Ask HN: Can you help me to come up with app ideas for my webdev portfolio?

#1

Post by rayalez » Mon, May 11, 2015, 5:20 PM UTC

Hey, everyone!

I'm learning web development(node/ember), and thinking about what apps should I build to practice, and I'm really stuck, I can't come up with anything that would be worth building.

Can you help me out? What do you do in these situations? Do you have any ideas for apps that you would like to see built?

Re: Ask HN: Can you help me to come up with app ideas for my webdev portfolio?

#2

Post by kaa2102 » Mon, May 11, 2015, 5:36 PM UTC

Check out w3schools.com to see snippets of code to do specific things. Sites like STackoverflow and PHP.net are also helpful if you get stuck trying to solve a common problem.

A major bonus and challenge is that the sky is the limits with development. On one hand, it's important to learn what you can do AND figure out how to break projects down into small bits and pieces.

Visuals HTML5, CSS Dynamic Visuals: Javascript, JSON, Node.JS Browser Storage: WebSQL, Local Storage Data Storage: SQL, MySQL Server-side scripting: PHP, ASP, Python, Ruby, Java, C++

Re: Ask HN: Can you help me to come up with app ideas for my webdev portfolio?

#3

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 11, 2015, 5:38 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Can you help me to come up with app ideas for my webdev portfolio?

#4

Post by Enzolangellotti » Mon, May 11, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

A simple game?

Re: Ask HN: Can you help me to come up with app ideas for my webdev portfolio?

#5

Post by jklein11 » Mon, May 11, 2015, 6:21 PM UTC

I think the conventional wisdom is to scratch your own itch. Figure out something that is annoying or difficult to do and then figure out a way that automating some of the steps could make your life easier. This could start as an awesome product to show employers or possibly a way to make a couple of bucks on the side.

Re: Ask HN: Can you help me to come up with app ideas for my webdev portfolio?

#6

Post by egg555 » Mon, May 11, 2015, 6:28 PM UTC

If its just for Portfolio building and practice do this: Code a client for any API (any really). Then crawl the site, do some interesting statistics and make them available as an interaktive Website/Chart. These projects are always fünf. And Ehen your just starting out the difficulty should be ok

(written from my mobile, so PLZ no grammar autocorrect hatte)

Re: Ask HN: Can you help me to come up with app ideas for my webdev portfolio?

#7

Post by bnejad » Mon, May 11, 2015, 6:58 PM UTC

Blog, CMS, Twitter clone, news aggregator(a la reddit, hn), stack overflow style q/a website, forum(like vbulletin).

Other options might be utilizing another companies API like the google maps api or similar.

Re: Ask HN: Can you help me to come up with app ideas for my webdev portfolio?

#8

Post by srameshc » Mon, May 11, 2015, 11:01 PM UTC

I would recommend building a Twitter clone if its just for learning and fun.

Re: Ask HN: Can you help me to come up with app ideas for my webdev portfolio?

#9

Post by redmaverick » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:36 AM UTC

For Portfolio and Practice:

1. Reddit Clone

2. Blog

3. To do List

4. Forums

5. Twitter Clone

Ideas for apps:(Variation of the above 5)

1. SnapTweets(Twitter Clone): Disappearing tweets, as soon as you receive a tweet, it starts self destructing in 10 seconds

2. Crowdbased TLDR(Reddit Clone): Yesterday on hn, someone complained about having to read a longgg article (The Marc Andreessen one). Wouldn't it be nice if we can upvote the best tldr to the top. That way we can all save time.

3. Task Predictor: I will log my efforts every hour on the UI. After a few days worth of data, your web app should start predicting the likelihood of me doing a task at any given moment. i.e Today, I am planning to write 1000 lines of code starting from 7:00 pm. Your app should notify me that (at 7:00 pm) the likelihood of me watching another episode of lost/prison break is 100%. This awareness should help break my current behavior pattern.