RE: Doing Stuff: My First Web Dev Project

Hey, I wanted to share something I've been working on lately. I finally got around to making my first web app from scratch, and it's been quite the experience.

What I Built

It's pretty simple, actually. I made this game where you convert numbers between binary and decimal. You know, for people who want to practice that kind of thing. Here's how it works:

• You pick if you want to go from binary to decimal or the other way around
• Choose how many bits you want to deal with (4, 8, 16, or 32)
• Then you can play in two modes:
  1. Timer Mode: See how many you can get right in a set time
  2. Number Mode: Try to get a certain number of correct answers as fast as you can

Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

The Tech Stuff

I used React and Next.js for the frontend. Figured I'd learn the popular stuff, you know? For user logins, I went with Clerk, and Firebase is handling the database. It was my first time using any of these, so there was a lot of googling involved. I'm honestly unsure if I will ever use firebase again lol. The free tier is great but boy was it a headache.

What I Learned

This was my first time doing web dev on my own, and man, there was a lot to figure out. APIs, integrating different services, all that jazz. It's one thing to read about this stuff, but actually doing it? Whole different ball game.

To be honest though, this is where the fun came from. I did this as a challenge, and though it was challenging, I had such a great time learning all of these technologies in a very hands-on way.

I think the biggest thing I learned is that it's okay to not know everything. Half the battle is just knowing how to find the right information when you need it. Coming out of this I feel like anyone who knows how to read docs can make anything

Final Thoughts

Looking back, it's kind of cool to see how much I've learned. Started out knowing basically nothing about web dev, and now I've got a working app. It's not going to change the world or anything, but hey, it's mine and I made it work.

If you're thinking about trying something like this, I'd say go for it. It's frustrating as hell sometimes, but it's pretty satisfying when things finally click. And who knows? You might end up making something cool. You. Can. Just. Do. Things. So go do something!

Anyway, that's my little project. If you want to check it out and test your binary-decimal skills, you can find it here. Always good to have some guinea pigs!