Today something out of my control distracted me. And while I get distracted, I get more ideas to distract myself even more from other stuff.

Getting distracted from distractions is distracting. 🫠

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After a bit of research, I found nothing that resonated with me. Nothing that looked like a good fit. While researching, I found out that there were Sudokus for kids with shapes on paper. We tried them, and he liked it. Then it clicked, and I fired up Jippity. We talked and created a plan for an MVP game in React Native. Thanks to my #AdventOfProgress, I already had experience with React Native and a base from where we can start.

There were points that made the implementation easy. For example: offline first and no auth, so no Supabase or backend dependency is needed and less complexity. A clear and simple scope. No game engine is needed because of the missing game loop and simple graphics.

I had a lot of fun, and it was difficult to stop. After the initial MVP was complete, I kept adding features. AND it is the first project I started without having a domain name first. 🎉

The finishing line is in sight. There is a little bit of work left on the landing page that needs to be done and smaller visual issues inside the app that I need to address. Also preparing all the data for the stores, for example, taking screenshots for each language and adding marketing texts, needs a lot of work. It will be my first release of an app in the stores. It should at least look a bit polished. 😅

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#log #dev #game #kids #ai #claude
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Every New Year's resolution I had over the past years never worked out. So I stopped having them and thought about something manageable I could achieve. Which was also not working out because every time I try to work on a side project with a deadline, something occurs and moves my attention.

With this in mind, I started to make a wishlist for the new year. A list of things that were nice to achieve but not mandatory.

As a developer, for example, I want to release my newly created app, which I worked on in December (#AdventOfProgress). Then, use this app as a template and create a new app with a different topic, where I can reuse 75% of the code I already have. :) If this gets done this year, it would be nice to also have a small React Native app for #pelletyze. This could also be done in a small focused sprint because I only need the frontend; the backend is already working.

Fast forward; writing the above was in the past, and the pattern continued. I’ve created an entirely different app without finishing the first one. 😂 On which is now focus all my spare time. It is a little kids game. More of this in the next post.

Having a wishlist with maybe some milestones is a nice thing, I think. For example, having something done on my birthday. Or achieving X until summer and Y until autumn and so on. :)

Besides all the projects, there is still the private life, where I have to achieve things that are not fully in my control. Here, I stopped entirely having wishes. Here is the mantra: it’s done when it’s done. 😂😂

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I left 2025 satisfied and happy among my loved ones. We gathered at my home with some friends and their kids. It was a nice evening. While waking up, I started to write these words. I initially planned to write them before leaving 2025. But this time I will publish my review. For 2024, I’ve started the post but never finished it.

While reading the never-published post of 2024, I realized that 2025 was good and not as bumpy of a ride as 2024. 2024 had many ups and downs. And I can say personally and as a family, we settled somehow.

2025 started with finishing #100DaysToOffload at the end of January. Finishing the challenge made me proud. Because I never really finished something similar on the web. All I started was abandoned after some time.

Most of the spring and summer were not present for me, writing-wise. I had numerous freelance projects and focused a lot on family and non-IT-related stuff at home. In consequence, I did not write a lot. I’ve started the #TheMonthProject to push me to get my #pelletyze app done. I had a lot of fun writing these posts. But because of spring and summer, I released it quite late in October 2025. But this was marked as a giant achievement for me. I worked a lot on #pelletyze and I’m happy that it is now in a presentable state. :) Since the release, I did some small updates but never did marketing for the site to reach a user base. Because I still have some features and small improvements I want to implement before bringing it to a wider audience.

In spring, I tried Cursor and made a subscription. I wanted to see what AI hype is all about and how it works out. For a year I was already a Copilot/Supermaven user and had a small glimpse of what AI can do. For me it was quite a learning curve, because I needed to find my flow. After I found it, I tried Claude Code and never looked back. 😅 I still have a Cursor subscription because I’ve subscribed for a year, like I did with Copilot and Supermaven. Which was not a mistake, but in a year a lot can happen. Especially in the tech and AI space. So for the future, I know that I just try things out on a monthly basis. My most used AI tools now are ChatGPT and Claude Code. Maybe I should also write about my usage of them in another post. To end the paragraph, I can say that in 2025 AI had a massive impact on how I work now, and it improved a lot for me.

In the summer I made an old friend after over 10 years. We split in a not-so-friendly way and never talked it out, so I never knew in which state we were. But I tried to take all the courage and wrote him a message with what I feel about us. The good thing is no one was mad, and we’ve met and talked for some hours. :)

Over the summer, we made a hard decision. Our oldest was on the path to start school. But we decided to let him go to the kindergarten for one more year. He is now with his brother in a new kindergarten. The hardest part is not the new location or that he is not in school; for him, the hardest thing was leaving his friends. Which is something we had in mind but never thought that it would have such an impact on a little boy. Socially it is hard for him. But we hope that eventually, it is better for him. Since he got six on his school enrollment. He was not thoroughly ready for it. In 2026, we then have his school enrollment, and I hope that it improves everything for him, because he can then see his old friends again daily.

