New Website Launch!
The React website is up and running; lots of fun coding this one up.
I found myself in a dilemma. Having a beautiful website design by Bradford Ulrich, without the budget to finish out the development.
This is where bootstrapping earns it’s stripes.
I spend the last two weeks, teaching myself React with the help of one of the best tutors out there — ChatGPT v4.0. Here is how it went:
After two weeks of back and forth, tweaks, edits, bug fixes and a bit of help from a friend (Thanks Walter!) on a pesky font problem, I launched the web app this past weekend, just in time for MidSouth Gravel.
Here is a handful of takeaways utilizing Chat GPT in this way:
It helped very much that I have 10+ years of HTML & CSS experience. React is component-based, such as just a switch in how I think about folder structure and pages, which was the extent of my learning.
ChatGPT was good at seeing a picture and creating a foundation, but the nuance was all me; ChatGPT provided much of the baseline code. Was it helpful? It certainly saved me much time building out the foundation. Most of my time was spent making it responsive and ensuring the elements fit on the page as the design dictated.
ChatGPT was one of the best tutors I’ve had in a while… I’m not one to take courses; I want to learn by trial and error. In my learning style, it’s best to have an expert over my shoulder, patiently letting me fail so I can learn myself or get so stuck that I need another perspective to get me through. Using ChatGPT in this way was excellent for someone like me ;-)
I did a lot of my development in the margins of my day, over lunch break, in the wee hours of the morning, or after my kids went to bed. I never felt like I was keeping anyone waiting or holding anyone up. All the history was waiting for me when I logged back in to ChatGPT, searchable and scrollable. This will be a great way to learn new things—I’m pretty stoked for my kids.
A Con — My code is probably sloppy and unorganized. But I can come back to it and clean it up. I’m not worried about it; I’m not letting anyone else in… for now. Ha!
At this point in the project, it’s fine that I took the last few weeks working in code. I’m continuing with funding conversations, and have had multiple meetings over the last week working to find an avenue towards completing my seed round of funding. The website is the front door to our project, and finishing this piece was really important for the next season of work.
We are in building stage, where it’s good for everyone to be able to lend a hand and progress the project, yes, even me.
Sam DuRegger
Founder, Barista Bot
& Amateur React Developer (not for hire)