Week of April 1st-7th

Spent the week rebuilding rails.market as an actual Rails app (seems appropriate).

The initial version was build from just a flat file (HTML/CSS/Javascript) template called ListsKit.com from the wonderful Jason Leow. It helped me get something live in less than 24 hours and I’m extremely grateful for that.

For this next version, I didn’t want to go too overboard and really just needed to get something out the door to help get back some momentum lost after more than a month of not working on the project. But it still ended up taking longer than I wanted because I began second guessing myself and trying to be perfect. Eventually, I just had to force myself to ship the new version and go live.

It’s not where I want it to be (yet), but that’s okay. We will get there.

Highlights

• All content is now stored in the database. It’s no longer hardcoded in the HTML/Javascript. This obviously might complicate things, but it also provides way more flexible for a lot of what I’d like to add later.
• A big chunk of the week was focused on shaping the project’s manifesto. I’m still struggling with it, but, like the project itself, it’ll be an ever evolving and changing thing. So it’s important to get something out into the world and let it grow naturally.
• I’m keeping track of all my work, as best I can, and making it available to others. In addition to these weekly summaries, I’m logging all updates in a changelog. Hopefully this will help keep me accountable by showcasing the momentum and health of the project on display to others.
• Inspired by 37Signals and their Once.com products (plus to keep in the spirit of the purpose of the project – to help showcase the sharing of code with others), I’m making the entire project’s code repository available for a small one time payment. It’s currently priced at $15, but this will go up in the future (more on that soon).

I have no idea if this will work. I have no idea if this will actually be useful to others. But I’m going to try like mad and truly welcome anyone that’s interested in following along on the journey (or helping in any way) to join along and share their feedback, love and support.

I believe we can all help make this community just a little bit better if we each do our part. This is my attempt.

Grateful for you,

Zack Gilbert