#Community

Welcome to the 5th post in the Fun Weekend Projects series - where I share cool project ideas that you can build over a weekend. These projects are a great way for you to improve your coding skills while having fun in the process.

This is a guest post by Mathias Fontain, the creator of the https://nothingg.space. What I loved about this project is that, despite the minimalist concept, the website has all the essential features needed to be a SaaS application, including authentication, payments, and testing.

Here’s what Mathias has to say about their experience building this project:

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I recently took on a project called Nothingg - literally building a full-stack web app from scratch with no specific idea in mind. I started with the frontend, using Vue.js and Pinia for state management, since that’s where I’m most comfortable. For the backend, I went with Node.js and Express, aiming for a setup that worked both locally and on a shared server. I spun up a basic PostgreSQL database on my machine and my Uberspace server (highly recommend them!), then started adding API endpoints. With that foundation in place, I could keep building more endpoints and updating the database structure as I went.

Testing the API endpoints was a bit of a pain at first, but it’s totally worth it in the long run. I also wanted to see how payment systems work, so I integrated Stripe - and surprisingly, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Most of what I needed to know came from the Full Stack Open course by the University of Helsinki, which is completely free and a great resource. I also leaned on ChatGPT for quick problem-solving, which saved me tons of time - it’s often faster than Googling!

The app works now, but there’s still plenty on my to-do list. Next up: adding proper migrations so my local, test, and production databases stay in sync. Moral of the story? You don’t need a groundbreaking idea to start your first full-stack app. Even building "nothing" is a challenge worth taking on!

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This project is a perfect example of how even a simple idea can lead to an amazing learning experience. Projects like Nothingg are a fantastic way to grow your technical skills. Remember, you don’t need a revolutionary idea to start building, take inspiration from Mathias and see where your coding adventure takes you.