There’s something to be said for having a long-running development project. I can re-visit it from time to time, exercising new skills without having to do major analysis of the problem. I don’t get to program as much as I’d like, but I managed to over the break and now after as well.
The Fantastic Fiduciary Friend (the Triple-F) is a project that I have worked on since 2004. Tammy and I use it to track our expenses. It’s a MySQL database, with web services, a web app and a mobile app for iOS. It’s been a successful effort, and has undergone more revisions and changes of technology than you can shake a stick at. Every time I want to try something new, the FFF is the obvious choice. Just off the top of my head:
- Java Hibernate & Spring
- Dynamic HTML
- Symfony (1.x, then 2.2, then 2.7…)
- MySQL
- Dojo
- Responsive design (first attempt at mobile app)
- Django (didn’t work out)
- iOS development.
The mobile app has been especially successful, but it was starting to get dated. I had some ideas on how to streamline it, and I’ve put that into motion.
A key part of this rewrite was changing from using a UINavigationController as the basic metaphor, to using popovers (the transaction types is showing in the screenshot).
I’ve installed it on my phone and Tammy’s and we’ll see how it shakes out in real life.
Sounds interesting, but I think I would be lost.