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    <title>DEV Community: Karan</title>
    <description>The latest articles on DEV Community by Karan (@techgeniuskaran).</description>
    <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran</link>
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      <title>DEV Community: Karan</title>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran</link>
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    <item>
      <title>3 Days, One AI, and a New Daily Word Game - Linkage🔗</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Sat, 19 Sep 2026 07:08:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-asked-ai-to-give-me-a-game-idea-it-gave-me-linkage-568p</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-asked-ai-to-give-me-a-game-idea-it-gave-me-linkage-568p</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;After building The Bouncer, I wasn't done with daily games.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Wordle. Connections. Poople. Foximax. Cutle. Zip. Wend. Pinpoint. Crossclimb.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I've somehow become addicted to these tiny games that take up 2–5 minutes of my day. So I wanted to build another one.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But I had a problem. I didn't have an idea. &lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  So I Asked AI
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Around this time, I got access to Gemini Pro after buying a Jio data plan. And naturally, my first thought was:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"Well... I've got access to another AI. What can I make it do?"&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I decided to use it for something I actually enjoy — brainstorming games. I gave it references from the games I already played and asked it to come up with some ideas.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This was the prompt:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;You are a professional mini word-based game developer with a high understanding of how humans reason and what they find exciting. I want to brainstorm some new game ideas similar to Wordle, Connections, Poople, Foximax, Cutle and even LinkedIn's Zip, Wend, Pinpoint, Crossclimb and JeffGoldblumle. The game doesn't have to be extremely unique — it can have similarities with other games. Could you brainstorm a few ideas? Keep the explanation brief, we can go in depth if needed.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And honestly... Gemini cooked. 🔥&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It gave me five different game ideas, and I actually liked all five. So I asked it to prioritize them based on concept strength and ease of implementation.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And that's when it gave me: &lt;a href="https://linkage-daily.netlify.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Linkage.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fhv0rebljbonncw3q6h8t.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fhv0rebljbonncw3q6h8t.png" alt="Conversation with Gemini" width="800" height="459"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Okay... What's Linkage? 🔗
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The concept is simple. You get two words — a starting point and a destination. Your job is to build a chain connecting them using four words from a word bank.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight plaintext"&gt;&lt;code&gt;CENT → Dollar → Green → Colour → Paint → WALLS
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;



&lt;p&gt;The first and last words are given. You figure out the four in between.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There's a catch — you can't type whatever comes to mind. You choose from a word bank, hit &lt;strong&gt;Check&lt;/strong&gt;, and it tells you how many words are correct. Not which ones. Just how many.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;No lives. Check as many times as you want.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But there's one thing working against you: &lt;strong&gt;⏱️ Time.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F2r66v6g82wk25e7v2elt.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F2r66v6g82wk25e7v2elt.png" alt="Linkage UI" width="473" height="891"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fw8k2vjj7bxeqdihwoq74.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fw8k2vjj7bxeqdihwoq74.png" alt="Stats panel" width="430" height="730"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  &lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fl6itta611pca3eofb77b.png" alt="How to play panel" width="395" height="683"&gt;
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Why I Chose Linkage
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Out of the five ideas, Linkage was the one I could immediately visualise.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I wanted that feeling where you look at two words and think &lt;em&gt;"How the hell am I supposed to connect these?"&lt;/em&gt;, and then you start experimenting, building a chain, until the whole thing suddenly clicks.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"Ohhhhh."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It was also a really clean concept. No complicated rules, no lives, no unnecessary mechanics. Just:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Start → Think → Connect → Finish.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And admittedly... I also really liked the name. 😂&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  This Time, I Did Things Differently 🧠
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;When I built The Bouncer, I made one important mistake — I started with the UI too early.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I wanted to see the game come alive, so I built the interface, made it look pretty, got the animations working... before I had completely figured out the actual puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That created a lot of ambiguity later.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;With Linkage, I did the opposite. Before worrying about buttons or animations, I focused entirely on the puzzle engine and the puzzles themselves. By the time I started on the UI, I knew exactly what I was building around.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The difference was obvious:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The Bouncer's UI is more polished and visually impressive. But Linkage is a better game to play. And that's what actually matters. People are not opening a daily game to admire the CSS. &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The AI Workflow Also Changed 🤖
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"&gt;&lt;table&gt;
&lt;thead&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Tool&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Purpose&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;🧠 Gemini&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Brainstorming and game ideation&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;🏗️ Gemini&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Planning the puzzle engine&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;💻 Claude Code&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Implementation&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;🎨 Claude Design&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;UI components and visual refinement&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;⚡ Superpowers&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;System design, architecture and planning&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;📋 Plannotator&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Reviewing and approving plans&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Plannotator in particular was pretty cool — it let me review Claude's plan, leave feedback, and approve it before moving forward. That extra layer removed a lot of the ambiguity I had with The Bouncer.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  And Then... I Built It In 3 Days 🚀
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The Bouncer took around &lt;strong&gt;three weeks.&lt;/strong&gt; Linkage? &lt;strong&gt;Three days.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Not because I suddenly became a better coder. The biggest difference was the foundation: I already knew exactly what the game was, how the puzzle worked, what the player would do, and what the core engine needed to accomplish. Very little ambiguity remained.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Once the foundation was solid, building the game became surprisingly straightforward.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Keeping It Simple
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://linkage-daily.netlify.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Linkage&lt;/a&gt; doesn't even need a backend. Puzzles are generated and reviewed locally, then committed as JSON with the frontend. No server, no database request, no extra latency.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Sometimes the best architecture is the one you don't need.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Stack:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;⚛️ React + Vite&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🎨 Tailwind CSS&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🌐 Netlify&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🐍 Python scripts for puzzle generation&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;📚 DataMuse / ConceptNet where useful&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🤖 An unhealthy amount of AI&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  So... Linkage Is Almost Here 🔗
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The UI is done. The puzzle engine is working. The word bank is working. The game loop is working. The daily structure is ready.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I just have a few final puzzles to schedule and some last-minute polishing before properly launching it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And yes — I gave it an admin dashboard inspired by my beautiful &lt;strong&gt;admin section™&lt;/strong&gt; from The Bouncer. 😌 Apparently I can't build a daily game without one anymore.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fx566pzhtlkmh54sdt5ng.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fx566pzhtlkmh54sdt5ng.png" alt="Admin dashboard" width="800" height="495"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Go Try It 👀
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;🔗 &lt;a href="https://linkage-daily.netlify.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Play Linkage&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How fast can you build the linkage?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you play it, I would genuinely love to know what you think. Is it too easy, too hard, confusing, fun, boring, or if you think I've completely lost the plot. And send it to your friends. See who builds the fastest chain. 🔗&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Final Thoughts ❤️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The biggest thing I took away from &lt;a href="https://linkage-daily.netlify.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Linkage&lt;/a&gt; wasn't the game itself.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It was realizing how much a solid foundation changes everything.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://the-bouncer.netlify.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;The Bouncer&lt;/a&gt; taught me that the game needs to come first. &lt;a href="https://linkage-daily.netlify.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Linkage&lt;/a&gt; gave me a chance to actually apply that lesson. Three days later, I had a playable game.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I started with a random Gemini prompt, five game ideas, and somehow ended up here.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A simple, yet crazy journey.🚀&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;See you on the other side of the chain. 🔗&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>gamedev</category>
      <category>javascript</category>
      <category>webdev</category>
      <category>beginners</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Bouncer Is Finally Here!🕴️🚪</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:36:22 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/the-bouncer-is-finally-here-58cd</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/the-bouncer-is-finally-here-58cd</guid>
      <description>&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Remember This Little Idea?
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A while ago, I wrote about how I was addicted to daily games and decided to finally make one of my own. Check it out 👉&lt;a href="https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-was-obsessed-with-daily-games-so-i-made-my-own-47k7"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;👈&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That idea was &lt;a href="https://the-bouncer.netlify.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;The Bouncer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The concept was simple:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There is a hidden rule. Six words show up. Your job is to figure out who gets in and who gets kicked out.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At the time, it was just an idea sitting inside a planning.md file.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F73hnrphmzd51m0outunb.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F73hnrphmzd51m0outunb.png" alt="Screenshot of planning file" width="800" height="150"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And.. its alive now!!! &lt;/p&gt;


&lt;div&gt;
    &lt;iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e3oqHM5x14U" width="315" height="560"&gt;
    &lt;/iframe&gt;
  &lt;/div&gt;


&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  What Exactly Is The Bouncer?
