Keep Working
The garden is still in its infancy, but it hasn’t died yet. I’m calling that a win. Six inch tall plants that haven’t fallen over. I’m somewhat concerned they are not receiving enough sun. There’s a lot of trees in the surrounding area which hog up some of the light. I’ll have to take a measurement of the amount time they are receiving sunlight. Also, after some soil tests, I discovered I need to up the nitrogen, phosphorous and potash. Now excuse me while I Google “potash”.
I feel like I’m making excellent progress on my clue pursuit app. It’s not a game entirely, rather it’s more of a game “engine” / storage system. Teams and their respective passwords are stored in the app, clues to solve the passwords are hidden out in the real world. Once teams feel confident they’ve solved the clues, they enter the passwords, which opens a treasure box of some kind on the screen if the team is successful.
I’m using Electron to build the application. Like anything, there are advocates and detractors. In the pros column, there’s the ability to quickly develop cross-platform applications if you’re unfamiliar with things like C++ or Java - which I am (Java is up next for me, after I feel more comfortable with JavaScript). Other pros include not having to maintain a database of users and their passwords, or having to buy a domain name and set up hosting. Over in the cons column, Electron has an absurdly large file size for even a program whose entire purpose is to, say, display a green box. In order to be cross-platform, any Electron app includes ALL the components needed to run it. Also, in reading some threads, there’s potential for RAM issues. I’d like to convert to something web-based in the future. Right now, I’ll just call this a proof of concept.
In the future, I plan to do a full-write up of the project, but here’s a few of the highlights until then:
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One of the highest moments I’ve had so far was figuring out how to query the embedded database (nedb) by using the values of boxes checked in the DOM.
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Displaying a template based on the number of boxes checked was easier, but no less thrilling. Every victory, no matter how small, feels like it’s worth celebrating.
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Probably because I’m still quite new. Or because it’s entirely possible for a missing curly brace to make you question your sanity.
I still have some back end to flesh out, and coming up is learning how to create simple image assets. Which reminds me, this blog is thus far a lot of text. I’ll fix that in the future.
To add one last small wall of text. One thing I struggle with is the feeling I’m always behind the curve. There’s a plethora of people doing what I’m trying to do. If I had really stuck with this a few years ago, when I tried for the first time, I might have found that developing applications was something I have a real passion for. I guess the mark of progress is looking back from tomorrow and seeing if I’m ahead of where I am today.
- reading: It - Stephen King
- listening to: anything from the Baby Driver soundtrack
- using: Watch and Code
- playing: Shadow of Mordor - GOTY Edition
Later.
Shaun
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