I learned to code intent on building a project, I’d had in mind for some time. Previously, I’d hired freelance developers to build my ideas - some were good, some were bad, but they were always expensive! Learning to code, was a great decision - I love it!

So, I created On Your Frequency, which provides a way for new music producers and artists, to get help and feedback from experienced musicians, instantly via video chat.

Though I’m pleased with the project, I definitely made some mistakes.

I spent too much time building before testing

I did a Udemy course to create the video element, and quite quickly I had something good enough to test with users - I just didn’t realize it. So I kept building, which was fun. and I learnt a lot - Firebase, Github, Stripe integration, Bootstrap, Twilio, Node.js to name a few - but I was making assumptions. Testing sooner would have given me clearer direction.

I built too much

Any time someone said “what about adding this?” I would add it. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but it always took time, and made the project more complicated.

I built everything from scratch

I really enjoy problem solving, and some aspects of the project, like the video connection, work I because I experimented. However, I quickly realized the more mundane problems weren’t worth spending time solving, as they’ve already been solved many times, by people smarter than me! I could have saved time by using existing templates, and by making my own code more reusable.

I didn’t use a framework

I really like vanilla javascript. For me it’s like reading, writing and math - I don’t know how I lived without it. That said, although the platform the works, the code is difficult to maintain. It’s ’noob’ code to start with, and it’s not well organized. So I’m using Vue JS now - here’s a video I made on some great ways I found to learn it:

So what’s next?

I’m glad you asked. I really enjoyed working on this project, although it’s not perfect. The next goal is to take this concept and make it a business - part of that is writing manageable code, of course. I’ve gotten great feedback, and will be rebranding and expanding beyond music, including areas of interest to the Dev.to community. I’m also moving beyond just video. There will be some announcements soon, so if you’re interested please follow me on here. If you’d like to know more before then, ask me in the comments, or send me a message.

Thanks