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The Bouncer is a daily deduction game where you play the role of, well... the bouncer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Six words are waiting outside the club.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Your job is to decide whether each word should go:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;IN ✅&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;or&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;OUT ❌&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The catch?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You don't know the rule.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You have to figure it out.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Maybe there's something about the spelling.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Maybe the meaning.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Maybe the sound.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Maybe something you would never have thought of.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You get six words and have to make your best guesses, slowly forming theories and testing them as you go.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And unlike my original idea, I decided not to force it to be exactly 3 IN and 3 OUT.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The ratio can be anything.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;5:1. 4:2. 3:3. 2:4. 1:5.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This was actually quite important.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you figured out the three "IN" words and then just swiped everything else OUT, you could basically cheese the game.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I wanted the player to actually think about every word.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Goal Wasn't To Make Another Wordle
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I love Wordle.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I love Connections.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I love Poople.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I love all these little daily games that somehow manage to steal a few minutes of my life every single day.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But I didn't want to make another game that was just a variation of something that already existed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I wanted &lt;a href="https://the-bouncer.netlify.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;The Bouncer&lt;/a&gt; to feel a little different.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The goal is to make you go through something like:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;"What the fuck is the rule?"&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;↓&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;"Could it be this?"&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;↓&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;"Let me test that."&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;↓&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;"Ohhh...THAT'S THE RULE!" (this part rarely happens for me💔)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That final "ohhh" is what I'm chasing.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Building The Actual Game 🛠️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The original post ended with:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The idea was ready.&lt;br&gt;
The design was ready.&lt;br&gt;
The plan was ready.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now came the actual making.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And yea...the making part was a lot more complicated than I expected. 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The biggest challenge wasn't actually getting the game to work.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It was getting the puzzles to work.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I needed the rules to be:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Interesting&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Solvable&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Not immediately obvious&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Not ridiculously difficult&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;And, most importantly, not boring&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This turned out to be much harder than I expected.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I experimented with different types of rules, including lexical, semantic and phonetic patterns, and even used tools like DataMuse and ConceptNet to explore relationships between words.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And then I discovered something very important:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;AI is really good at making puzzles.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It is also really good at making some absolutely terrible puzzles. 🙏&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A lot of the generated puzzles had interesting ideas but were repetitive or just... meh.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So I ended up building something that I'm probably a little too proud of:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  My beautiful admin section. 😌
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fmgvrj6jyzxgq20y0e9th.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fmgvrj6jyzxgq20y0e9th.png" alt="Admin access" width="530" height="266"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fa88d09ogloepzkqw7jes.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fa88d09ogloepzkqw7jes.png" alt="Admin portal" width="800" height="497"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It lets me review, edit, refine, approve and schedule puzzles before they actually make it into the game.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This meant I didn't have to blindly trust the puzzle generator.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I could actually curate the puzzles myself.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And honestly, this became one of my favourite parts of the whole project.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Game Is Still Evolving 🧠
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The Bouncer isn't something I consider completely "finished."&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I'm still playtesting it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I've had around 4–5 friends play it, including one friend who is basically the exact target audience for this kind of game.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And his feedback was genuinely useful.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F41gkelcj6plshv6gj6tu.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F41gkelcj6plshv6gj6tu.png" alt="Feedback screenshot" width="367" height="311"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F79jzqlclyuamyihqptbw.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F79jzqlclyuamyihqptbw.png" alt="Feedback on whatsapp" width="660" height="208"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fdddb1r4rnptn61064btt.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fdddb1r4rnptn61064btt.png" alt="Feedback" width="303" height="37"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One of the biggest things he pointed out was that if I relied too heavily on semantic rules, The Bouncer could start feeling too similar to games like Connections.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But the lexical rules — things involving the actual structure and properties of words — felt much more interesting.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That pushed me to improve the puzzle generator and experiment with combinations of:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;🔤 Lexical rules&lt;br&gt;
🧠 Semantic rules&lt;br&gt;
🔊 Phonetic rules&lt;br&gt;
🔀 Hybrid rules&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I am still refining this.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And that's probably going to be an ongoing part of &lt;a href="https://the-bouncer.netlify.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;The Bouncer&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  From An Idea To Something Actually Online 🌐
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The tech stack itself was pretty familiar territory for me:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;React + Vite&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Tailwind CSS&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;MongoDB&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Netlify&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Claude&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I had already worked with most of these technologies before.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So this project was really my chance to apply what I'd learned and see if I could take an idea all the way from brainstorming to something people could actually use.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And that was probably the most satisfying part.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Not just finishing the code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Not even seeing the final UI.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It was when I set up the SEO, generated the sitemap, got the site indexed and then searched:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;"the bouncer word game"&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And there it was.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My game. On Google.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F69g4h20jxjk1xsfj23wh.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F69g4h20jxjk1xsfj23wh.png" alt="Screenshot of google search" width="800" height="214"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It gave me this weird feeling that's difficult to explain.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's almost like when you search your own name on Google and suddenly you're actually there — with photos, information, everything.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For a moment, it felt like:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;"Holy shit. I actually exist on the internet." 😭&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And that was probably my favourite moment of the entire project - other than , of course, the beautiful admin section.👀&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Go Be The Bouncer 🕴️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Enough of me talking about it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Bouncer is live.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://the-bouncer.netlify.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;🚪 Play The Bouncer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You get a new puzzle every day.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Six words.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;IN or OUT.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Figure out the rule.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And then, obviously, flex on your friends. 💪 &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Make it a daily competition.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;See who can figure out the rule first.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;See who gets the highest score.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And please...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;send me feedback.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There's a little feedback button sitting inside the settings menu that sends straight to me. Tell me which puzzles you loved, which ones were absolute garbage, what felt confusing, or what you'd change.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I genuinely want to improve this thing.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Final Thoughts ❤️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A few weeks ago, The Bouncer was just an idea I was throwing around with Claude.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then it became a planning.md file.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then a design.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then a bunch of code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F9ipjc7sbxkkdq6f57hx3.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F9ipjc7sbxkkdq6f57hx3.png" alt="Screenshot of file structure" width="226" height="917"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then a very beautiful admin section. 😌&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And now...it's a game that anyone on the internet can play.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That is probably my favourite part about building things.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Taking something that exists only inside your head and making it real.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Enough yapping. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I have to go figure out tomorrow's puzzle.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;See you at the door. 🕴️🚪&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>vibecoding</category>
      <category>vite</category>
      <category>gamedev</category>
      <category>webdev</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>I Was Obsessed With Daily Games. So I Made My Own. 🕴️</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Sun, 30 Aug 2026 12:20:32 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-was-obsessed-with-daily-games-so-i-made-my-own-47k7</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-was-obsessed-with-daily-games-so-i-made-my-own-47k7</guid>
      <description>&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Every Day... Without Fail 🎮
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Every day, every single day, I play these famous daily mini-games — &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Wordle&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Connections&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://poople.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Poople&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.linkedin.com/games/pinpoint/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Pinpoint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.linkedin.com/games/zip/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Zip&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;like my life depends on it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I don't know what it is, but I'm just obsessed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Yet my obsession wasn't complete.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I would finish all of them and still find myself looking for more.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Eventually, I reached the impending conclusion:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"Fine, I'll do it myself."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;~ Thanos 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And that's how &lt;strong&gt;The Bouncer&lt;/strong&gt; started.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Hardest Part Wasn't Building It
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;With how advanced AI development tools have become, actually building an app has become much easier.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You can whip up a website or even a game in minutes with tools like Lovable or Claude Code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But there's a much bigger question:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Should this thing even exist?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;An app can be beautifully designed and technically impressive, but if nobody has a reason to use it, what's the point?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So before touching any code, I spent almost an entire day brainstorming with Claude.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And I knew one thing:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I didn't want to make another generic word game.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It had to be something new. Something simple enough to understand, but interesting enough to keep coming back to.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  From Brainstorming to... The Bouncer 🕴️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The original idea was pretty simple.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I was inspired partly by a game called &lt;strong&gt;Shopkeeper&lt;/strong&gt;, which a friend's dad had introduced me to.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The basic concept was:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There is a hidden rule. You don't know what it is. Your job is to figure it out.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That's it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Well... not quite.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After a lot of back-and-forth with Claude, rejecting ideas that were either too boring or just didn't feel right, we finally got somewhere.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Introducing... The Bouncer 🚪
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You are the bouncer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Six words are waiting outside the club.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Your job? Decide whether each one goes:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;IN ✅ or OUT ❌&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Some words follow the hidden rule. Some don't.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But you don't know what the rule is.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For example, imagine the hidden rule was:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"Words containing the letter A can come in."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You might see:&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight plaintext"&gt;&lt;code&gt;APPLE → IN  ✅
