My 90 Minute Challenge - The Result

16 Feb 2012

I was sat around last night not really sure of what to do. I'd had a boring day and wasn't feeling motivated, so after going for a run and clearing my head, I decided to create a small challenge for myself - to build something cool within the next 90 minutes, a bit like a Hackathon but with a shorter time frame. It was pretty hard! Having to take something from a simple idea to a finished product in that time frame is tough, but there's something about being under the pressure of a short time frame that made it work. I didn't have time to worry if this colour was correct, or if that padding needed to be an extra pixel. It all comes down to, does it work? So here is what I came up with...

The Idea

So what idea did my brain manage to conjure up? Well it was something incredibly simple (which doesn't say a lot about me). It was a simple application where you can add items to a list, tick them off and remove them. Doesn't sound too difficult, but as I said, I only had an hour and 30 minutes to complete it (this includes running downstairs to grab multiple drinks). I think the idea came about from reading about Clear, the easily to do list app that was released for iPhone yesterday. I only realised this link after I had finished, but none the less, one must take inspiration from where ever they can get it.

The Result

OK, so you want to see what I see what I made? Well here is my Simple Notes application. Pretty cool right?? My chosen language for this was jQuery, something I have worked in for quite a while now and feel very comfortable using. All the code was handwritten, nothing stolen from other sources (what would be the point), but I did use the jQuery Cookie plugin to write the current to do list to a cookie. This acted as a method to save the list automatically so a user can close the window and return without losing any data.

I was really happy with what I'd manage to come up with in my 90 minute challenge. It actually worked!! Something that I was hoping for but didn't know I had the ability to do. I guess when you are forced to only work on it for 90 minutes, your focus sharpens and your mind works much faster. There are things I wanted to add (and eventually will) such as better transitions and better support for mobile devices, along with making it look half decent. Maybe even a simple user login so people can have their own personal space.

My Simple Notes application

There is a tutorial to come on how I made this!! Follow me on Twitter for updates @benhoIIand

It was suggested by Craig Reville that this could be turned into some sort of rebound competition, where you compete against several other people to create something amazing!! If your interested, drop me a comment below.