As anyone doing any serious work with Java will be able to tell you, Maven, the software project management tool is not perfect. It is, however, extremely useful and seriously powerful. In a nutshell, it is a tool that lets you easily use 3rd-party libraries in your project while simplifying the build cycle with easily configured plugins that do things like execute unit tests, write metadata for, and package dependencies into one single, final (runnable JAR/WAR) artifact.
Up until a few weeks ago, I had been running this Wordpress multisite instance within the free tier of Google Cloud Platform, all while also serving play.kilumanga.com, using a virtual host configuration.
My single page application at play.kilumanga.com got a new addition last weekend. Like previous features, it’s not too complicated. Just about what one might expect from a night/weekend hobby project at a three-way tug-of-war for attention with a baby and household chores.
What started a few days ago as a desire to try coding something in JavaScript has now turned into a full-fledged single page application with major feature additions and changes happening almost daily. Seeing as it’s evolving so quickly, I thought I’d try writing a little about it, so that what it was won’t eternally be forgotten, except for an old commit buried in a private Git repository.
I have a passion for problem solving that almost parallels my desire to engineer software to solve those problems for me. Thus, today, I would like to talk about my efforts of learning how to solve a Rubik’s cube and engineering software to solve it for me.