Remember One Another » Progress

Almost to the finish line

David Chandler — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:56:55 +0000

Sorry for the long silence. I have been coding furiously to deploy a decent-looking (and functioning) public beta, and I’m finally down to the wire. Expect a first look next week. No matter how hard I try to account for unknowns, learning curve, etc., in software estimation, I always “misunderestimate.” If you’ve been around software development at all, you will recognize this as a universal phenomenon. I think it’s due in part to the fact that if we had known at the start of a project what we know by the end, we would never have started! Because software is less tangible, than, say, building a bridge, many folks (including developers) think, “how hard can it be?” Perhaps we should think about software more like building bridges. It takes months and years to lay a proper foundation, pour the pillars, raise the beams, pave the road. And in software, you’re almost always working with something new, and therefore have to throw the first one away. True to form, I’ve written most of ROA twice now.

There are currently over 7000 lines of code in my “little” project. I did not see that coming. The learning curve was steeper than I thought, although in retrospect it was silly to think I would be as comfortable with a brand new platform within a few months as I am in areas where I have many years of experience. And the amount of code required overall is much greater than I thought. Almost every week, I think, “Finally, I’m done building foundation, I’ve got patterns I can copy, and now I can just turn the crank.” And then I find some new wrinkle that requires still more infrastructure code. By the way, I’m really, really pleased with my latest bit of infrastructure: a queuing, batching, caching dispatcher just like the one Ray Ryun mentioned in his Google I/O presentation last year. It solves architectural problems in GWT that I’ve been wrestling with since Day One.

But I digress.

I have enjoying watching a bit of the Winter Olympic games these past couple weeks, and have especially admired the athletes’ determination to “keep on keeping on.” Starting is easy. Finishing is HARD. I struggle daily, sometimes hourly, with discouragement and motivation to finish. It’s so much bigger than I thought, and I’m only one man. I can’t do it by myself, but with God, all things are possible. Lord, teach me to rely on the Holy Spirit to supply what is lacking in me.

Startups are quiet

David Chandler — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 04:43:54 +0000

Do you know what it sounds like inside a one-man startup?

The sound of one hand clapping.

I hear bits and pieces from a few friends, but basically, nobody knows about ROA yet. Which is because I haven’t done an effective job communicating, of course. Which is due to two major factors:

A blog is the wrong format to communicate with most of my friends and family. Only one or two friends use a blog reader like Google Reader. The rest use email. I haven’t wanted to spam everyone, so I haven’t maintained a ROA mailing list. Thankfully, WordPress has recently solved this problem for me. You can now sign up to get these updates via email (see the sidebar on the left).
I’m a perfectionist. I haven’t wanted to say much about ROA until I could point you to a beautiful, polished Web site where you can sign up for yourself, your church, etc. But it takes time and money to get there, and meanwhile, well, it’s quiet. It’s not just that I’m a perfectionist. There are real hazards to releasing something too early, especially something public and free.

Given that my progress has been much slower than I would like (it’s software, what can I say?), and given how quiet it’s been, I have been tempted to give up. But I’m not giving up, for two reasons, yea, three:

I was and am convinced that God has called me to this work. He has given me the ability (however slow I may be) and the vision for it, and by His grace, I will complete it.
Christ’s Church could really use this tool just now. Almost daily now, I think, “Sure would have been nice to put that in ROA.” Emailed prayer requests, our church directory, upcoming church events: all are planned for ROA. Just…have…to…get…there. Incidentally, also daily I receive my daily prayer list via email from the beta version of the software and I feel selfish for not letting everyone in on it yet.
If I didn’t finish what I started, I would never be the same. Even if no one ever signs up, all the time and money I’ve spent on ROA are not wasted…IF I finish. If I don’t finish, it’s all a waste. If I don’t finish, I would forever question my own ability to complete anyone’s Web / database application. If I don’t finish, then I have given up on the strongest sense of divine calling I’ve had in my entire life. The cheesy motivational posters are right on this count: the only true failure is a failure to finish the job. This is a biblical idea: God doesn’t call us to succeed. He doesn’t call us to do what only He can do. He calls us to obey, to be faithful, to FINISH! (As you may have guessed, I’m writing mainly for myself here–I use my own blog as a motivational tool).

So what’s holding it up? Lots of little stuff. Putting up a Web page is one thing. Offering a Web service to the public is quite another. Think sign up, sign in, sign out, learn more, join a group, create a group, subscribe, unsubscribe, not to mention terms & conditions, and of course, pay / donate. And then a mandatory upgrade comes out on some critical component, and I lose a day getting the new version working. When you’re already overdue and struggling to go live in 30 days, a lost day really hurts. There’s no one to share it with, no one to clear the jam so you can move on.

And of course, I’ve been wearing a lot of hats: front-end Java coder, back-end Java coder, DBA, HTML / CSS coder. Don’t get me wrong–I love doing all this stuff, but when I’m working on the back end, there’s no one working on the corresponding front end. Which means everything moves…slowly.

I’ve tried soliciting volunteers; however, most capable folks already have full-time jobs so aren’t able to contribute much. I could go faster if I hired someone, but can’t afford it out of my own resources. Should I try to raise funds? I’m incorporating as a not-for-profit organization for this purpose, but again, I’d like to have something up and running before I ask for money. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem.

Which brings me to my challenging quote of the day:

Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention.

– Mark Batterson (Chase The Lion)

I’m there! ROA is destined to fail without divine intervention.

THEREFORE, would you pray for me, for perseverance and WISDOM at this juncture? I covet your prayers.

