Linkchimp

Finally launched on ProductHunt :)

Spent the last 6 hours trying to get Google Analytics working. Only to discover the fault wasn't in the code but in an extension that was blocking the code lol.

Excited to see how Linkchimp will be received. For me it was a learning experience either way.

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/linkchimp

Progress:

• Mostly spent time on learning and researching authentication
• Implemented authentication for the back-end
• Had to take several days off for family reasons

The main takeaway: I was too worried about the core tech, so, didn't even realize I have big gaps in my knowledge when it comes to React routes and how to do authentication. There are just so many possible ways to do auth, so, very easy to get overwhelmed.

Progress

• Researched user authentication

Went from "do a simple one myself" to "Auth0" to "Firebase". Still not sure which one to choose. Auth0 sucks cause the free version can't export any password hashes and it's not easy to use custom fields. Firebase on the other hand seems like an overkill.

Progress:

• Implemented the Bootstrap mockup
• Spent a lot of time in YouTube and learnt some more React

I think Codecademy has it backwards. They are teaching React too early. So, by the time you get to actually developing your own app, you've forgotten most of it.

A better way to teach would have been:

1. HTML & JSS
2. Javascript
3. Basic Node.js
4. Basic React
5. Doing small React + Node.js + Express apps from scratch.
6. Advanced Javascript & Node.js

Progress:

• Found out React now has functional components with useState xoxo
• Did a final mock-up for data display in Bootstrap

Basically learnt that I should have worked backwards - start with the end design (requirements) and then start coding. In this case tho I was unsure whether I can technically ever pull it off, so, I guess that's why I jumped to coding immediately.

Progress:

• Rewrote the whole app to use Promises and got it working but in some cases don't know why
• Separated front-end and back-end and documented how to do it
• Got data from Node back-end to React front-end

It's pretty frustrating to have bugs. But it's equally frustrating to have the code working but don't know why.

Progress:

• Spent the whole day frustrated still with async queries and values
• Rewrote the whole app but no success
• A whole lot of YouTube and Stackoverflow but no progress

Can't imagine being any more frustrated than that. 2 days lost basically.

Progress:

• Ran into a bug with forEach() which took hours to resolve (it doesn't like async for some reason)
• Ran into another problem where async values wouldn't resolve even with for() loops

Super frustrated but hopefully can fix everything tomorrow.

Finished my Codecademy course on web development (more or less - testing still to be done).

Progress:

• Researched various npm packages for what I need to do
• Got parsing working tho it's a bit complicated
• Got link checking working tho redirects are a headache