DEV Community

Cover image for My Failed Student Housing App

My Failed Student Housing App

Steve Frank on April 23, 2024

tldr; I have a moderate sized PoC elixir code base collecting dust that will never be used again, and hopefully it has something someone will need....
Collapse
 
peter_pk_4f0a61c01b80b0d7 profile image
Peter Pk

Hi,I want to study ash framework in your project look good but when
I mix setup finish and mix phx.server ,
working all after I register but when I try to login not success permission denied why ? can you suggestion me ,thank

Collapse
 
lardcanoe profile image
Steve Frank

Start with ‘iex -S mix phx.server’ so you can see the error.

Collapse
 
peter_pk_4f0a61c01b80b0d7 profile image
Peter Pk • Edited

thank for reply , Register ok but when Login can't ,debug terminal not error

can your share suggestion step,thank

Collapse
 
twistin456 profile image
Abhishek Tripathi

Great repo.

With Ash, I am taking a similar bet. - after 2-3 months, it should give me the speed 🚄.

Currently struggling with phoenix forms. Any suggestions/ tips from your end on those?

P.S. will dig more in the repo in upcoming week

Collapse
 
lardcanoe profile image
Steve Frank

Of course! I had a bunch of tabs open to numerous repos, and I would just hunt for usage of an Ash function I needed, and looked at how they did it.

And hopefully my repo can now be one someone else hunts in. Though, keep in mind I think most of those are Ash 2.0, including mine. With 3.0, you now need to make your attributes in the form public.

My biggest issue was using embedded resources, with inputs_for and it turns out most of my problems were because I failed to include the relation in the list of accepts of the action. This would result in some cryptic message, and lead me down the wrong path. Once I fixed it, I could just use forms: [auto?: true]

That being said, the Ash docs are MUCH better now.

Collapse
 
zachdaniel profile image
Zach Daniel

We've added hints in said cryptic error message about no form being configured. like "did you mean to accept this attribute?", to help mitigate these issues. Was definitely very confusing, and TBH I had no idea it was causing so much confusion before it was brought to my attention 😂

Thread Thread
 
zachdaniel profile image
Zach Daniel

oh, I just realized it was you who originally brought it to my attention 😂

Collapse
 
spacebat profile image
Andrew Kirkpatrick

I've spent the last few months working on an Ash project, looking forward to 3.0

Collapse
 
lardcanoe profile image
Steve Frank

See a discussion at elixirforum.com/t/ash-framework-3-... for 3.0

I left my notes in the tread as well.

Collapse
 
abrookewood profile image
Antony Brooke-Wood

Hey Steve,
The app itself looks really good - what happened with the pitch?

Collapse
 
lardcanoe profile image
Steve Frank

A few notes:

  • The core functionality they need is surprisingly complex. And I couldn't narrow in on a simpler one to get my foot in the door. For instance, I would need something like appmixer.com/ from the start.
  • Most schools won't even consider changing tools for MANY years (5+ at least). And even if they will consider, it is 9-18 month sales cycle.
  • Most schools don't have the technical staff to help, so it would be on me to do a large portion of the transition.
  • Onboarding staff for a tool is a huge PITA since there is so much turnover
  • I couldn't find a co-founder for this one
  • Ultimately, I just didn't have the stamina to continue finding people to interview for the discovery phase. I had someone help load up 700+ contacts into HubSpot for schools that should have been an ideal fit, and I ran multiple email campaigns with different messaging, and got nowhere. Calling got nowhere. It was a slog, as that part usually is.

I have an obscene amount of notes for all this, but I won't be making that public.

Collapse
 
abrookewood profile image
Antony Brooke-Wood

Yes, that sounds fairly brutal.

Collapse
 
credentialedrss profile image
Steve Nordquist of C fix ambition

So did the #1 app maker buy you out of serving the category as an organization, convince you that small colleges need to bleed $111k at a time at student housing to-do, or just fall over?