at a time (eg mobile, iPad, PC views)
This was an absolutely crazy project where ChatGPT and similar Chatbots kept saying it was impossible (use an iframe to control parent page navigation, and navigate an iframe from origin A to origin B without setting off any cross origin security flags)
Great times, wasn’t ultimately worth the effort but I’ve learnt a hell of a lot about hacking the browser to extreme edge cases and proxying content (cross origin requests, displaying any site in an iframe, manipulating the iframe site etc)
That's my dream, too, but not to build it. To use it.
I thought org mode (emacs macOS) and beorg (iOS) was it for me, but it's pretty terrible (on iOS). I just can't use beorg. I even paid for an extension to give the dev some money.
If would love to try your solution.
EDIT:
znote for iOS last changed 2y ago? 1 review. That's disappointing and makes me very nervous about moving into your walled garden.
Related
The demise of the mildly dynamic website (2022)
The evolution of websites from hand-crafted HTML to PHP enabled dynamic web apps with simple deployment. PHP's decline led to static site generators replacing mildly dynamic sites, shifting to JavaScript for features like comments.
Groqnotes: Generate structured notes from audio using Groq, Whisper, and Llama3
The GitHub project "Groqnotes" is a streamlit app utilizing Groq, Whisper, and Llama3 to create structured notes from audio content efficiently. It offers rapid transcription, markdown styling, and download options. Access online or set up locally.
Show HN: Eidos – Offline alternative to Notion
The Eidos project on GitHub offers a personal data management framework as a Progressive Web App with AI features. Customizable with extensions and scripting, it leverages sqlite-wasm technology for chromium-based browsers.
Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)
The article discusses creating a ~/bin/ directory in Unix to store custom commands, avoiding name collisions with system commands by prefixing custom commands with a comma. This technique ensures unique, easily accessible commands.
Show HN: Field report with Claude 3.5 – Making a screen time goal tracker
The author shares their positive experience using Claude 3.5 Sonnet to track screen time goals. Claude proved reliable, fast, and auditable, aiding in reducing screen time through visualizations and goal setting. Despite design flaws, Claude improved performance with accurate metrics and visualizations, benefiting the author's screen time tracking.