*In which our hero attempts to solve the age-old problem of "wait, what was that show you told me about again?"*
Long ago, in a conversation far, far away... actually, it was just a couple years back, but you get the idea. Picture this scenario, repeated countless times over countless days, months, and years:
Friend: "Hey! Have you heard about /ṙ∃ĕǽ℗ℚṁļ?? It's that great new show/book/movie/documentary by ħE∈ẇ∀. You have to try it!"
Me: "Of course! I've been meaning to try it I just keep forgetting the name! I love the general vibe. I'll give it a shot for sure!"
Narrator: They did not, in fact, give it a shot.
My Hogwarts letter maybe 16 years too late, so might as well come up with a solution for the endless lists of recommendations I keep having to make and then forget about in my notes app. Lists for albums, movies, TV shows, books, restaurants that serve more than just lembas bread—you name it, I wanted to list it.
The idea was simple: One App to Rule Them All, One App to Bind Them.
Movies, books, TV shows, music, and places to go—all organized in a single, elegant recommendation vault. It'd be the pokedex of recommendations, compiling recommendations to every single media, place consumable or other thing that people could possibly ever recommend all in one spot.
The crown jewel? Sharing recommendations would be as easy as wingardium Levio-sa.
Picture the Shazam functionality but for everything—like having C-3PO as your personal recommendation protocol droid, fluent in over six million forms of "you should totally check this out."
The grand vision included scaling up to create a social media platform. Think Myspace meets IMDB but for personal recommendations. This is for much much later, but no problem with laying the groundwork and foundation.
Here's where our hero makes the classic mistake of Luke rushing into Cloud City without proper training. Two years ago, I threw caution to the wind like a reckless Padawan and decided to build this thing immediately. No research, no planning—just pure, unadulterated enthusiasm and a dangerous confidence that I could figure it out as I went along.
Why the rush? Because I'd seen too many projects die in the Planning Phase graveyard—that desolate place where good ideas go to get over-researched into oblivion. It's like the Undying Lands, except less pleasant and with more abandoned GitHub repositories.
I chose Swift as my weapon of choice, driven by the need for iOS integration (particularly that coveted iMessage extension). This was my "I have the high ground" moment, except I was standing on some very unstable volcanic rock.
Swift and I had about as much chemistry as C-3PO and a restraining bolt. I'd pick it up, make minimal progress, then abandon it faster than the Rebels fleeing Hoth. School, life, and the general complexity of iOS development kept pushing this project into carbonite hibernation.
But wait! Like any good sequel, there was a twist. After months of struggle, I finally got the iMessage extension working! Internal deep links were functioning, sharing was possible, and the App was almost complete. Then came a pretty big sandpit: "Hey, not everyone uses iOS." * AND my eventual idea of turning into a fully web ready page would require a whole lot more work.
My brother, one of my primary motivations for building this app (anda member of the Android Alliance), couldn't even use what I'd created. It was like building the most beautiful elven palace in Rivendell only to realize half your friends are dwarves who prefer caves. His explicit words, and I quote "I like having something that most people don't"
As such, a proud user of the Nothing Phone, was stuck just staring at my phone running the app.
So I made the choice any sensible developer would make when faced with platform exclusivity: I completely started over. Again.
Enter React Native—my new language of choice. Having some experience with React and JavaScript, I felt like I was trading up from an unwieldly tool to a properly maintained and civilized weapon. Plus, this path would lead to the eventual web version, cloud features, and that social media platform I'd dreamed of—basically turning ListIt from a simple tool into a full recommendation ecosystem.
And so our story continues, with our hero wielding React Native like a Jedi master (or at least a competent Padawan). The quest is far from over, but the path ahead looks brighter than a binary sunset on Tatooine.
Will ListIt finally escape the project graveyard? Will users ever actually remember to check their recommendations? Will I manage to build something my Android-using brother can actually use?
Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment: *"Redux Strikes Back: Managing State Across Galaxies"*
*May the List be with you.*
*Follow my coding adventures and existential crises at [your social media handle here]*