6 months of JungleDragon »

FERDY CHRISTANT - JAN 22, 2009 (11:14:24 AM)

It has been roughly 6 months since I first announced my idea for project JungleDragon. Time to discuss the progress so far. I tend to measure progress and success for this project in different ways:

1. The success of the JungleDragon web application itself

I can be short about this aspect, there is no success here, since it is not done yet. In fact, it will not be done for quite a while. I have no problem with that though, I knew from the start that this is a multi-year commitment and that it will not be an overnight success. In terms of development, I'm making slow but steady progress, which can be expected given my time restrictions (4 to 12 hours dev time per week).

2. Community success

The road to completion of JungleDragon is long, and it requires a large commitment and dedication on my behalf. Still, I do not see that road as a sacrifice to get to some kind of "reward" in the end. The road itself is a reward too. I intend to enjoy the whole experience, learn from it, and share it with you. So far, my JungleDragon undertaking has led me to write the following articles for the community:

More will be coming as the project progresses. I think we can call this an early success?

3. Personal success

On a personal level, the project really is a launch rocket for personal development. JungleDragon has contributed to my education in:

Advanced PHP development
The Code Igniter framework
Applying solid architecture and the MVC pattern in a large application
Web scalability
Database optimization
Unicode
Low level HTTP: headers, status codes, caching, .htaccess rules and such
Cloud storage integration (Amazon S3)
jQuery
Linux server administration (just the basics though)
Web security
Adobe Illustrator (to create the logo)
Captchas
Front-end profiling, performance optimization and debugging
Web design
Logo design
and more...

It also triggers me to read quite a few books (on web usability and scalability for example) and inspires me to join various communities, both technical (Code Igniter, Amazon S3) and non-technical (graphic design, usability, marketing).

On a personal level, I call JungleDragon a spectacular success. Never before have I learned so much in such a short timeframe. And then to realize, this is only the beginning...