CoCoder

Ever wanted to start a side project? You are not the only one with this idea? CoCoder allows you to share ideas with other developers and get connected to create a new beautiful application.

Comment

have a bit of mice problems right now. sorry.

Inspiration

Every programmer has some form of side project. Many of these side projects are similar to other side projects. Or other people may be interested in that one side project, but they could never find it.

What it does

This application allows users to connect even before they start coding. They can upload their ideas to an online platform, and if someone else is looking for a similar idea, they can contact each other and start a side project together. This way, people can not only build what they want faster. They can also learn from each other.

How I built it

I started to think about what I really need. Then I built the user interface with Vanilla JS, HTML and CSS to get an idea of how complex my backend needs to be. The heart of the project is an ExpressJS API server with a SQLite3 database. So instead of building a click dummy, all the data on the web is dynamically loaded via AJAX.

Challenges we ran into

Although this is mostly my tech stack, I had no idea how to implement some sort of fuzzy search with a SQLite3 database. There were some strange errors due to mismatching versions of sqlite3. In the end I found a workaround that seems reasonably ok.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  1. Fuzzy search in the database.
  2. This is my first web application on which I managed to make the page behave mostly responsive.
  3. Timing: I managed to finish 20 min before the deadline.

What we learned

I got to know the bootstrap ecosystem better and learned a lot about regex and minimum edit distance.

What's next for CoCoder

I may continue to work on this project in the future. This is a tool that I personally would really like to use to find contributors before starting a new repository. I have also asked some of my coding friends and they would use it as well. I see this project as a great tool for sharing ideas and knowledge.

Important

If you are using my live-example at alessio.ddnss.de:

  • Everything is unencrypted and everyone has read access to the entire database! Do not use real passwords or real information.
  • I will delete all data in 24h and take the server offline.
  • The server is hosted at my home with my internet connection. I have 100 downlink and 40 uplink. If 150 people try to access the server at the same time .... Please do not ddos me :D
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