DEV Community: Alamin Shaikh

Help Me Code-Sign a Free Health-Focused Desktop App

Alamin Shaikh — Thu, 01 May 2025 04:02:03 +0000

I need help with a FREE desktop app I built for Mac and Windows users. It notifies you every:

20 minutes to look 20 feet further for 20 seconds, and
60 minutes to move/exercise for 2 minutes

The goal is to improve the vision and overall health of people working long time on computers.

What I need help with is the code-signing cost and process. Since this is a completely FREE app, it's tough to bear the cost alone. To make things harder, the Apple Developer Program isn't available in my country.

So if you are willing to sponsor, support, or partner with me to distribute the Desk Detour app, I'd love to hear from you. Please shoot me a message on X if interested.

Check out Desk Detour.

Frontend Mentor vs. DevCoach: Which one is right for you?

Alamin Shaikh — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 10:10:32 +0000

When it comes to software development, practical experience is key. Platforms like Frontend Mentor and DevCoach are powerful tools to help developers gain real-world experience by building projects. While they share a common goal, they cater to different learning approaches. Let's take a look.

Frontend Mentor

Frontend Mentor focuses on helping developers improve their front-end development skills by replicating professional design challenges. You can build real-world user interfaces, share your solutions, and get feedback from an active developer community.

Key features:

🖌️ Professional design challenges: Work with high-quality designs that mirror real-world workflows.
👥 Community feedback: Share your code solutions and receive feedback to improve your skills.
📚 Structured learning paths: Progress through front-end topics in an organized manner.
🔒 Pro membership: Access premium challenges, Figma files, and additional resources.

Frontend Mentor is ideal for developers who want to sharpen their UI development skills.

DevCoach

DevCoach is designed to guide developers through the entire software-building process—from idea to deployment. Instead of just tackling isolated features, DevCoach helps you build complete, real-world software projects step by step.

Key features:

🚀 Tailored project generation: Generate project ideas personalized to your tech stack, skill level, and target industry.
🛠️ Step-by-step guidance: Each project comes with detailed guides, actionable tasks, hints, and solutions—helping you build projects from the ground up.
💡 Problem-solving focus: DevCoach teaches you to approach projects like a pro developer by breaking down large projects into manageable steps.
🖥️ Portfolio development: By completing projects, you'll build a portfolio of impactful work that demonstrates your skills to potential employers or clients.

DevCoach is perfect for developers who want to gain hands-on experience with end-to-end software development.

How do they compare?

Feature	Frontend Mentor	DevCoach
Project scope	Focused on frontend UI projects	Frontend, backend, full-stack, mobile, and desktop software projects
Step-by-step guidance	Basic instructions with project requirements	Includes detailed steps, tasks, hints, and solutions
Tech stack support	Primarily frontend with HTML, CSS, and JS	Supports most popular languages, libraries, and frameworks
Learning focus	Improve frontend coding and UI skills	Build real-world, portfolio-worthy applications
Customization	Fixed project templates	Projects tailored to your tech stack, skill level, and target industry
Goal	Practice and improve frontend skills	Learn to build end-to-end software projects
Outcome	Polished frontend UIs	Complete software projects

Which platform should you choose?

Choose Frontend Mentor if you want to:

Focus exclusively on UI implementation.
Improve your design-to-code workflow using realistic challenges.
Share your code and get feedback from a large developer community.
Practice translating professional designs into polished UIs.

Choose DevCoach if you want to:

Work on projects tailored to your skills and goals.
Learn to build end-to-end software projects.
Follow structured guidance while gaining real-world problem-solving skills.
Build a strong portfolio that showcases your expertise and proves you can execute like a professional developer.

The bottom line

Both Frontend Mentor and DevCoach offer tremendous value for developers. Frontend Mentor hones in on front-end skills, making it perfect for developers aiming to master user interface development. On the other hand, DevCoach takes a broader approach, helping you build complete software projects and grow into a professional developer.

In reality, these platforms can complement each other perfectly. Start with Frontend Mentor to sharpen your UI skills, and use DevCoach to get hands-on experience building end-to-end real-world projects.

If you have a good grasp of UI development and are ready to build portfolio-worthy projects that align with your goals and skills, check out DevCoach today! 🚀

Introducing DevCoach: master coding by building complete, real-world software projects 🚀

Alamin Shaikh — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 03:46:50 +0000

As a developer and solopreneur, I'm excited to introduce DevCoach—a platform designed to help developers grow their skills by building complete, real-world software projects.

The idea for DevCoach comes from a challenge many of us face: jumping from one tutorial to another without gaining real, applicable experience. DevCoach addresses this by providing you with real-world project ideas with step-by-step guides, actionable tasks, hints, and solutions to help you build end-to-end software projects tailored to your tech stack, skill level, and target industry.

Why DevCoach

Learning to code is only half the battle; applying that knowledge to real-world problems is where the real growth happens. But building projects from scratch can be intimidating—where do you start? What tools and workflows should you use? DevCoach solves these problems by giving you:

Real-world project ideas tailored to your skills, tech stack, and target industry.
Step-by-step guidance, including tasks, hints, and solutions to help you learn by doing.
Portfolio-worthy projects that showcase your abilities to potential employers or clients.

What makes DevCoach unique

Unlike other platforms that teach you to code or build small UIs, DevCoach teaches you how to plan, design, and build complete software projects—from ideation to deployment. The platform enables you to generate and work on projects aligned with your goals, helping you bridge the gap between learning and real-world development.

How DevCoach works

It is a simple yet effective three steps process:

Generate: Generate projects tailored to your tech stack, skill level, and target industry.
Build: Follow the step-by-step guides and build the project that excites you.
Deploy: Fine-tune your solutions, implement the finishing touches, and deploy 🚀.

What's next for DevCoach

I'm just getting started! My vision for DevCoach is to make it the go-to platform for developers who want to build impactful projects and grow their coding skills. Some exciting updates are already in the works, including:

Support for new languages, libraries, and frameworks.
Deeper integrations with tools like GitHub.
Ability to generate features on demand and more.

Your feedback will play a huge role in shaping these features.

Start building today

If you're tired of endlessly following tutorials and want to create something meaningful, I invite you to try DevCoach. Build your first project for free and see how far you can take your coding skills.

👉 Visit DevCoach

Let's transform how you learn and build as a developer!