For the past two years, I’ve been teaching myself how to code. I’m one of those people who realized a bit too late that they’re following the wrong career path. Late enough to switch degrees and start over. But unlike most of those people, I was able to do something about it.
The internet is truly man’s greatest invention. For anybody wanting to soak in some knowledge, there’s so so much to learn on it. So taking advantage of that, I downloaded books, watched Harvard lectures, and took free courses on Udacity. Pretty soon I made some Android apps and my love for programming intensified.
But it wasn’t easy. All that information is scattered and none of it generic.
If you want to find code that works you go to Stackoverflow or GitHub. Both are great resources, but neither are welcoming to a self-learning developer. Stackoverflow has reputation barriers and all of it’s data is in response to specific questions. GitHub I still haven’t figured out how to use.
So using my newfound web programming skills after attending a course, I set to creating a solution:
thiscodeworks.com — a place to save code snippets that work.
It’s kind of like Pinterest meets Github Gists — but way simpler to use. My hope is that as it continues to grow, it’ll become a repository of all code. How do I implement a live search bar on my website? Here you go. How do I make a splash screen in Android? Here’s the solution. Just copy and paste the code into your editor.
Features of the site include:
- Search and bookmark code snippets submitted by other users in the community.
- Compile snippets on a project board for app ideas.
- Save code snippets in a private online database.
Best part? It’s all free. This is what it looks like:
I’ve been working like mad on it every weekend and finally feel like it’s stable and ready to be shared with the world (plus point of all that hard work was winning Pioneer.app!)
How to save code snippets online
You can save code snippets in one of two ways:
- A single code snippet
- Multiple code snippets in a steps-like format
Because many people browsing the site are learning developers, I wanted to make it really easy for them to implement the code they find on the site. In a mission to keep the site as simple as possible, I initially stuck with a single snippet format, but eventually realized that oftentimes one is not enough to get something done.
That’s when I got to work creating a tutorial style format to save more than one code snippet. Kind of like this one someone made for creating custom arrays in Android.
You also have the option of saving code snippets privately or publicly. If your snippet doesn’t hold any sensitive information, I’d encourage you to share it in the public domain. You could help the next frustrated programmer searching for the solution online.
Copy code snippets
Making it easy to copy code snippets was the first feature I worked on in the site. I personally am always copying code from around the internet to paste into Atom. Which is why instead of wasting time selecting text and then pressing buttons, I’ve made it easy by adding copy to clipboard buttons to get the code in an instant.
Bookmark code snippets
Code snippets in the public sphere can be bookmarked and added to your collection. This makes it easy for you to compile not only your own code, but that of other users in the community.
Create project boards
After winning Pioneer, I got a lot of feedback on my site. One that stood out to me was creating project boards. A place to collect code snippets for an idea, project or application. I thought it was a great idea and got straight to work. I think developers will find it really useful to create collections of interesting snippets that they can reference in future projects.
The website is up and running, but I’m always working on ways to make it better. If you have some suggestions or found a bug, please let me know on the contact form!
Sign up and start saving code today.
Happy coding!
Please visit: thiscodeworks.com