TRAIN → IN  ✅
HOUSE → OUT ❌
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;



&lt;p&gt;Now you have to figure out why.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Of course, the real rules are intended to be much more interesting than that 😅&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fefb8l7bi860eviv8x8p8.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fefb8l7bi860eviv8x8p8.png" alt="The Bouncer UI — showing the six words and the IN/OUT mechanic" width="483" height="762"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  From One Simple Idea to a Full Game 🧠
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The original concept was simply: hidden rule → figure it out.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But as I kept thinking about it, the game evolved into something much more structured:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"&gt;&lt;table&gt;
&lt;thead&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Feature&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Details&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;🔢 Clue words&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;6 words per puzzle&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;✅ Words IN&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;3 words that follow the rule&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;❌ Words OUT&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;3 words that don't&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;👆 Mechanic&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Swipe IN or OUT&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;📊 Stats&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Track your performance&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;📅 Daily&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;A brand new puzzle every day&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The goal wasn't just to make something you could randomly guess your way through.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I wanted the player to actually &lt;strong&gt;think.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  I Wanted That "OH... I GET IT!" Feeling
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I didn't want to make a completely chance-based game.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But I also didn't want to make something so complicated that you needed a PhD to figure out today's rule 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Finding that balance is where I think The Bouncer can shine.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I want the player to make calculated guesses, form theories, test them against the words, and slowly narrow down what the rule could be.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One of my favourite games right now is &lt;strong&gt;Minute Cryptic&lt;/strong&gt;, and I wanted The Bouncer to give a somewhat similar feeling.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That progression from:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"What the fuck is this?"&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;to&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"Wait... it might be this..."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;to&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;"OH. I'M RIGHT."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;...is exactly what I'm aiming for.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Although that last part rarely happens for me 😢🙏&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And there's another challenge.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If a daily game takes 15 minutes to solve, people probably aren't coming back every day.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So finding that sweet spot between too easy and way too difficult is going to be one of my biggest challenges.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  This Time, I'm Doing It Myself 💪
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I thought it was about time that I built something completely by myself.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For almost every other project I've worked on, I've had some sort of assistance along the way — whether from my mentor, my dad, or, of course, AI.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This time, I wanted to take things into my own hands.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And the fact that this game is so closely connected to something I genuinely do every day makes it even more personal.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Building something you actually care about gives you a completely different kind of motivation.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's one thing to solve a problem because someone told you to.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's another thing to think:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"I actually want this to exist."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That's the feeling I had with my Gym Scheduler.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And now I'm getting the same feeling with The Bouncer.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Time to Apply What I've Learned 🚀
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The tech stack itself was actually quite familiar:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"&gt;&lt;table&gt;
&lt;thead&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Technology&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Role&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;⚛️ React + Vite&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Frontend&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;🎨 Tailwind CSS&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Styling&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;🍃 MongoDB&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Database&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;🌐 Netlify&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Deployment&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;🤖 Claude&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;AI assistance&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I've worked with most of these before. So this project became a bit of a test:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Can I actually apply everything I've learned so far and build something completely on my own?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There was only one way to find out.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Of Course... I Started With planning.md 📋
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Surprise, surprise.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But this time, I tried a slightly different workflow and used pretty much every Claude tool available to me:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"&gt;&lt;table&gt;
&lt;thead&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Tool&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Purpose&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;🧠 Claude Desktop&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Brainstorming&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;📋 Claude Cowork&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;planning.md + build.md&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;🎨 Claude Design&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Visual direction&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;💻 Claude Code&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Implementation&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Yeah... I know.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I'm extremely Claude-sexual at this point 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But honestly, I wanted to see how far I could take an entire project using all the different tools available.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F75d0f5m44pg54aw9anan.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F75d0f5m44pg54aw9anan.png" alt="Cowork workspace for The Bouncer" width="345" height="161"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fi1he9z5ooexs74cgf2dy.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fi1he9z5ooexs74cgf2dy.png" alt="planning files" width="800" height="150"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Idea Was Ready. Now Came the Hard Part.
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The concept was locked in.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The design had a direction.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The plan was in place.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Everything looked good on paper.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But here's the thing about games — they only truly exist the moment someone plays them.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And getting from a plan to something actually playable?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That's where things got a lot more...tricky. 😅&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;See you in Part 2. 🚀&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>gamedev</category>
      <category>claude</category>
      <category>beginners</category>
      <category>webdev</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Little Moments That Made Me Love Programming ❤️</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Sun, 09 Aug 2026 18:48:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/the-little-moments-that-made-me-love-programming-3hjg</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/the-little-moments-that-made-me-love-programming-3hjg</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Hey everyone,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Whenever people ask me,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"How did you get into programming?"&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I never really know how to answer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There wasn't one life-changing moment.&lt;br&gt;
There wasn't one huge project.&lt;br&gt;
There wasn't one magical course.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Instead, it was a collection of lots of tiny moments that slowly made me fall in love with coding.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Looking back now...those little moments still make me smile.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  It Started With a Scratch Book 🎮
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The biggest reason I got into coding was because of my dad.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;He used to work as a software developer before moving into a managerial role, and one day he introduced my brother and me to programming through something surprisingly simple — a Scratch tutorial book.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The book had around ten little games that we had to recreate.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At first, I was simply dragging colorful blocks around the screen.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But slowly...I started understanding the logic behind them.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Seeing a game come alive because of something I built felt magical.&lt;br&gt;
Even better? I could immediately play the game afterwards 😄&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I don't think I cared much about programming back then. I just thought,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"This is really fun."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F1zbk358qqcz8obom9xtk.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F1zbk358qqcz8obom9xtk.png" alt="Image of Scratch book" width="362" height="435"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Python Problem I'll Never Forget 🐍
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After Scratch came Python.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fwvwhh2exdkbzl4wa7o25.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fwvwhh2exdkbzl4wa7o25.png" alt="text saying Python" width="478" height="155"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My dad started giving my brother and me small programming exercises to solve.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One challenge has stayed with me ever since.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We had to build a simple restaurant program where my dad acted as the customer, and our code became the waiter taking his order.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Everything was going well... until we reached one condition.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The program needed two things to be true before it could continue.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My brother and I kept trying different solutions. Nothing worked.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then I stopped thinking like a robot for a moment.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"Wait... what if I simply say this AND this has to be true?"&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I searched how Python represented an AND condition, changed one line, ran the program...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;...and it worked.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Looking back now, it was probably a tiny programming problem.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But I still remember how proud I felt.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's funny how the smallest victories are sometimes the ones we remember the longest.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  One Summer Changed Everything ☀️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The moment coding became more than just little games happened during one summer break in 7th grade.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I enrolled in the &lt;strong&gt;Zero to Mastery Complete Web Developer&lt;/strong&gt; course by Andrei Neagoie.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Every morning after breakfast, my dad would drop me at his second office. I would spend hours there learning before heading home around lunchtime.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F9konixxp5jjctbxfj3hf.jpeg" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F9konixxp5jjctbxfj3hf.jpeg" alt="A photo of me coding in dad's office" width="800" height="1067"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Looking back... that summer completely changed how I looked at programming.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The course opened my eyes to an entirely different world.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Not just HTML and CSS. Not just JavaScript.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But React. REST APIs. Backend development. Deployment.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Suddenly, websites weren't magic anymore.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I was slowly learning how they were built.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And that fascinated me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F2kawxwhu9rydxueynz7u.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F2kawxwhu9rydxueynz7u.png" alt="Course completed" width="415" height="372"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  A Small Confidence Boost 🌟
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One thing I'll always remember from that summer was visiting my dad's office.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One of his colleagues used to introduce me to the freshers who had just joined the company.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Honestly... I used to feel a little embarrassed 😅&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But somewhere deep down, it also made me feel proud.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For the first time, I quietly thought,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"Yeah... maybe this is what I want to do one day."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That digital world of building things and solving problems suddenly felt like somewhere I belonged.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Every Tiny Project Meant Something 🛠️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;From there, I just kept building.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Some of my earliest projects were:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🎮 Stone Paper Scissors&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🔤 Palindrome Checker&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;📝 Shopping List &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F4hujbu3s6jstfkmeeo2o.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F4hujbu3s6jstfkmeeo2o.png" alt="screenshot of early projects" width="595" height="320"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Looking back today, they're incredibly simple.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Frjrshj8xqfebkuu7y8lr.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Frjrshj8xqfebkuu7y8lr.png" alt="Screenshot of rock paper scissors game" width="695" height="255"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fznqx2i8e0m9tiq6f87wo.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fznqx2i8e0m9tiq6f87wo.png" alt="Screenshot of palindrome checker" width="800" height="302"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But whenever I scroll through those old projects, I don't think,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"Wow... that's bad."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Instead, I smile and think,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"That's where it all started."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Every tiny project taught me something. Every bug taught me patience. Every finished project gave me the confidence to start another one.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Eventually those little projects became:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✨ Quote Generator&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;💪 Gym Scheduler&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🏐 Volleyball Tournament Website&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🌍 Open Source Contributions&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fs2mvn8jo3kegb36bjc0w.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fs2mvn8jo3kegb36bjc0w.png" alt="Screenshot of new projects" width="482" height="503"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's honestly funny to think that I went from dragging colourful Scratch blocks around &lt;br&gt;