In December, I started my #AdventOfProgress event. Last year I did #AdventOfCode and #AdventOfTypescript and while it was fun, it cost me a lot of time I could have spent on something better. And this year, I wanted to spend the time on something with a real outcome. So I developed a React Native app in December. It was a lot of fun, and I had a prototype, which was planned to be done in the spring of 2025. 😅 But this is not relevant. I completed something again in 2025, and this is important. I now need to tweak some things and complete the landing page so I have a releasable app. The prototype is installed on iOS and Android on the phones of some friends, and this is a wonderful feeling. They can provide feedback, and I have a small audience right from the start. :)

Over the December break, I also finished most of our basement, especially the playroom for the kids. I’ve added a swing, a therapy swing. We know this type of swing from the occupational therapy for the little one. The boys and all the other kids who visited us over the last few days had a lot of fun with it. I also added wall bars so the kids can climb and “hang” around. Finishing this project gave me a gigantic relief and gave me a feeling of being free. Sounds strange, but this project was now in the works for some years. Which was not my fault. Mostly. Progress here had depended on some external people.

So the 24.12. marked a point where I could check some points on my to-do list as done. So I could start some new things, which were waiting for some time now. In this case, start setting up a home lab. I used an old notebook to install Proxmox, Forgejo, and Vaultwarden. I can now self-host my Git projects in my local environment and access them via VPN from the outside. Setting up Proxmox with a good backup strategy gives me a foundation I can build upon in the future. I plan to extend this all with Home Assistant and other tools that will improve my life. :)

All this sums up 2025 quite well. It was a good year. And I look forward to what 2026 will give me and my family. 😎

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#log #lastyear #review #2025
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The whole process went really smoothly. The last time I worked with React Native was ~10 years ago. At that time, I played around with an Android app, which I still want to build someday. :)

This time, I started with ChatGPT as a planning buddy. I’ve written down everything I wanted to achieve in this limited timespan. “We” then elaborated on the plan, how this could be done. Tweaked numerous details and laid down the foundation of the app. To have this kind of red path was more than helpful. Each day you could start working on something by only looking at the plan. (For side projects I usually have a plan, but it’s loose and grows while working on things.) Sure, there were days when the work was too much for doing it on the side. This has cost me some sleeping hours I had needed at this time. For the next project, I now know better and need to tweak this so each day can be done in around 1-2 hours + writing a blog post.

So, I started the project with half the experience I should have needed for it. And Jippity was a good rubber duck 🐥 here. The time you aimlessly search for the issue, WHY something is not working the way it should be, was reduced drastically with Jippity.

The first few days were a little bit of a struggle, getting things to a point where it worked flawlessly. Finding the flow I was comfortable with. But as the base was standing, working daily on a new feature was a breeze and a lot of fun.

I’ve enjoyed the time working in this style. But doing it long-term is not really sustainable, at least for me. Without kids, a wife, and the house, maybe then it would look different. 😅 For me personally, it was challenging to do both, making progress and documenting/writing about it.

I’m excited and look forward to the next #AdventOfProgress. Maybe I can do a #SpringOfProgress as the next one. 🤔

👋

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I've installed the app on a real device and tested everything. Most of the bugs I've found were keyboard related. If I had enabled the keyboard on the simulator, maybe there would have been fewer bugs. Or, should I call them bugs? When the keyboard is enabled, I just can see some inputs or buttons. I'm so happy that I did not find any critical bugs.

I've written all the bugs down and will fix them in the coming days. There were also some feature ideas I have written down. Possibly I will implement them as well in the coming days.

One feature I already implemented will be hidden behind a feature flag. Using the username as a login name is perhaps not the best idea, or maybe the implementation. Because on sign-up or username change, you can try multiple usernames and see which ones are already used. Which I think is a security risk. So this feature needs to be checked again on the drawing board.

👋

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This gives the app a nice personal touch. I hope that I don't reach any limits soon with this in Supabase. I never used the file storage before. It's a bit exciting; there are a lot of first times in this project. 😀

👋

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There were 3 packages to install: a gesture handle, an animation lib, and expo-haptics. After creating a swipeable row, I needed to implement the actions for edit and delete some hooks and was mostly done. After writing this all down, it sounds less complex than it felt when I implemented it. 😅

While testing the app, I saw a caching bug after switching users. User2 saw the data of User1 after a sign-out and new sign-in because the cache was not cleared on user change.

👋

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Now I have a new table for profiles, besides the auth table Supabase provides. Because Supabase Auth can't handle sign-in with a username, I now also have an edge function running. Which I never used before. It works, so I don't complain. :)

Maybe this is something you normally don't need for an MVP, but I was tired of typing an email for the sign-in. So, for me, it needs to be in the MVP.

When I was done, I staged my changes, and I noticed that I accidentally committed my .env file. So I used git-filter-repo to remove the env file from git history. What I did not know was it removed all my staged changes without a warning. 😱 That was a shock. A big one. After some minutes walking through the house, I calmed down and sat back on the chair. I was able to rescue around 85% of the files. The rest I could reproduce somehow.

WHAT an evening! I'm back on track and happy the accident was not that bad.

👋

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#log #AdventOfProgress
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It got a proper app icon and a splash screen that work in light and dark mode. Currently I focus more on a good integration with iOS; Android is coming later.

I also added a date picker. Before it was basic string insertion into the date field, which is not a good UX.

👋

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#log #AdventOfProgress
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