Today I’m excited to announce a little side project I have been working on called the Web Idea Forge! I spent some time putting this together for two reasons:
- I wanted to have a public place where I could put the massive backlog of ideas I’ve been hoarding for the last couple of years.
- I wanted to give those of you asking “what should I build” a few ideas!
Why?
So, I realize that this isn’t some groundbreaking app idea. In fact, this has just been a collection of notes that I’ve been keeping for a while. Just like my Steam backlog though, I’d rather endlessly hunt for a new idea for a project than build anything in my notes.
Project based learning works
I don’t know if you knew this, but actually building things, is way more effective than watching endless amounts of tutorials. I know, I know, crazy idea, but it’s true. None of the ideas you’ll find on the Web Idea Forge have a step-by-step tutorial, but you’ll find a description of the idea and some of them might have suggestions on tech you could use.
Could is important here. None of the suggestions are meant to be prescriptive. I want you (or whoever is building these ideas) to use whatever you feel most comfortable with. Or, if you’re interested in building something to learn some new tech, then go for it!
I also wanted to build something
It’s been a while since I built something outside of work. Maybe it was burn out, or maybe is was just a general lack of interest. No matter the reason, other than the occasional update to my site, or maybe toying with an idea in a codepen, I just haven’t been interested in building anything.
I hated that. I knew that at one point, I loved to code. Most people that know me well know how much I love video games, but when I was first learning to code, it quickly became a passion that far exceeded my love for games. I wanted to get back to that. I knew there was a part of me that loved the creative outlet that coding provided, and I knew, based on my notes, that I still had a ton of ideas. I just needed something to reignite that spark.
So what’s next?
There are still some things I would like to update.
More ideas
I plan to continue to update the app with more ideas as I think of them, but I’d also love to add a form for others to submit ideas. Obviously, this means that those ideas would be free for anyone to take and build, and I’m not sure how those rights work. I also don’t have a good plan for moderation right now, so until I get that all sorted out, feel free to open an issue or a pr on the repo! I’d love to see what crazy ideas you all have.
Tag matching
I added some basic tags to the ideas, but they don’t really do anything as of right now. Ideally, they’d allow you to find other ideas with similar tags in the future, but I didn’t really want to waste time on that right now. If no one ends up using this but me, it would be pretty pointless.
I’m sure there will be more things that I can think of adding down the line, but that’s all that I can think of right now. I hope at least a few of you find this useful, and I hope it helps you find something fun to build!
Until next time. Cya nerds. 👋