DEV Community: Jesse Robertson

Devlog #3: Planning

Jesse Robertson — Sat, 07 Sep 2019 02:32:34 +0000

Didn't get much programming done today, but no worries! I have a much clearer vision for what the application will evolve into. So, this post will really just be describing in detail what the app is all about.

Ivy (working title) at it's core, is a house plant tracker. As a user, you'll be able to create a 'profile' of sorts for each of your houseplants. You can give it a name, take a nice picture of it, and then let us know what type of plant it is. Once we know which plant it is, it'll auto-populate a couple of different fields.

First is a synopsis of optimal care techniques for this specific plant (e.g. place it in direct sunlight, keep it in the shade, mist instead of water, etc.). Second is a care-scheduler. The application will automatically determine the optimal times to water the plant, how much water to give it, and then schedule push notifications for those times. Obviously, all of this is also editable by the user.

Another idea that I'm working through is the idea of using this platform as a way to both connect with other houseplant caretakers, but also to connect with botanists/biologists who are able to give direction/diagnoses for when your plants may not be healthy. Still working through how this would function by talking to a number of local botanists, but in the early stages it's looking to be very promising and is a way to bring about a revenue that will help with development costs.

That's all for today, and if you're at all interested in the app, go ahead and follow to keep up to date with development!

Devlog #2: Firebase/Google Login

Jesse Robertson — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 00:06:30 +0000

I didn't have as much time as I'd like today, but I was able to complete what I set out to do, so I guess that's worth something.

Today, I set up a Firebase service for my application, and integrated Google login for native devices. The main time consumer today was deploying to my Android. I was able to emulate on iOS on my Macbook just fine, but Cordova kept on giving me trouble when I tried to run the app on Android. After multiple refreshes of my PATH variables, ensuring I had the right active JDK, and multiple restarts, I found a niche solution on Github.

Apparently, when declaring the path for the Android SDK root directory, it prefers an explicit declaration. So, rather than "$HOME/Library/Android/sdk" it wanted "/Users/myaccount/Library/Android/sdk". I'm not sure whether this is a bug that only affects a few or a necessity when using the SDK; either way, it fixed the issue.

Anyways, that's all for today. Tomorrow I'll mostly be using pen and paper(gasp) to draft up some basic UI/UX/Navigation structure, and getting in touch with some friends who would be potential users and getting into the specifics of what they need out of the app.

Devlog #1: Setting Up

Jesse Robertson — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 03:33:06 +0000

Today starts the first day prototyping an app I plan on pushing out over the next few weeks.

I mostly spent the day setting up the foundations. It's my first time using Ionic, so a lot of time was spent upfront skimming through the docs to make sure I wanted to use it. After I got Ionic/Angular installed, I bought a domain for the app for 1) a landing page for it and 2) so that I could have a support email specifically for it. Once I had G Suite set up, I went over to Firebase to set up an application to enable authentication and Firestore. I had used all of these technologies before(excluding Ionic), but not together.

After getting a basic Ionic login page up and running, I started implementing Firebase. Now, it wouldn't be programming if you didn't spend over an hour trying to fix a 'bug' that's really just you forgetting some of the most basic building blocks.

For the life of me, I could not figure out why it wouldn't recognize the 'environments' module. After a nice break, I came back to it and realized duh, I was trying to import a variable from a TypeScript file without declaring the TypeScript file I needed it from. Thus, '../environments' turned into '../environments/environment.'

Next, I set up form control and validation for my login page, and had to call it a day. Tomorrow, I plan on setting up everything Firebase: Login with email/password and Google, password resets, account deletion, etc.

Stay tuned for more to come! I'll be posting every day even if I only accomplish something small.

Hello World

Jesse Robertson — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 03:15:21 +0000

Hey there DEV community!

I decided I wanted to start documenting my learning process, so starting tomorrow I will be writing daily devlogs. I am beginning some app prototyping and am going to be building it using Ionic to see if I like it.

A little bit about me:

I grew up in the IT realm and have always been messing around with computers. I especially love Raspberry Pi's and Arduino. I've been programming on and off since I was about 15 and have used a variety of languages and frameworks. I really enjoy change and spontaneity.

I went to college for three years and bounced between electrical engineering, computer science, criminal justice, exercise science, and information security. I realized I was wasting too much money for not really getting anywhere and dropped out.

Currently, I'm working odd jobs and freelancing to get by while I figure out what I want to do. I think I want to end up in the software engineering world, but I also enjoy content creation(I run a YT channel and a podcast) and writing. I'm a jack of all trades who intends on mastering them all.

If you end up following along, enjoy the ride and thanks for tuning in!