Have you ever heard of a devlog? No? Check it out on Explorian.

A “devlog” refers to a documentation or journal of the development process, typically created by video game developers or software engineers, which includes updates, progress, challenges, and insights related to the project.

Software development is a journey. A journey that’s best traveled with companions. Fellow developers, fans, users, and anyone interested in your project. Join me on this adventure to share, create, and learn.

Welcome to the Explorian Devlog.

Why write a devlog?

The three main reasons are giving back, gaining clarity, and growth. Each would stand by itself; combined, they make a pretty good case.

Creating value for the community

I wish I had known about the concept of a devlog when I started my career. It would have tremendously sped up my learning. Being able to peer into the mind of someone with more experience is a gift. Over the years, I was able to do this many times, for which I am truly grateful. Now, I wish to give back. You’ll be able to see my thought process, the questions, the answers, the alternatives I considered, and the reasons behind these choices. I hope to give you value and insight into your growth.

This is a journey for all of us; while I have tremendous experience with some of these technologies, I am just discovering others. We will go astray, track back our steps, and start again fresh. That’s the beauty.

Thinking more clearly

Most people would benefit from writing to clean up their thinking. Articulating your thoughts is hard. If your thinking isn’t clear, jotting it down is even more challenging. I experienced this and found the process of writing dramatically improved my thinking. That’s part of why I am creating this devlog. Putting my thoughts down makes it easier to challenge and reason about them. It gives me clarity and hopefully helps you in the process.

You can read more about this idea here.

Reflect and improve

Okay, this one is selfish. I wish to come back to my decisions and review them over time. It is a good idea to re-evaluate decisions after some time and see how well you predicted the future.

Self-reflection helps you calibrate your mental model of the world.

What’s in a devlog?

Anything you encounter during software development. From ideas, research, and general principles to implementation details, bug hunts, operations, and monitoring.

Sneak peek into what’s coming

While there is no specific timeline or content roadmap, the following logs are sure to follow.

• The story behind Explorian
  • Why I started it, what’s the driving factor
  • The first steps I took and the initial PoC
  • Various discoveries I did to see if this is feasible
• High-level architecture and the decisions behind it
  • A bit of a spoiler, here is the stack: Python (flask, sqlalchemy, dramatiq), RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL
• The challenges of probabilistic systems
  • Considerable thought went into how to “fix” this “error”. Until I took a different perspective.
• Testing principles
  • Why and how I test and the choices behind it
• The backlog
  • What’s on the backlog
  • How I choose the next feature

Details might change, but the general ideas behind these episodes are rock solid. Stay tuned for the first one.