The Bookist reading tracker web app was conceived by Brian Barrow, a leader in the Free Code Camp SLC community, to help track and rate the books you've read. Think of it as an easier to use, simplified, mobile friendly version of the Good Reads web app. While I know it's unusual to put an "under-development" project on a portfolio website, I thought it' might be fun to update the details of the projects as they are being completed.

We started by discussing some technology options for the front & back end. Initially we decided on trying out a newer framework called FeathersJS. Feathers is a web-framework for creating real-time applications and REST APIs using JavaScript with Node.JS. After several days of trying to get FeathersJS to play nice with authentication through Auth0, we decided to part ways with Feathers and develop the back end with Node and Express using a PostgreSQL database. The API was developed first so we would be able to use it multiple front ends.

I am helping the team develop the React version of the app. My portion of the project started with the UX/UI design and getting a design system set up so we have some guidance for the developers on the project. Getting a solid design system down is super important to the overall development process. This will help keep everyone on track and take the guesswork out of the styling portion of the app. Nothing is worse than an app that looks like it's been styled by several different designers that aren't on the same page. In order to accomplish this we decided to use Tailwind CSS to style the project. The overall goal of the design was to strip out any extraneous elements/distractions and have a dead simple way to track your reading and rate the books you've already finished.

Once the design system was complete, I moved on to building out the login page. While several team members were working on the actual authentication process, I was getting the design system implemented on the main landing page for login and sign-up. As of this writing, the login and sign-up components have been styled and scaffolded out so we can start implementing the user authentication / creation.

So far this project has taught me quite a bit about the back end set-up and working with authentication. I've also learned a little about keeping accurate documentation so others can jump in to the middle of the project and get up and running in as little time as possible.