Frictionless Generators
Effortlessly automate code generation in Rails apps.
A year after writing a blog post about creating custom Rails generators, the book is launched with only a little more work to do on some of the bonus resources.
The feedback has been positive, but I intentionally haven't put much effort into spreading awareness because I hope to see it be a long-term valuable resource that people will find as I write and share a bunch of additional free resources. That way, it's less of a 'launch and hope' and more of a 'launch and get to work' helping folks save time with generators.
For the first time in a while, it feels like I'm able to make steady progress on a product. Partly from having Launch FTW provide a not-overwhelming vision, and partly from choosing a topic that just feels fun.
The biggest challenge has been coming up for air rather than continuing to research and explore nuances worth writing about. Regardless, momentum feels good.
It's been a while since putting a product out there, but the writing is well underway now. The book cover, landing page, and mailing list are all set up now as well.
It feels pretty nice to get back into making small but valuable things, and I had forgotten how enjoyable it is to just write.
Over the years, I made a few half-hearted attempts at building custom generators in my Rails apps. Each time, the learning curve was too steep, and building the generator wouldn't have been a net-time-saver over continuing to perform the tasks manually.
More recently, I had some time, and I decided to dig in and go for it because I had a slightly more complex use case that justified it. The learning curve was still steep, but I pushed through this time.
After that, I wrote a blog post detailing my experience and some of the speed bumps, and the response was positive. At the same time, I had just been laid off and needed a good side project to work on in between consulting gigs and a job search.
It all kind of just fell into place from there, and I started writing and building a landing page.
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