As my last post explains, SeeThisSpot did not turn out to be what I wanted it to be. Functionally, it was close, but I found I wasn’t anywhere near as proud of what I produced as I wanted to be, and now I find myself needing to work out why that is exactly. I want to be proud. I want to tell people to use the site. I want it to look and perform great. But I’ve always wanted these things really, so where did it go wrong?

The Comfort Zone. I ended up sticking well within my comfort zone. Sure, I used a PHP framework that I wasn’t familiar with, but what I really wanted to use when I started was NodeJS. After a little bit of research there were a number of things that led me towards going with a more familiar approach.

1. Web hosting. It’s harder to find a web host that will host Node applications. Heroku is the obvious one, but apart from a small added cost to my existing hosting commitments, Heroku also involves knowing…
2. Git. Version control has always scared me a little. Maybe it dates back to my time in university when I accidentally deleted my teams entire CVS repository just hours before our project was due. Yes, the repository itself, and all the history, EVERYTHING. Luckily, I had some more talented folks on my team than me and we recovered the situation in time, but I think that incident has stuck with me. It’s time to get over that. I’ve been more comfortable using SVN in the past couple of years, but need to up my game.

What next?

I’ve already started getting on top of learning the basics of NodeJS. NodeSchool is proving to be an awesome resource and already I’ve completed the learnyounode tutorials, which were a good starting point. Next up is some Git tutorials. Time to conquer the fear (and confusion) and start becoming a real developer.

What have I learned?

Sticking with what is familiar may save time initially, but it won’t advance your progress, teach you new things, or help expand your horizons, which was exactly what I wanted to achieve when starting SeeThisSpot. So it’s been a sloppy year in terms of personal development for me, I’m still happy with what I’ve achieved but am looking forward to getting on with 2015 and the getting this project up and running just like I pictured originally