➡️➡️➡️ &lt;br&gt;
to deploying applications that real people actually use.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Or from figuring out one simple AND condition &lt;br&gt;
➡️➡️➡️&lt;br&gt;
to contributing to open-source projects with thousands of lines of code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fdnawvaf5h0xn2lzyeg59.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fdnawvaf5h0xn2lzyeg59.png" alt="Screenshot of gym scheduler" width="491" height="305"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F1yaboomocpi6ku59rjxi.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F1yaboomocpi6ku59rjxi.png" alt="Open-source contributions" width="800" height="441"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Looking Back... ❤️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A few things stand out more than anything else.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  🚀 Consistency Matters
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One thing I genuinely regret is taking almost an entire year away from coding during 8th grade.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;No projects. No courses. No experimenting. Nothing.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Not because I stopped liking programming.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I just became inconsistent.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Looking back, I don't regret not building something huge.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I regret not building something small.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  💡 Small Projects Are Never a Waste of Time
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I literally built a Stone Paper Scissors game.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And honestly... I'm still proud of it 😄&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It wasn't about how impressive the project was.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It was about showing up, learning something new, and finishing what I started.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Those tiny projects quietly prepared me for the bigger ones.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  🤖 Curiosity Will Always Beat Convenience
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I've always been very pro-AI, and that hasn't changed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The things Claude Code and other AI tools can do today still feel like magic sometimes 😅&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But one thing has stayed exactly the same.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My curiosity.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Even when AI gives me the answer, I still find myself asking,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"Wait... how did it do that?"&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Or, &lt;em&gt;"Could I build this myself?"&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For me, AI has never replaced learning.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If anything... it's made me even more curious.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Final Thoughts ❤️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Looking back...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;none of these moments felt particularly important while they were happening.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A Scratch game.&lt;br&gt;
A Python exercise.&lt;br&gt;
A summer course.&lt;br&gt;
A tiny portfolio.&lt;br&gt;
A Stone Paper Scissors game.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Individually, they all seemed ordinary.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But somehow those little moments are exactly what made me love programming.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And honestly - I wouldn't trade any of them for anything.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;See you guys in the next one. 🚀&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>beginners</category>
      <category>career</category>
      <category>motivation</category>
      <category>webdev</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The One File That Made Every Project Easier to Build 💡📁</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Sat, 01 Aug 2026 06:34:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/the-one-file-that-made-every-project-easier-to-build-7ho</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/the-one-file-that-made-every-project-easier-to-build-7ho</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Hey everyone,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If there's one habit that has improved every project I've built, it isn't React.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It isn't Claude Code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It isn't AI.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It's spending time &lt;strong&gt;planning&lt;/strong&gt; before writing a single line of code.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  My Biggest Mistake 😅
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Up until this year, every time I got a new project idea, I would immediately open VS Code and start building.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Always chasing the thrill of seeing an idea come alive as quickly as possible. A bad habit some of us have.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The problem?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Halfway through the project, I would suddenly realize...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;"Wtf am I doing?" 😭&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Features would keep changing. The structure would become messy. I would rewrite the same files multiple times.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I would even abandon the project completely because I hadn't thought things through.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Looking back, I wasn't failing because I couldn't code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I was failing because I &lt;strong&gt;never planned.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Advice That Changed Everything 💡
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One day, my mentor — a senior developer at GoDaddy — gave me a piece of advice that completely changed how I looked at software development.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;She said:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;"Real coding begins on paper."&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At first, I didn't fully understand what she meant.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Sure, I could sketch a few ideas. But what about things like:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Choosing the right tech stack&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Planning the architecture&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Organizing features&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Thinking about edge cases&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Questions like:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What happens if the user enters invalid data?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What if the server doesn't respond?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What if I want to add new features later without rewriting everything?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A simple flowchart wasn't enough.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That's when I discovered the power of a &lt;code&gt;planning.md&lt;/code&gt; file.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  What's Inside My &lt;code&gt;planning.md&lt;/code&gt;? 📋
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The very first thing I do is ask Claude to &lt;strong&gt;brainstorm with me&lt;/strong&gt; instead of jumping straight into coding.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My prompt is usually something along the lines of:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;"Let's brainstorm ideas for this project. Ask me plenty of questions, challenge my assumptions, and then create a &lt;code&gt;planning.md&lt;/code&gt; file containing the features for Version 1, ideas for Version 2, and a phase-by-phase implementation plan."&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;From there, the planning file gradually grows into the project's full roadmap.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It usually contains things like:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Project goals&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Core features&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Future ideas (V2)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Tech stack decisions&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Folder structure&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Build phases&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Edge cases&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Things to remember while developing&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Feu8069c0uqsqxd2wgzfv.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Feu8069c0uqsqxd2wgzfv.png" alt="planning.md structure and contents" width="800" height="367"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fu0d56ir3v6lfsrq3ixtc.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fu0d56ir3v6lfsrq3ixtc.png" alt="planning.md contents" width="467" height="846"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Why This Actually Helps 🤖
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Whether you're using AI tools like Claude Code or planning everything yourself, having a roadmap makes an enormous difference.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you're using Claude Code&lt;/strong&gt; — the &lt;code&gt;planning.md&lt;/code&gt; file keeps Claude focused on the original vision instead of slowly drifting away as the conversation gets longer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you're not using AI&lt;/strong&gt; — it still acts as your own personal project roadmap. Whenever you come back after a few days, you instantly remember:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What you're building&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Why you're building it&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What comes next&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The planning file also becomes a place where brainstorming never really stops. As new ideas come to mind, they simply get added to the document instead of interrupting development.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Claude is surprisingly helpful here too. It often suggests:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Better alternatives&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Cleaner architectures&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Features I hadn't considered&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Edge cases I completely missed&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  How It Played Out For Me 🚀
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The first project where I fully committed to this workflow was my &lt;strong&gt;Gym Scheduler app.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The very first file I created wasn't a React component.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It was &lt;code&gt;planning.md&lt;/code&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As the project grew, so did the planning document. Once Version 1 was complete, I went back and started planning Version 2.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Later, while brainstorming with Claude again, the idea expanded far beyond a simple scheduler. It evolved into a much bigger vision that included:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"&gt;&lt;table&gt;
&lt;thead&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Feature&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Status&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;AI-powered schedule adjustments&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Planned (V2)&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Workout tracking&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Planned (V2)&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Lifestyle and health tools&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Planned (V2)&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Trainer–trainee booking system&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Planned (V2)&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;None of those ideas interrupted my current work because they &lt;strong&gt;already had a place&lt;/strong&gt; inside the planning file.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Instead of constantly changing the codebase, I was simply expanding the roadmap.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fxzw4id2ihk715gr5n061.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fxzw4id2ihk715gr5n061.png" alt="sidebar of planning files" width="800" height="626"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Final Thoughts
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The next time you get excited about a new project...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Don't open VS Code first.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Open a blank Markdown file.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Spend 20 to 30 minutes thinking before you start building.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Future you will be very grateful.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;See you guys in the next one! 🚀&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>beginners</category>
      <category>webdev</category>
      <category>productivity</category>
      <category>career</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>My Open Source Workflow: How I Went From 1 to 20 Pull Requests 🚀</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:10:11 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/my-open-source-workflow-how-i-went-from-1-to-20-pull-requests-470f</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/my-open-source-workflow-how-i-went-from-1-to-20-pull-requests-470f</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Hey guys,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After contributing to my first open-source project, &lt;a href="https://github.com/physicshub/physicshub.github.io" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;PhysicsHub&lt;/a&gt;, I wanted more.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;More repositories. More bugs to fix. More contributions.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But it wasn't easy.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Scouring every inch of GitHub just to find one worthwhile issue, then spending several hours creating &lt;strong&gt;one&lt;/strong&gt; pull request... only for it to sometimes get rejected or closed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That's frustrating.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;More importantly, it's &lt;strong&gt;highly inefficient.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One thing I've realized is that efficiency matters a lot in coding. I needed some way to make contributing easier and, more importantly, &lt;strong&gt;consistent.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;"I needed a system."&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Building My Open Source Workspace ⚙️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The first thing I did was select a handful of repositories that genuinely interested me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then I:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Forked each repository&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Cloned my forks locally&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Placed everything inside one folder called &lt;code&gt;Open-Source-Contributions&lt;/code&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fggc4rqrrh9g5p2ruvu7z.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fggc4rqrrh9g5p2ruvu7z.png" alt="Screenshot of VS Code showing your Open-Source-Contributions workspace folder" width="372" height="268"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now I had all my projects in one place.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But I wasn't done yet.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I then used ChatGPT to help me craft a &lt;strong&gt;master prompt for Claude Code.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The idea was simple:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Create one central &lt;code&gt;CLAUDE.md&lt;/code&gt; containing my personal workflow and rules&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Create an individual &lt;code&gt;CLAUDE.md&lt;/code&gt; inside &lt;strong&gt;each repository&lt;/strong&gt; so Claude could understand that project's codebase, conventions, and file structure&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fgn557xfhqzt7yh99fayg.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fgn557xfhqzt7yh99fayg.png" alt="Claude.md file - contribution workflow rules" width="800" height="724"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And... voilà.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My workflow was ready. Ready and efficient 😎&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  My Daily Routine ☀️
