My Journey: How I, an Almost 13 Year Old, Built Inkwyl

#developer #motivation #webdev #computerscience

Hi everyone.

My name is Ved Rane.

I am the creator and administrator of Inkwyl.

I am 12, turning 13 very soon.

This is my journey.

So let's start from the beginning.

As a kid, I used to like drawing and making comics. Never would I have imagined I would take up programming. My dream was to become a comic artist or animator.

When I was 9, I tried out a programming language called Ruby on a site called Codecademy. I really wasn't interested and thus didn't go far.

During the summer of 2020, in the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to try coding again. I started with HTML, a language for building websites, and found it interesting that I could build websites.

I learned CSS and basic JavaScript soon and then learned Python.

I had also seen many videos on YouTube where people built video games using a program called Unity. Fascinated, I downloaded it myself. It uses C#, so I started learning that too.

I learned C# and basic C++, then I learned Java to make Android apps, and slowly by slowly, I started building my knowledge in programming.

When I was learning HTML, it had always been my dream to build a social network. Something where people would come to have fun and share.

I had failed many times before, simply because I didn't have the knowledge.

In February of 2021, I built a little site called UnusualUnit. It was the most basic of basic chat sites. I used Node.js, a server software using JavaScript, and Socket.io, a library for using websockets, which allow for realtime communication over the web.

I took it down since no one was using it and I didn't think it was really going to succeed.

Then I built Infogetpedia. This was a Wikipedia clone also built in Node.js. I ended up deleting this too as I didn't think that had potential either. It was pretty bad come to think of it, with many questionable design choices.

That held true for my next attempt, Wispkoe. This was yet another Node.js app. This was a social network where the only thing you could do was make small posts and read others. There were no accounts, no comments, no nothing. Just a place where you enter a username, title, and post, and that's it. This didn't have persistent storage so posts would occasionally disappear.

I kept this up for a bit. I developed a video game called Bubblegum Backlands and sold it for $3.99 on a site called itch.io.

I decided to take down Wispkoe.

By this time, it was summer of 2021.

I was thinking of something to make. Then, I got an amazing idea.

"What if I made a social media for writers?"

I decided on the name "Inkwyl".

I was wanting to try out a framework called Next.js, so I used that to build Inkwyl.

A lot of coding later, I made and published Inkwyl.

As we go, I'm continously updating it with new stuff.

And that's where we are now.

It's been an awesome journey.

Thanks for reading!