Yesterday I read an article posted on Lobsters about Cross-Checking. I’d never heard that term before, but I definitely understood the message. It was, in an oversimplified summary, building minimum viable solution or at least knowing what it could be.
I am currently working on a log management tool. It’s primarily for me to use, but now that I am I figured why not build it for other people to use as well. I mentioned in a post recently that I was going to put in what effort and energy I could when I could and had the motivation.
One thing that kind of pushed me to do was building the minimal solution. I don’t have the time, energy, or motivation to overbuild. My original use case used a command-line interface, but I figured other people might prefer a web-based interface they didn’t have to compile themselves. Here’s a secret: I really don’t enjoy writing web frontends. It isn’t the javascript so much. That’s just programming. It’s actually not at all bad when using Hotwire. But CSS… the effort of designing a page and laying it out beautifully with perfect positioning on different devices and picking colors and fighting with alignment. It’s a headache.
But does a minimum solution need CSS? Yeah, I don’t think so either. If people get turned away because my web application looks bad, then that’s a bummer. It’s not a full-on business enterprise right now anyway. But if people like the application so much that they use it despite the rough, bare-bones interface? Well, maybe I’ve hit on something solid.^[Also, I just realized that’s totally what Rob Walling was talking about in Start Small, Stay Small. Good Book. Check it out.]
So, anyway, now I feel a lot better about my lazy decision to not put CSS in a web application. Also, Mouseion is coming soon to make log management for tiny applications accessible. I’ll post when it’s available.