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Around every noon, I open my GitHub tab group on Chrome.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It instantly opens every one of my forked repositories.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fhyio5v4f4da6aqfgk7i8.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fhyio5v4f4da6aqfgk7i8.png" alt="Chrome tab groups" width="800" height="78"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;From there, I simply check the latest issues.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If I find an untouched issue that looks interesting, I dive right in.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I ask Claude to:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🔍 Analyze the issue&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🧠 Identify the likely cause&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;💬 Explain what's happening&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🛠️ Suggest a possible fix&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then we solve it together, open a pull request...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;...and wham, bam, thank you ma'am 😅&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Another contribution done.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Watching those little green squares slowly start flooding my GitHub activity chart is honestly &lt;strong&gt;immeasurably satisfying.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  How I Pick Repositories 🔍
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A few people asked me how I actually find projects worth contributing to.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My first project, &lt;a href="https://github.com/physicshub/physicshub.github.io" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;PhysicsHub&lt;/a&gt;, came from &lt;a href="https://goodfirstissue.dev/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Good First Issue&lt;/a&gt; — I talked about that in my &lt;a href="https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-searched-for-internships-and-ended-up-contributing-to-open-source-instead-2ilk"&gt;previous open-source blog&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But after that, I wanted something bigger.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So I asked Claude to recommend GitHub projects that prioritized three things:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Plenty of beginner-friendly issues&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Active maintenance&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Responsive maintainers&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It generated a list of around &lt;strong&gt;10 repositories.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;From there, I filtered them based on:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"&gt;&lt;table&gt;
&lt;thead&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Filter&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Why It Mattered&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Projects that genuinely interested me&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Keeps motivation high&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Tech stack I wanted to improve at&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Every PR becomes a learning opportunity&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Eventually, I narrowed everything down to these five repositories:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://github.com/physicshub/physicshub.github.io" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;PhysicsHub.io&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/freeCodeCamp" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;freeCodeCamp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;openlibrary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://github.com/appwrite/appwrite" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;appwrite&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://github.com/calcom/cal.diy" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;cal.diy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Result 📈
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Having a proper workflow completely changed how I contribute.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Instead of making one or two pull requests whenever I randomly felt motivated...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;...I now have around &lt;strong&gt;20 pull requests&lt;/strong&gt; spread across five different repositories.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fe7k05cn3qbtv08xi2o6h.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fe7k05cn3qbtv08xi2o6h.png" alt="GitHub contribution graph showing the green activity squares filling up" width="242" height="202"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The biggest difference wasn't becoming a better programmer overnight.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It was becoming &lt;strong&gt;consistent.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Final Thoughts
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This workflow didn't just make contributing faster.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It made me actually &lt;strong&gt;want&lt;/strong&gt; to keep contributing.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Before this, the thought of endlessly searching GitHub for a tiny issue was honestly discouraging.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ Everything is organized&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ Everything is ready&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ All I have to do is open my workspace and start contributing&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Flsudhuie42npy6i9r0uk.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Flsudhuie42npy6i9r0uk.png" alt="GitHub activity page showing pull requests open" width="800" height="441"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Eventually, I'd love to contribute more than just bug fixes — maybe even build entirely new features.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But for now...&lt;br&gt;
I'm enjoying learning one pull request at a time. 🚀&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;See y'all next time.&lt;br&gt;
Happy learning! 👋&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>beginners</category>
      <category>claude</category>
      <category>opensource</category>
      <category>productivity</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Biggest Upgrade to My Coding Skills Didn't Come From School 🎓💻</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2026 15:34:05 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/the-biggest-upgrade-to-my-coding-skills-didnt-come-from-school-5cg5</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/the-biggest-upgrade-to-my-coding-skills-didnt-come-from-school-5cg5</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Hey everyone,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you've read some of my previous blogs, you'll know that I enjoy building projects — from a &lt;a href="https://gymscheduler1.netlify.app/login" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Gym Scheduler&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;a href="https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-searched-for-internships-and-ended-up-contributing-to-open-source-instead-2ilk"&gt;contributing to open source&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But here's something that might surprise you.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Almost everything I've used to build those projects wasn't taught to me in school.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In fact, my school barely taught programming at all.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We had the occasional computer class where we'd use things like Microsoft Paint, Excel, or PowerPoint — but I never really got exposed to what software development actually looked like.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If I had only relied on school, I'm honestly not sure I would've discovered how much I enjoy coding.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  A Course Changed Everything 🚀
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I had always been interested in computers thanks to my dad, who introduced my brother and me to some simple programming challenges when we were younger.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But the point where coding became something I genuinely wanted to pursue was during one summer break in 7th or 8th grade.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That's when I started the &lt;strong&gt;Zero to Mastery Complete Web Developer&lt;/strong&gt; course by Andrei Neagoie.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fa4hnzkbddtnf7cr6phbe.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fa4hnzkbddtnf7cr6phbe.png" alt="Dashboard of My Learning - Courses" width="800" height="620"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Looking back, that course completely changed how I viewed programming.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Instead of random topics, everything followed a &lt;strong&gt;logical progression&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;HTML &amp;amp; CSS&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;JavaScript&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Backend development&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;APIs &amp;amp; databases&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Deployment&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Career advice&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For the first time, software development felt like &lt;strong&gt;one connected journey&lt;/strong&gt; instead of dozens of unrelated concepts.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Why Structured Courses Worked Better For Me
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What I liked most wasn't just the content — it was the &lt;strong&gt;structure&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Every module naturally built on the previous one, so I never felt completely lost.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The courses also included:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ Hands-on projects&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ Downloadable resources&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ Real-world examples&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ Clear progression from beginner to advanced&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There was always a feeling that I was &lt;strong&gt;moving forward&lt;/strong&gt; instead of jumping randomly between tutorials.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Difference It Made
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Later, I also completed a &lt;strong&gt;MERN Stack course&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That course introduced me to concepts like &lt;strong&gt;CRUD operations&lt;/strong&gt;, which became the foundation for several of my own projects:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"&gt;&lt;table&gt;
&lt;thead&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Project&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Concepts Used&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;NGO Management System&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;CRUD, authentication&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Gym Scheduler App&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;CRUD, user data, scheduling&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Ffwr5f89r1bt8c3bx1ysu.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Ffwr5f89r1bt8c3bx1ysu.png" alt="Gym scheduler UI" width="402" height="353"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Those concepts weren't just theory anymore.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I was actually &lt;strong&gt;using them to build applications.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Looking back, many of the projects I've written about on this blog probably wouldn't have existed without those courses.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  My Advice To Beginners
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you're just starting your programming journey, I'd recommend &lt;strong&gt;investing in one well-structured course&lt;/strong&gt; rather than constantly jumping between random tutorials.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;YouTube is an amazing resource — I still use it regularly — but I personally found that structured courses helped me build a much stronger foundation.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The projects, progression, and organization made learning much less overwhelming.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Final Thoughts
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I'm definitely not saying courses are the only way to learn programming.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Everyone learns differently.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But for me, they provided the structure that school never did. They gave me:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;roadmap&lt;/strong&gt; to follow&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Concepts&lt;/strong&gt; I still use today&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The &lt;strong&gt;confidence&lt;/strong&gt; to start building my own projects&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And honestly...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;building projects is where the real learning begins.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;See you guys in the next one! 🚀&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>beginners</category>
      <category>webdev</category>
      <category>career</category>
      <category>javascript</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Claude Code Broke My App Twice Before Finally Fixing It 😭</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2026 06:40:16 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/claude-code-broke-my-app-twice-before-finally-fixing-it-84j</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/claude-code-broke-my-app-twice-before-finally-fixing-it-84j</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Hey everyone,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To pick up where I left off in my &lt;a href="https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-let-claude-code-build-my-gym-scheduler-app-heres-what-happened-2eeg"&gt;previous post&lt;/a&gt;, everything was working smoothly in my Gym Scheduler app.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The login worked. The schedule worked. The deployment worked.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Life was good 😎&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Until... I decided to add a new feature.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Feature That Started It All 💪
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I wanted users to be able to create and manage &lt;strong&gt;multiple workout programs&lt;/strong&gt; depending on their goals.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Push Pull Legs (PPL)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Upper / Lower&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Full Body&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Strength-Focused Program&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"&gt;&lt;table&gt;
&lt;thead&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Before&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;th&gt;After&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;One simple schedule&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Multiple programs users could easily switch between&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fzru19ytb2wf5lozvjzqc.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fzru19ytb2wf5lozvjzqc.png" alt="Programs dropdown list" width="402" height="353"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fgn2au7ta0tqwqmd9rq82.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fgn2au7ta0tqwqmd9rq82.png" alt="New program popup" width="605" height="677"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Simple enough, right?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Yeah... not exactly 😅&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Claude Had a Plan 📋
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Of course, I turned to Claude.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I started by creating a detailed implementation plan and adding it to my &lt;code&gt;planning.md&lt;/code&gt; file.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After reviewing everything, Claude confidently told me:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;"Looks good, let's implement it."&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Perfect. Everything seemed to be going great.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Claude started:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Creating the necessary files&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Installing required packages&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Updating the database logic&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Writing the code&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I was feeling pretty confident.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And then I made my biggest mistake.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  I Let Claude Run Unsupervised 😭
