• Worth Doing Poorly; How I Failed To Run An Event (And What I Learned)

    30 min reading time; ~6300 words Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly… because doing it poorly is better than not doing it. — redheadhatchet This quote is one I read on Tumblr a few years ago, immediately printed out, and taped to my wall (imperfectly of course, as you can see from the image to the right). It’s based on a quote by G. K. Chesterton, a philosopher from the early 20th century, who said “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” Honestly, I like the updated version better. Finding the quote finally put words to a driving force…

  • An App From Scratch: Part 11 – Template Data Modelling and Test Optimizations

    9 minute reading time; ~1670 words Hello and welcome to this post! Today we’re going to touch on some database design concepts as we explore how to store and manage the records created with a template. We’ll also look at some testing optimizations to improve performance, and thus, development speed. Let’s get into it! If you haven’t read the previous posts, I’d suggest you start at An App From Scratch: Part 1 – What To Build. You can also find all the related documents and code here: Building Tailgunner. What To Do This post, we’re going to dig into a…

  • An App From Scratch: Part 10 – Reflections And Template Editing

    11 minute reading time; ~2120 words Welcome and hello! In this post, we’re going to touch on the overall lessons from the series so far, and then dive into delivering the ability to actually edit a template. If you haven’t read the previous posts, I’d suggest you start at An App From Scratch: Part 1 – What To Build. You can also find all the related documents and code here: Building Tailgunner. Some Housekeeping In between the last post and this one, I made a few small changes to address some housekeeping notes from the work I’ve done. Reflections /…

  • An App From Scratch: Part 9 – Setting Up Our Production Server And Deployment (US1-C4)

    9 minute reading time; ~1720 words Welcome and hello! This post is going to take the work we’ve done so far, and put it where it can be used. We’re going to walk through designing an automated deployment process, and some cleanup that we have to do around the branding as part of taking it to production. Let’s dig into it, and put our work in front of the world! If you haven’t read the previous posts, I’d suggest you start at An App From Scratch: Part 1 – What To Build. You can also find all the related documents…

  • An App From Scratch: Part 8 – Creating New Templates Tool (US1-C3)

    15 minute reading time; ~2860 words Welcome and hello! Today, we’re going to create a template creation tool. This post talks about creating the new interface elements needed, how we connect our frontend to backend with an API call, and some more conversation about pull request sizing. Without further ado, let’s dive into it and build that tool! If you haven’t read the previous posts, I’d suggest you start at An App From Scratch: Part 1 – What To Build. You can also find all the related documents and code here: Building Tailgunner. What Do I See? As you can…

  • An App From Scratch: Part 7 – Creating The Template List Page (US1-C2)

    14 minute reading time; ~2600 words Welcome and hello! Today, we’re going to create a template list page! Along the way, I’m going to show how we break down this more complex card, interpreting the wireframe into pieces of work, and how we get from start to finish. We’ll also explore how to efficiently style our page, and get to an end product that will let our stakeholders start to see the shape of the feature we’re building. If you haven’t read the previous posts, I’d suggest you start at An App From Scratch: Part 1 – What To Build.…