Development Logs

Work on the API has been swift today. Only minutes after the last devlog was uploaded I contribued several changes to the API and made a couple breakthroughs in terms of Discovery and Google OAuth 2 for login! It's going well, and I'm surprised at my own work speed.

However, I've been looking at API and App code, there are still lots of inconsistencies that need addressing... I need to find some way to unify the endpoints, how they work and other nuance to this system, let alone the mathmatices behind whatever social algorithm we're going to build. It won't be easy, but I don't think I would of applied if I thought it was going to be.

Work has slowed down a little, there are plenty of bugs that keep haunting the application. The lack of communication doesn't make things better, and I feel like I'm failing at my primary function.

I offered the frontend developer some money for motivation. Only the backend dev shows genuine passion about the project, which shall be rewarded too. I need to get it together. It is difficult to connect so many duties... But that's what I signed up for, and I shall deliver.

I managed to find that alternative for SES! We simply have our own email manager. Our emails are sent by us and stored by us, meaning automatic emails are no longer an issue!

Along side this, multiple smaller achievements have myself at least at a high point! We have registration... "working" and login works perfectly!

I'm back! It's me, Orion Altair, may as well put a name to the role, your friendly neighbourhood backend developer, today was slightly hectic, as the API needed some... mild touchups, and of course making it actually work is an uphill battle of all time. The new API was moved into production and most day one patches applied without issue!

I've been tasked with finding an alternative to SES for Dammy, since the costs would kill his wallet otherwise, I've tried looking online but everything has limits... what else could we try?

Hello, backend developer here, today I got to work fixing up the old(er) backend and making sure everything is squeaky clean for the mighty rewrite I have planned changing our backend from the script of coffee to being ran by snakes (with maybe some coffee and crabs in there too!)

You may be wondering why a clean backend is even slightly relevant? Well a clean backend means (in theory) the front end developers should have a much easier time developing stuff that Just Works™ so we should get done faster!

I added more customization to profiles. Users can now choose colors they like and apply them to 5 predefined color regions that will let users express themselves more freely. Unlike other apps, I won't charge anything for the possibility to change some colors on the profile.

Additionally, looks like I found the talents I've been looking for! I managed to hire an illustrator and a very skilled backend developer with 8 years of experience. Things are looking great!

I woke up early—it's a nice Saturday. In just 2 hours, I managed to accomplish more than I did the entire past week. It looks like profile customization is mostly done. This success is so motivating, and I know I can make this project work!

But in the distance hangs the vision of upcoming challenges. While checking AWS today, I saw it's already $10 just for a few emails sent. The dark vision of paying hundreds of dollars a month just for that hangs in the air.

Halloween? The day when you should be scared, hm? Well, I'm surely freaked out by the amount of bugs I'm encountering. I still can't get profile bio or other functions to save properly.

Later that day, I finally managed to convince someone to help me by asking. My old friend somehow managed to find the bug that kept blocking the API traffic in mere minutes. The work may continue!

Constant deployment failures are killing me. I'm so tired of debugging something that doesn't even work as it should at the end. All alone in the middle of the ocean, even the smart voice that has led me through the project with the best advice—Oscar—doesn't know the answer to my questions.

But I have to keep going, and through the path of failures, reach the ultimate goal.

People are starting to criticize my project. They claim it will ruin me and everything I've worked for. But I don't hear anything constructive, so I assume those haters just feel jealous that despite all difficulties, I manage to spend my time efficiently, look forward into the future, and aim high.

I implemented the idea shortly after having it. But after another busy day, I hit the hay shortly after. I wish I had more time.

I can't stop thinking about what user profiles should look like. I want to offer a unique experience. I try to avoid taking inspiration, but it feels like EVERY possible idea has been used already.

I added more languages to my websites. It will help with the SEO, right? Well, just partially.

Time to work on the API some more. I need to add image uploads and user profile editing. For this purpose, I created an AWS S3 bucket, and surprisingly it went smoothly!

I managed to upload my profile picture to the cloud, and it's nicely fetched in the app. That's promising!

I asked more people—I really need help. But my calls met tricky topic changes, were ghosted, or straight-up declined.

But that would never stop me. I tried to reach the masses and created the Twitter account for my project!

Furio ✓

@furio_official

🎉 We're officially on X! Follow us for daily development updates, sneak peeks, and exclusive behind-the-scenes content as we build the ultimate furry community app.

Follow @furio_official

But it looks like building an audience will also be a difficult grind.

It turns out that "Furz" means farts in German. I'd never feel good bearing something like this, and my SEO may struggle against all those... weird websites.

I needed a new name. FURIO sounds amazing! I bought a new domain and rebranded my project shortly after.

I woke up to 7 applications, but none of them convinced me. It felt like none of those people would even know what a furry is, it looked like auto-apply or AI of some sort.

I shared my project around some Discord servers. People were interested in the project, but no one decided to help. I will continue to work solo for a while, I guess.

I feel like I need a team to help me. I can't do everything alone. It's hard to spend 12 hours a day in a job and work on a project like this without being tired. I lack the knowledge and experience to do it solo.

I built the first version of my "careers" website and shortly after got it crawled. On the same day, I created a LinkedIn profile for my app.

Looks like AWS isn't made for startups like mine. I faced the price of a single email delivery: $0.30. I did some quick calculations and came to the conclusion that I'd need to pay $300,000 USD for onboarding one million users.

I was shocked, but I decided to stick with it for development.

Time to make the verification system work! I built a 0-999,999 number generator and connected it with my database using my freshly made API (which will soon be the reason for my nightmares).

I then built an email template with HTML and connected the code variable to it. That's the moment of truth, and at the end, it worked as expected! I sent my first verification email.

If I want to send verification codes, I'll need a database to keep them in. That's the first standoff against true backend.

I originally made an SQL database, but on the same day, I switched to PostgreSQL.

I focused on the onboarding experience. I created an AWS account and learned more about the emailing system. It's not perfect, but it will have to do the trick for now.

It's challenging to understand how it works, but eventually, I managed to send my first email in the sandbox environment.

I sketched up some UI ideas in drawing software, then I built an Expo-based React Native project. On that day, I created the outline of the app with a navigation bar and tabs for the desired functions.

The work continued for a few days.

It's the day when everything started. I decided that I want to make my own application and build something that my beloved community deserves.

The project was originally named "Furz." I started VS Code for the first time in a while and created a new project. It's the beginning of the project that will change the furry fandom forever.