Demonetization

So it’s been about a year since the last major update of Frontend Armory and… not particularly much has happened in the meantime. My life outside of the internet has gone through changes which have left me with less time than I’d like to work on content — about a day per week to be exact. And to be honest, I haven’t used that day a week as effectively as I’d like. The result being, well, nothing much of value.

Nothing much of value is a pretty bad look for a subscription-based site, so I’ve just put through a refund for all subscription fees paid between now and November 29 last year — which was Black Friday, and occurred before I made the last major update.

I’ve also made all of Frontend Armory’s content free, at least for now. It’s a little out of date, but there’s still a lot to learn from it. Here’s a few of my favorites that used to be behind the paywall:

• The three types of errors
• Communication state
• Effects (with fractal trees)
• The “Vouch” source code

I may add more paid content in the future, but if I do, it definitely won’t be subscription-based. Honestly, using a subscription model for this project was a mistake grounded in overly optimistic predictions of the amount of revenue… and the stability of React’s API. I’ll write about that another day, or actually, fuck it, I’ve just written about it at my blog: React: it’s technically backwards compatible!.

#Where to from here

First, a break. But I do still want to teach programming — at least from what I can see, it’s one of the few ways to get a leg up in this world. And besides, it’s damn interesting.

I want to finish Vouch, and the React + Bacon course too. If you read my rant on React’s backwards compatibility, you might be surprised to hear that, but yep, I’m still planning on using React. React isn’t what it was, but it’s still a damn good tool. It’s a little like ordering a pizza and getting a steak.

One thing I’ve learned over the past year is that I can’t teach everything. My big issue with Vouch, React + Bacon was that I wanted to teach everything from the ground up. I wanted to teach people to build their own router, their own authentication, they’re own design system, etc. And… while it may well be possible for an experienced engineer to build an entire app from scratch, teaching it is another matter. I wrote a lot of drafts and code that never saw the light of day because the scope was just too large.

So, here’s my current goal: I want to create a useful app with working payments, but which you can build in a weekend. Then I want to live stream myself building the app, buying the domain, and deploying it — all in one day-long session. I want the app to be online, making money, providing a real service. And then I want to teach you to make that app.

I’ve actually been working on this the past few months — basically since I quit Twitter. I thought it’d take me a month or two to get to the point where I can do the stream. It’s taking longer, as it always does. But I’m happy with the direction, and I’m making slow but steady progress. You can see some of it here. For now, I’m going to take a bit of a break — but I do think you’ll hear more about the project at some point in the future.

Until then, thanks for reading :)