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The code looked fine. The plan looked fine. Everything &lt;strong&gt;seemed&lt;/strong&gt; fine.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But when I ran the project locally...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;everything fell apart.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Everything Broke 💀
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Instead of getting a shiny new program-switching feature, I got:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;❌ My old schedule disappeared&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;❌ The styling changed&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;❌ The dropdown was missing&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;❌ The feature didn't even exist
I just sat there staring at the screen thinking:&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;"What on earth happened?"&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Attempt #2 😭
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Naturally, I asked Claude to review the code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A few moments later:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;"Everything looks good 🙂"&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And then...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;it broke the app again&lt;/strong&gt; 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At this point, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Time To Take Control 🚨
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I finally decided to &lt;strong&gt;stop trusting Claude blindly&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;First, I reverted all the changes.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then I started approaching the problem differently:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Cleared the conversation context&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Explained the expected behavior more clearly&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Shared screenshots&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Updated the implementation plan&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Narrowed down what was actually broken&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And suddenly, things started making sense.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This time Claude rewrote the affected files differently. The implementation looked cleaner. The logic looked better.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And for the first time...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;it actually worked&lt;/strong&gt; 🎉&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  What I Learned 🤔
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This experience taught me something important.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;AI is incredibly powerful.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But when it gets stuck, &lt;strong&gt;throwing more prompts at it usually isn't the solution.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What helped was stepping back, understanding the problem myself, and giving better context.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The better I explained the issue, the better Claude's solutions became.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Turns out AI isn't a mind reader after all 😅&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Feature Showcase 🚀
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After all that debugging, the app ended up much better than before.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Some of the new additions include:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;⚖️ BMI Calculator&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🔥 Calorie Calculator&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;📅 Current-Day Highlighting&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🔀 Exercise Reordering&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;🗂️ Multiple Workout Programs&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✨ Better UI &amp;amp; UX&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F65mbmeso43hocz125h2i.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F65mbmeso43hocz125h2i.png" alt="New tools on tools page" width="799" height="468"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fcfcpfkjc8a0s8oo7h5kh.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fcfcpfkjc8a0s8oo7h5kh.png" alt="Old navbar" width="800" height="81"&gt;&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F9m5pqihwuytswiqob8sw.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F9m5pqihwuytswiqob8sw.png" alt="New navbar" width="794" height="33"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Final Thoughts
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, the feature &lt;strong&gt;did&lt;/strong&gt; work — despite all the stress it caused 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And honestly, the app became much better because of it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The biggest lesson I took away from this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;AI can write code faster than most developers ever could.&lt;br&gt;
But developers still need to communicate clearly, think critically, and understand what they're building.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The code might be generated by AI.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The direction still comes from you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Enjoyed this one? Drop a ❤️ and follow along — more parts coming soon! 🚀&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>beginners</category>
      <category>ai</category>
      <category>react</category>
      <category>claude</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>I Let Claude Code Build My Gym Scheduler App. Here's What Happened. 🚀</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2026 11:17:04 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-let-claude-code-build-my-gym-scheduler-app-heres-what-happened-2eeg</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-let-claude-code-build-my-gym-scheduler-app-heres-what-happened-2eeg</guid>
      <description>&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Every Project Starts With a Problem
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As most inventions or ideas begin, mine also started with a problem.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For me, it was in the gym.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I often found myself missing workouts here and there for various reasons — some completely beyond my control. That part is normal. Life happens.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What I struggled with was figuring out how to &lt;strong&gt;recover&lt;/strong&gt; from it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Most people would simply say:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;"If you missed Back Day, just do it tomorrow."&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And yes, that works.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But I've always liked having specific workouts on specific days. 'Monday will &lt;strong&gt;always&lt;/strong&gt; be my Chest Day' 😤&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That's when an idea hit me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What if I built a &lt;strong&gt;Gym Scheduler&lt;/strong&gt; that could intelligently reorganize the rest of the week whenever I missed a workout?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The long-term vision is to eventually integrate AI so it can generate personalized workout adjustments based on a user's goals, schedule, and missed sessions.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And since this problem affects me personally, it felt like the perfect project to build.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Before Writing Code, We Planned
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One of the most valuable lessons my coding mentor taught me was this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;"Always plan before you build."&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A surprising number of development problems can be avoided simply by thinking things through before touching the keyboard.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This became even more important when working with powerful tools like Claude Code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My initial prompt was something along the lines of:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;"I want to build a Gym Scheduler app. Let's brainstorm some ideas first. Ask me lots of questions and create a planning file where we can organize everything."&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And that's exactly what happened.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What started as a simple idea quickly became a &lt;strong&gt;massive planning document&lt;/strong&gt; covering:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Architecture&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Authentication&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Database structure&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;API routes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Features&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Deployment strategy&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Build phases&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Before a single line of code was written, the entire project had a roadmap.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fx3kdnh3ylsa43x0mlvm6.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fx3kdnh3ylsa43x0mlvm6.png" alt="Planning.md screenshot" width="800" height="571"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Honestly, I did not expect the planning file to become this huge 😅&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Claude Became My Project Manager 😅
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Since I'm still a student developer with a lot left to learn, I didn't want Claude to simply &lt;strong&gt;write code for me&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I wanted it to &lt;strong&gt;teach me&lt;/strong&gt; as well.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At several points, I even asked Claude to explain what it was doing and why it was doing it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One of my goals for this project was to better understand:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;SOLID Principles&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Application architecture&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Claude suggested the following stack:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"&gt;&lt;table&gt;
&lt;thead&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Technology&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;th&gt;Role&lt;/th&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/thead&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;React&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Frontend framework&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Tailwind CSS&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Styling&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td&gt;MongoDB Atlas&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;td&gt;Database&lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But instead of blindly accepting the suggestion, I &lt;strong&gt;asked it to justify every choice&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Why React? Why MongoDB? Why not something else?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This ended up being one of the most educational parts of the project — it helped me understand not just &lt;strong&gt;what&lt;/strong&gt; to use, but &lt;strong&gt;when&lt;/strong&gt; to use it.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Building It Phase by Phase
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Once the planning was complete, we finally started building.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One thing I specifically asked Claude to do was &lt;strong&gt;avoid generating the entire application in one go&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Instead, I wanted it built &lt;strong&gt;phase by phase&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F4km365uny17usx0ndf34.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F4km365uny17usx0ndf34.png" alt="Claude code terminal" width="799" height="394"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This turned out to be one of the best decisions of the entire project.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Benefits for me:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Easier to learn&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Easier to understand&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Easier to debug&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Benefits for Claude:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Smaller tasks&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Fewer mistakes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Better code reviews&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At one point I even stopped everything just to ask:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;"What exactly is a model?"&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And instead of throwing code at me, Claude &lt;strong&gt;explained the concept&lt;/strong&gt; and how it fit into the project.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fum4g4uty752cvqgn44po.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fum4g4uty752cvqgn44po.png" alt="model explanation screenshot" width="748" height="99"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The learning part is always important, no matter how powerful AI becomes.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Watching the App Come Alive ✨
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At first, all I could see was a blank page with the floating React-Vite logo.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Not exactly exciting 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then slowly, feature by feature, the app started taking shape:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A login system appeared&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Workout schedules started displaying correctly&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Exercises could be added and deleted&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Pages started connecting together&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And suddenly something that had only existed inside a planning document was becoming a &lt;strong&gt;real application&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I genuinely couldn't believe how much faster the development process felt compared to some of my earlier projects.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For example, in a previous project, building a simple login system involved:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Watching a 1-hour YouTube tutorial&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Reading Firebase documentation&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Asking ChatGPT for help&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Getting even more errors 😭&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This time felt completely different.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Of course... not everything went perfectly.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The "It Works On My Machine" Moment 😭
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After finally getting everything working locally, I deployed the application.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And then immediately got hit with this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Ffl1kypg69bo6tadnjnhr.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Ffl1kypg69bo6tadnjnhr.png" alt="Google Auth error screenshot" width="798" height="251"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Everything worked perfectly on my computer. Production had other plans.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After spending hours investigating the issue, I discovered the problem was hiding inside &lt;strong&gt;Google Cloud Console&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My callback URI was only configured for &lt;code&gt;localhost&lt;/code&gt; and was missing the deployed Render URL.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A tiny configuration mistake. Several hours of debugging. Classic developer experience 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But eventually, after updating the configuration and redeploying, everything finally started working.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The First Version Wasn't Pretty... But It Worked 💪
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The first working version looked nothing like the version I use today.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Ft94je9j2b04397cun3uc.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Ft94je9j2b04397cun3uc.png" alt="UI of Gym Scheduler" width="800" height="437"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There were no fancy tools, no advanced features, no polished UX, no AI scheduling.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Just the basics:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ Add exercises&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ Delete exercises&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ Rename workout splits&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;✅ Store schedules&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And honestly? &lt;strong&gt;That was enough.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Because it worked.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For the first time, I had a functional application solving a real problem that I personally faced.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And that felt amazing.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  What's Next?
