#125 - Your Side Project Cheat Sheet - 6 steps to create cool sh*t
Apr 4, 2024
auto_awesome
Explore the benefits of creating side projects, starting with API data and minimal features. Learn about user flow, technology choices, and practical knowledge. Dive into project management, planning, and hosting on AWS for career growth.
25:04
AI Summary
Highlights
AI Chapters
Episode notes
auto_awesome
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
Start with choosing an API for your side project to lay the foundation.
Balance familiarity with new technologies to broaden knowledge and troubleshooting skills.
Deep dives
Why Side Projects are Important for Software Developers
Building a complex side project is crucial for honing your skills as a software developer. It simulates real-world job experiences and distinguishes good engineers from great ones. While side projects may not directly land you a job, the skills acquired are invaluable and translate into actionable capabilities at work.
Key Steps in Creating a Solid Side Project
To start a side project, focus on selecting an API as the foundation of your application. Pick a framework like Next.js and delve into backend stacks to gain a comprehensive understanding of both front-end and back-end development. Choose CSS frameworks like Bootstrap or explore plain CSS to enhance your skills.
Host Your Side Project and Embrace Learning Opportunities
Once your side project is ready, consider hosting it on platforms like AWS to gain hands-on experience in deploying and managing applications. Balancing familiarity with new technologies in your project helps to broaden your knowledge and troubleshooting skills. The ultimate goal is to deploy a complex yet scalable project that allows for iterative improvements and continuous learning.
You want to build an amazing side project but you don’t know where to start.
❌ TODO app? ❌ Clone of that other app that you use? ❌ Tutorial project?
When I’m not sure what I want to build, I do this:
Start with the data - what API can you use which may have some interesting information?
What features can you construct around the API? For example, a real time stock API could be used to trigger an alert to a user when it dips below a certain threshold
Figure out the minimal amount of features
What is the user flow? What happens when a user goes to your app? What is the feature they interact with and how is the data surfaced?
Pick a combination of new and familiar technologies
Get stuck, read the docs and build your way out of the hole you’ve dug 😅
Gain more practical knowledge than a 100 hour course could ever offer you