Your Web / database developer for Christ,

David Chandler

Introducing blog.RememberOneAnother.com

David Chandler — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:58:39 +0000

ROAblog now has an official address: blog.RememberOneAnother.com.

Unfortunately, I learned I cannot host the top-level site here (RememberOneAnother.com) without changing my domain’s nameservers to WordPress. But this would prevent me from pointing other addresses in the domain to the Google AppEngine servers. Otherwise, I think I could have made it work using a custom CSS and the flexible Sandbox theme. So I’ll be using Google AppEngine to host the main site instead. That might be easier, anyway, as the CSS would have gotten pretty messy. Sometimes you just need to be able to edit a page…

ROAblog gets a facelift

David Chandler — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:20:00 +0000

I finally decided to host the ROA Web site on WordPress.com for the excellent content management system and great selection of widgets. Not to mention I’m tired of maintaining servers! In preparation for the imminent public launch, I shelled out $15 for the custom CSS option and modified the Digg 3 theme with the ROA logo. Also, I discovered that ROA has had an email subscription widget all along, which is great for ROA fans who do not use a blog reader like Google Reader. I’ll point the RememberOneAnother.com here shortly, and we be rollin’.

The daily email is really helpful!

David Chandler — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:40:19 +0000

I’ve been receiving the daily emails for several days now, and it does exactly what I had hoped: remind me to pray for specific people each day. Here’s a sample:

Your daily ROA for December 1, 2009

My Friends
==========================
Andrew

My Family
==========================
Rebekah
Anna
Karen

DI Bible Study
==========================
Hong

I don’t have a lot of people / requests in my dev database yet, but even with a minimal start, it’s already been a blessing to my prayer life, and I trust it will be to yours, too.

First daily email sent!

David Chandler — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:00:31 +0000

This was an extra special Thanksgiving for me. It was to great to see my parents, siblings, nephews, nieces, and grandparents again, and to top it off, on the day after I successfully received the first daily ROA prayer email. My brother-in-law and I were sitting at my folks’ kitchen table, laptops facing each other, while he worked on his family’s Christmas DVD and I struggled with a couple thorny technical issues that were holding up the daily ROA email. When I announced triumphantly that I had gotten it to work, Fred said simply, “Good–I was praying for you!” It is a tremendous blessing to know that God is interested in the details of our lives, even technical problems! I have seen this almost daily since I started the project.

It should not surprise anyone that a project devoted to helping Christians pray more effectively owes its entire existence to prayer, as it most certainly does. The Lord has given me many gifts, but I have felt myself again and again coding beyond my natural ability on this project. The continued motivation and ability to “keep on keeping on” is His doing. What great things God is capable of when we ask Him! I do not possess the resources to pull off a project like this. Some well-meaning folks would say, “no, you need to believe in yourself.” But there is Someone so much greater to believe in!

With man, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

Matt. 19:26, NIV

This realization only further fuels my desire and motivation to help Christians become awesome at praying. I am more convinced than ever that prayer is where the battle is, and I am almost giddy with the excitement of being a part of what God is doing through prayer. Thank you for praying!

Week 11 ALREADY?

David Chandler — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:56:23 +0000

The past week feels like it has really flown by, no doubt in part to my very earnest effort and desire to get the daily email going. I came very close and might have made it had it not been for a thing of beauty in code that commanded my attention yesterday and a very weird thing that prevented me today from successfully using the thing of beauty to send out daily emails.

In addition, I’ve not wanted to start sending the daily prayer list emails without a way for users to disable this feature. That requires a new page, a new field in the database, and everything in between. Worst of all, it requires me to make a decision about UI design, which is paralyzing for me, but I will try to just put something out there and rework it later.

The great news is that I did resolve the very weird thing and have been successfully sending out admin emails to myself, so all the underlying pieces are now in place to do the daily prayer list email. I’m more impressed than ever with Google AppEngine (ROA’s hosting platform). It’s not being noticed much in the business press, I don’t think, but I’m convinced it is a game-changer that will open up a whole new world of custom and niche applications.

As always, thank you for praying. For a while there, I didn’t think I was going to make it, but the Lord has given me grace to persevere and to keep chasing the lion…

Getting close now

David Chandler — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:50:49 +0000

I completed a major code refactoring today to separate the admin UI from the public Web app UI. The admin UI is needed to manage the daily email queues, and I’ve been putting off building it, but the shell is now in place and we’re scooting along. This was huge as I was very discouraged earlier today, but the Lord gave grace in the form of a burst of coding and problem-solving energy. Thank you for praying.

Progress!

David Chandler — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:58:03 +0000

After much hand-wringing, I have finally managed to get Daily ROA working in the Web app. This is the core of RememberOneAnother. It collates prayer requests from all your prayer lists into a single daily prayer list. Currently, all prayer lists default to weekly rotation, which you cannot change (yet). You can, however, shuffle each list.

In order to try it out, you’ll need to delete any existing prayer lists and create new ones.

Try it out at http://dmcsandbox.appspot.com. Don’t spend too much effort here in the sandbox, as you’ll need to recreate your lists when the app gets its real URL. But do try it out and let me know what you think. I know the UI needs a lot of prettying up. Volunteers welcome!

Call for volunteers

David Chandler — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:10:50 +0000

If you know Java Web development and would like to learn GWT and Google AppEngine, I’d like to talk with you. I am underwater on this project and could really use a coding partner to keep things moving. Please shoot me a note at dchandler ‘at’ turbomanage d0t com.