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The first version was functional — but it was also very rough.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In &lt;strong&gt;Part 2&lt;/strong&gt;, I'll talk about how I transformed it from a simple scheduler into something much more polished by adding:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Multiple programs&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Exercise reordering&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Current-day highlighting&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;BMI Calculator&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Calorie Calculator&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Better UI/UX&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;And some fun gym-specific touches 😎&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately... waiting for me was the &lt;strong&gt;most frustrating bug&lt;/strong&gt; of the entire project so far 😭🙏&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;See y'all in the next one 🚀&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>react</category>
      <category>ai</category>
      <category>beginners</category>
      <category>javascript</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>We Built a Real Volleyball Tournament Website Almost Entirely With AI 🏐🤖</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2026 09:35:02 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/we-built-a-real-volleyball-tournament-website-almost-entirely-with-ai-1d6i</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/we-built-a-real-volleyball-tournament-website-almost-entirely-with-ai-1d6i</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Hey guys,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Recently in my society, I attended an AI seminar session.&lt;br&gt;
At first, it honestly did not seem that useful 😅&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It was mostly:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;general knowledge about AI chatbots&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;the history of AI&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;a few cool examples&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;…but nothing that really stood out to me and my friend.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Until the host casually mentioned something interesting:&lt;br&gt;
“Even students can now build and deploy apps using AI… and maybe even earn money from them.”&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now THAT got us thinking 👀&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And somehow, within the next few minutes, we came up with the idea of building a volleyball tournament scoring and tracking website for our society tournament.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The more we discussed it, the bigger the idea became:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Live standings&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Match schedules&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Team tracking&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Admin dashboard&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Live score updates&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And somehow it slowly became a competition between me and my friend to see who could build the better app 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A healthy competition, of course.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  “This Should Take 2 Hours Max” 😅
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We genuinely thought this would be super easy.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Our original plan was basically:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Ask ChatGPT to generate a prompt&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Paste it into some AI app builder&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Add a few finishing touches&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Become millionaire startup founders overnight ✨&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Simple, right?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Yeah… not exactly.&lt;br&gt;
I started by asking &lt;a href="https://chatgpt.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;ChatGPT&lt;/a&gt; to create a detailed master prompt for the app.&lt;br&gt;
It asked me everything:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;app purpose&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;functionality&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;design preferences&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;tech stack&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;features&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;backend requirements&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And then it suggested using:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href="https://v0.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;v0 by Vercel&lt;/a&gt; for generating the app&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;a href="https://supabase.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Supabase&lt;/a&gt; for the backend&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So I copied the generated prompt into v0…&lt;br&gt;
…and within 5 minutes…&lt;br&gt;
BOOM 💥&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The app preview was ready.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fyj6hdkx8ha7jtf6edstk.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fyj6hdkx8ha7jtf6edstk.png" alt="Preview of website" width="800" height="527"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The UI Looked Incredible 🚀
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Honestly, the UI looked WAY better than I expected.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It had:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;smooth transitions&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;clean dashboards&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;a modern tech-style design&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;beautifully designed standings cards&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;proper page linking&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Everything looked polished.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So polished, in fact, that I genuinely wanted to deploy it before the backend even existed 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I sat there admiring the preview for a while…&lt;br&gt;
…and then reality hit.&lt;br&gt;
Almost nothing actually worked.💀&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I thought:&lt;br&gt;
“No problem. Once I connect the backend, everything should work.”&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Yeah… no&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Spreadsheet Nightmare 📊😭
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The backend part of the project was honestly chaos.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The existing tournament spreadsheets were:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;poorly labeled&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;inconsistent&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;randomly formatted&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;confusing to read&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Human-made spreadsheets are terrifying sometimes 😭&lt;br&gt;
But when in doubt…&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Get the Claude out.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I used &lt;u&gt;Claude Desktop&lt;/u&gt; and uploaded all the existing:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;score sheets&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;team lists&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;schedules&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;tournament data&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then I asked it to reorganize everything properly into structured Excel files that could directly fit into my Supabase tables.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And somehow…&lt;br&gt;
…it actually worked REALLY well.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After a little back and forth, the data was finally clean enough to import into the database.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Honestly, AI saved me HOURS here.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Ftmik3i1nsts19jk8ndzd.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Ftmik3i1nsts19jk8ndzd.png" alt="empty supabase table showing import button option" width="342" height="206"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;
                              to&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fjniul9pdesduxg4rnti5.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fjniul9pdesduxg4rnti5.png" alt="supabase table filled with data" width="799" height="277"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  “Fixed the Issue” …Except It Didn’t 😭
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At this point, I thought:&lt;br&gt;
“Okay, database is ready. Surely the app works now.”&lt;br&gt;
Nope.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The admin dashboard was completely broken 😅 Buttons existed.&lt;br&gt;
They looked functional. They even had hover effects.&lt;br&gt;
But clicking them did absolutely nothing 💀&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Classic AI-generated functionality.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So I connected the project to:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;GitHub&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Vercel&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Then I cloned the repo locally and brought in my most trusted debugging partner:&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Claude Code.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And honestly, even Claude struggled a bit here 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It kept:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;“fixing” the issue&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;correcting itself&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;generating new fixes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;making me push code changes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;…only for absolutely nothing to happen.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At one point it genuinely became:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;“Trust me bro, this fix will work.” 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Eventually, I realized I needed to provide WAY more context and explain the issue more clearly instead of expecting AI to magically understand everything.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After narrowing things down properly…&lt;br&gt;
…it turned out to be a package issue all along.🥲🙏&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Moment Everything Finally Worked ✨
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After fixing the package issue, I pushed the changes to GitHub.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And within a minute…&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;everything started working.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It genuinely felt like a miracle 😭&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The standings updated correctly.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The right teams had the right points.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The fixtures displayed properly.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The schedules synced correctly.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Everything was &lt;strong&gt;LIVE&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And the best part?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;People actually started using it during the tournament 🏐&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I shared the website in our volleyball group and received a lot of positive feedback, which honestly felt amazing.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At that moment, it felt like:&lt;br&gt;
“Wait… I actually built something REAL.”&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile my friend, who was building his version on Lovable, could only get basic scoring functionality working 😎💪&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So technically…&lt;br&gt;
…I win.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fmzoabcwnk93werp5t0g3.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fmzoabcwnk93werp5t0g3.png" alt="standings page of website" width="800" height="440"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fb1nfqcnydt1vgmetdc6a.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fb1nfqcnydt1vgmetdc6a.png" alt="admin live scoring dashboard" width="800" height="401"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This should probably be your climax image section.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  What This Project Taught Me About AI Coding 🤖
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This project completely changed how I look at AI-assisted development.&lt;br&gt;
AI is genuinely an insanely powerful time-saving tool.&lt;br&gt;
But…&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;AI only saves time if the developer knows how to guide it properly.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Things like:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;debugging knowledge&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;context sharing&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;proper prompting&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;understanding systems&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;identifying errors&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;…still matter A LOT.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Because the truth is:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;AI can generate code quickly. But building a usable real-world app still requires developer thinking.&lt;br&gt;
And honestly, I think that’s the most exciting part.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;AI is not replacing developers.&lt;br&gt;
It’s making developers faster 🚀&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Final Thoughts
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This project started as:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;“Let’s see if AI can build us a cool website.”&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But it ended up teaching me:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;backend integration&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;debugging&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;deployment&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;database management&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;AI prompting&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;and how important developer guidance still is&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And somehow…&lt;br&gt;
