Category: Blogging

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Almost one year in, the fun begins

The Costs to Expect API is approaching the point where it includes all the standard and expected features; you can add items, edit, list, delete and summarise the data, all the features you would expect at a minimum from a basic Rest API.

This summer, the fun begins, almost one year after development began I get to start work on the non-standard features and start developing the Costs to Expect service.

It took a long time to get here, well, a year. One year ago, I had an idea; now there is a Rest API, three web apps that use the API and a shiny new website showcasing five years of data that we have collected.

I know what we have planned for the next couple of months, and I know the long term goals, it is going to be interesting to look back again in 12 months to see how much progress there was and how much we still have to do.

I’ll blog more about the specific features when I start development, during the summer, I expect progress will slow slightly as I spend time with my family.

Costs to Expect API – https://api.costs-to-expect.com
Costs to Expect Website – https://www.costs-to-expect.com
Costs to Expect on GitHub – https://github.com/costs-to-expect

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Year off

Eight weeks ago I concluded my 16th contract, yes, I have been contracting for a while, over ten years so far.

I enjoy contracting; I continually meet new people; additionally, by moving around, I have been fortunate enough to be exposed to numerous business domains, frameworks and tools.

We can’t ignore the elephant in the room, contracting pays well, especially when you have over 20 years of experience.

In April, my Wife had our second child, Niall. When we had our first child, we realised that the best way to provide the support my Wife needed was to take time off, there were so many positives with me providing the support rather than getting in professional help. Well, with Niall, we are going to do the same thing, I’m going to take at least a year off, primarily to help my Wife raise our brand-new son, secondly, to try and get the Costs to Expect service off the ground.

Costs to Expect is a project I had been considering for a while, during the summer I released the first version of the API; I plan to develop the MVP of the service during my time off.

Twelve months is not as long as you think, especially when you are a single developer. I’ve used Pivotal Tracker for years; it has become scarily accurate at predicting what I will be able to accomplish during a two-week sprint. I usually have two or three sprints worth of work in my backlog, according to Pivotal, it is going to be quite difficult to get enough of the service ready in 12 months, hopefully, if I plan well, I should be able to do it.