what to do next
im just done with dictionary api app and dont know what to do next
these are the projects i have made until now:
10-20 basic responsive websites with like 4-5 sections on average (multiple page)
rock paper scissor
tic tac toe
book library
multi step form
browser extension manager
calculator
to do list
basic frontend only comment section
carousels
etch-a-sketch
age calculator
dictionary api app
weather api app
41 Replies
Some other conventional projects when learning JavaScript:
- Music /audio playlist
- Timer and stopwatch
- Calendar (working with time and dates is valuable knowledge)
- Quiz
- E-Commerce Product grid with add to cart functionality (bonus points to remove from cart and adjust quantity , reflected in Cart Subtotal)
okayy
Are you trying to get a job?
If so, figure out what you actually want to do... whether it's presentational frontend (html, css, js), more technical frontend (building ui state logic in things tools like react, api calls / optimization, etc), backend... etc
can i take a look at your finished apps?
My advice for coming up with ideas is to pay attention to some small business you go to and observe how they operate. Are they doing things that software could solve? Are they inefficient in a process? For example the dog groomers I take my dogs to do a great job but are a little disorganized. Bless their hearts, but they use 3x5 index cards for keeping track of how they groom everyone's pet. They have plastic containers that hold their cards and they have lost my card multiple times or find an older card attached to my wife's name. I have thought about making them a self hosted electron app many times but I am busy working on other things outside of work.
If your interested in making applications this is often how things go in a professional environment at small companies.
Everyone does the typical stuff you listed or making a clone of a video stream service, social media app, etc. Honestly that doesn't really stand out. Look around you and solve real problems. Sure there are a dime a dozen CRM apps but what will really sell is thinking about a problem and solving it. Being able to explain your choices will land you the job.
have you asked feedback on those in #showcase ?
or in other places?
because i dont remember seeing any of these projects there
yes yes, you want to go to the next step, but how about you improve the current one first?
I'd be careful with that because the way you're describing it is trying to find a problem for your solution. If it's just for practise that's fine but i'd recommend doing it for personal stuff. Like a garage door opening app, an app that does nothing but display a solid color on your monitor to light you better on zoom calls.. All real things i've built to solve something i encountered
From the projects that you've done i think you can start looking for bigger projects. Try to find something that you'd actually use / is a full scale app, rather than a little prototype that's not gonna find real use. Like the classic todo list app that all of us have built at some point. None of us actually use it. Some ideas you could build:
- Keyboard / Gamepad input tester. Draw a full keyboard and show which buttons are pressed. Can extend that to gamepads or mice too. Good javascript exercise and building unconventional layouts
- Some smarthome thing. Depends on your situation of course. If you have some smart device in your home that you could interface with, give it a shot and start building your own smart home
- Personal media gallery. An app to store, categorize and view all your vacation photos and whatever else. Lets you learn how to work with large quantities of media files
I don't understand your point, " the way you're describing it is trying to find a problem for your solution." I am suggesting looking for real world problems and creating a solution. Noticing an inefficiency in what I have encountered in a real business then coming up with a solution with software is not me looking for a problem that fits my solution. I said "pay attention to some small business you go to and observe how they operate". Me creating an app after the observation in not applying pre-formulated solution to their problem.
It is a good exercise to observe real world issues, put yourself in place of the user or product owner and come up with a solution.
it sounded like you want to then go in there and try to sell your software to them
No, it is not to sell them a service, it is to gain experience building stuff people other than yourself would use or need. At the end of it you could have an actual marketable product.
I don't know why you'd rather build something to solve someone else's problem when you could do something to fulfill your own needs
Because you don't know how they operate. You don't know what they actually need. Perhaps they like their cards just fine, why do you as an outsider software dev know more about their business than they do
Just build something for yourself that you're passionate about
If you are working at a company, particularly a SaaS, that is what you will be doing. Yes there is some speculation as to what they want, but is it really different than a UX designer thinking up personas and how they would interacting with an app.
When you're trying to get better at programming, you shouldn't be training to work in a poorly managed company
That's not what the practise is about
Your missing the point. This is about generating ideas and my suggestion is using the real world to find them, and building something.
It still seems very very hypothetical
And i wouldn't get excited about building a frontend to a pet shop database
Agree to disagree. Most of development is not terribly exciting.
You have the wrong job then
I enjoy my job a lot. I have worked on a bunch of applications. Not everything sets the world on fire.
Nor does it to get value and a sense of pride from it.
Not really sure what you are going for, but i would recommend this:
- backend api with jwt token auth with nginx as a reverse proxy routing to the api-server port - buy your own domain and set up DNS routing on something like a digital ocean droplet (figure out how to connect to the server from your terminal using ssh + how to copy files using scp) - set up https using certbot - get familiar with .envif u wanna try any of this and you are a windows user then you should also use WSL in your windows terminal a sort of bonus "challenge" is also setting this up using docker. Not sure how others feel about this but i think knowledge about
docker, JWT tokens, and .env is pretty important.
General knowledge about AWS or azure is also important due to how many jobs have it as a bonus or requirement.i appreciate all the suggestions
nope
Why are you coding?
my goal is to learn full stack development
i have shared some of them in #help and #showcase
Why?
the ones i made recently yes
trying to be a fullstack dev
besides the tic tac toe, what else have you done?
are these all backend related
Make a real-world fullstack app
u mean until now?
im just starting backend
havent even started
im getting familiar with databases atm
i was told that it would be good to getting familiar with databases before starting backed
idk
You can learn while you build
ohh ya
You already know how to call an API so it's really just making an API yourself and some functions on the backend to process those API calls and send / fetch from the database
yes, to review your stuff
You've already made a frontend-only comment section, what about hooking that frontend to a new backend & database as a first step? And then move onto a more ambitious project
In my experience / what I've seen employers don't care about your projects unless they're actually practical or impressive. So your pet projects up until now are really only valuable for learning (which is fine obviously, but since you want to be a fullstack developer you'll have to be marketable somehow)
i actually suggest something completely different: we don't really know how he's doing at his current level, so, how can we suggest what's next?
show us your stuff, then we can give actual evidence-based advice
I don't think it matters, it's either too easy for them or they grit their teeth and figure it out 😂 but maybe I'm a masochist because that's how I learn
i learn by doing it
but that's not why
the quality of the code will give us an idea of bad habits
@ἔρως Hey! you can share details here maybe if it's a right place
i don't have any details to share
Lol🥲
@Voldemote please don't try to hijack other people's #help threads. Make your own post if you want, one topic per post
Also, please don't @ people directly to ask them to help you. People will help if and when they can, in the ways that they feel comfortable with.
Learning while making something that interests you is the best way to learn.