what started as a random society seminar idea became a fully deployed tournament website people actually used 😅&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Definitely one of the coolest projects I’ve worked on so far.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;See you guys in the next one 🚀&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>claude</category>
      <category>ai</category>
      <category>development</category>
      <category>beginners</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>I Searched for Internships… and Ended Up Contributing to Open Source Instead 🚀</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2026 08:47:53 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-searched-for-internships-and-ended-up-contributing-to-open-source-instead-2ilk</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/i-searched-for-internships-and-ended-up-contributing-to-open-source-instead-2ilk</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Hey everyone,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;These last few weeks of my summer break made me realize that I should probably try finding and completing an internship — even if it was just for 2 weeks.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But while searching around and talking with Claude about internships, it suggested something even better:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;🙌&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Contributing to open-source projects.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;🙌&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now, I know many developers reading this probably discovered open source years ago 😅&lt;br&gt;
But for me, this was something completely new and honestly really exciting.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Finding My First Project
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I started digging deeper into this whole open-source world and quickly realized there are actually some really beginner-friendly websites to get started.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;These were the two websites Claude suggested to me:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://firstcontributions.github.io/#project-list" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;First Contributions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://goodfirstissue.dev/" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Good First Issue&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And that’s when I found:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="https://github.com/physicshub/physicshub.github.io" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;PhysicsHub&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It’s a really neat web app that helps students study physics using interactive simulations and visualizations.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As a physics student myself, this honestly felt like the perfect project to contribute to:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;I could improve my coding skills&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;understand some physics concepts visually&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;and contribute something useful at the same time
&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F4r34zrzjav3sqf7xxe7u.png" alt="Homepage of PhysicsHub" width="800" height="336"&gt;
&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fgilauhijgk5z1ldz4uyo.png" alt="A simulation in PhysicsHub" width="800" height="417"&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Actually Making My First Contribution
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I knew this project wasn’t some massive large-scale application or anything like that.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But honestly, that’s the whole point.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You can’t start huge immediately.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Every small contribution matters.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So I got started:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Forked the repository&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Cloned it locally&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Opened it in VS Code&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Installed Claude Code&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Started identifying issues&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And this part genuinely surprised me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I simply asked Claude to help me make my first contribution.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Within seconds, it generated a CLAUDE_REPORT file that contained:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;bugs ranked by priority&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;difficulty levels&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;possible causes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;and even suggested fixes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Claude continues to amaze me yet again 😍😅&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I started tackling some low-priority issues one by one and managed to fix 4 issues within my first hour before sending my first pull request.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fir91nb4d795oceynvnys.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fir91nb4d795oceynvnys.png" alt="Claude_report file" width="800" height="427"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  What I Fixed
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The issues themselves were small, but they were actual real-world fixes:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Incorrect labels&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Flexible package versions&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Unit fixes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Mathematical calculation corrections&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Nothing revolutionary 😅&lt;br&gt;
But that’s exactly what made this experience feel approachable for me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fgxxe2nf67fkumi37elo9.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fgxxe2nf67fkumi37elo9.png" alt="Pull request merged on github" width="800" height="259"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fqobgkciulz6222ciftzj.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fqobgkciulz6222ciftzj.png" alt="Pull request merged" width="800" height="208"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The Best Part
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The satisfaction you get from:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;adding changed files&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;committing them&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;pushing your changes&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;opening a pull request&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;and then seeing it get merged&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;…it’s honestly hard to describe.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And of course, who can forget the beautiful green contribution boxes on GitHub 😅&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Seeing those slowly appear somehow makes everything feel more real.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Final Thoughts
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I’ll definitely continue contributing to more open-source projects now — especially after realizing how enjoyable and beginner-friendly it can actually be.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I mainly wanted to document my first step into the open-source world and hopefully help other beginners realize that contributions do not have to be huge to matter.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Sometimes even small fixes are enough to get started.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And honestly… starting is probably the hardest part.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You’ll definitely be hearing more from me about open-source contributions — especially when I find another fun project to work on 🚀&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;See you guys!&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>opensource</category>
      <category>beginners</category>
      <category>github</category>
      <category>claude</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>🏗️ Still Planning — But This Time It Actually Matters</title>
      <dc:creator>Karan</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2026 10:23:49 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/still-planning-but-this-time-it-actually-matters-1k5c</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/techgeniuskaran/still-planning-but-this-time-it-actually-matters-1k5c</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Hey guys,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Still stuck in planning mode 😅. But these decisions may be more worthwhile than they seem.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  🔀 The Monolith Decision
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Monolithic architecture&lt;/strong&gt; is simply a software development model where the entire app lives in a single codebase. Pretty much the traditional setup most beginner developers follow naturally without even realising it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Microservices&lt;/strong&gt; on the other hand is a distributed architecture where several individual services connect and communicate with each other to function as one application. Scalability is the main reason why microservices is so widely adopted — companies like &lt;strong&gt;Netflix, Amazon, Uber and Spotify&lt;/strong&gt; all run on it. Imagine Netflix operating on a single server and a single codebase. Debugging would be a nightmare, maintenance would be chaos, and one bad bug could potentially take down the entire platform for millions of users. Not ideal. 😬&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For me though, the choice was obvious — &lt;strong&gt;monolith.&lt;/strong&gt; No plans to massively scale this app, a single codebase keeps things simple, and it's cost-effective.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sometimes the boring choice is the right one.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  📐 SOLID Principles
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fko63re9t1s2p57z5ld3n.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fko63re9t1s2p57z5ld3n.png" alt="A list of the SOLID principles" width="800" height="400"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A great man named &lt;strong&gt;Robert C. Martin&lt;/strong&gt; created the SOLID principles — giving us developers yet another thing to study😒. Just kidding, it's genuinely useful. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In short, following SOLID makes your code:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Maintainable&lt;/strong&gt; — easier to update and refactor&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Scalable&lt;/strong&gt; — grows with fewer issues&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Reusable&lt;/strong&gt; — modular and decoupled&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Readable&lt;/strong&gt; — cleaner and easier to understand&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There are 5 principles in total — S, O, L, I, D. I studied all five. I applied two.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;And that was intentional.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Since my app is small with minimal business logic, forcing all 5 would just be over-engineering for the sake of it. Good principles applied in the wrong context are still bad decisions.&lt;/p&gt;




&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  🤖 How Claude Helped Apply It
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Once I studied the principles, I asked Claude Code to analyse my project and apply &lt;br&gt;
SOLID to the planning. What it did was clean and practical.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For &lt;strong&gt;Single Responsibility (S)&lt;/strong&gt;, it wasn't just about separating files — it also &lt;br&gt;
meant breaking down logic into focused modular functions rather than having one &lt;br&gt;
function trying to do three things at once. Models only hold Mongoose schemas. &lt;br&gt;
Routes only handle HTTP. Middleware only handles authentication. &lt;em&gt;Nothing overlaps.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For &lt;strong&gt;Interface Segregation (I)&lt;/strong&gt;, it split the API folder by domain — &lt;br&gt;
&lt;code&gt;scheduleApi.js&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;authApi.js&lt;/code&gt; became separate concerns — so different parts &lt;br&gt;
of the app only import what they actually need, rather than pulling from one &lt;br&gt;
bloated module that knows too much.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For &lt;strong&gt;O, L and D&lt;/strong&gt; — Claude explicitly flagged these as unnecessary for this project. The business logic is too minimal to justify them. The philosophy was &lt;br&gt;
simple — &lt;em&gt;use SOLID where it helps, skip it where it doesn't.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  🙏 The Mentor Behind All This
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;None of this planning rigour came from nowhere. I have been fortunate enough to &lt;br&gt;
have a mentor — a senior professional at &lt;strong&gt;GoDaddy&lt;/strong&gt; — who has been guiding me &lt;br&gt;
through these concepts completely voluntarily. Having someone with real industry &lt;br&gt;
experience push you to think about architecture and principles &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; touching &lt;br&gt;
code is something most student developers don't get. Genuinely grateful for it. ✨&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  👀 What's Next
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;OOP is on the study list&lt;/strong&gt; — the 4 pillars, how they connect to this project, &lt;br&gt;
and then finally, &lt;em&gt;actually building something.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The planning era is almost over. See you on the other side. 🚀&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>programming</category>
      <category>solidprinciples</category>
      <category>beginners</category>
      <category>webdev</category>
    </item>
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