From No-Code Developer to "Professional Error Solver": My Journey of Building an Android App - #2

After countless hours of trial, error, and troubleshooting, I finally managed to get my app running on the virtual Android emulator. It was around 10:45 PM, and the moment I saw the app spring to life, I jumped—literally, three times—like I was on a trampoline. Fist in the air, grinning ear to ear, I couldn’t sit still.

But that was just step one. Sure, the app was up and running on the emulator, thanks to Visual Studio Code and the trusty auto-code generator, Cline. But the journey taught me one invaluable lesson: building an app is as much about learning what not to do as it is about getting things right.

?? Mistakes Are the Best Teachers

Being a complete rookie in the world of coding, I made my fair share of mistakes—some painfully obvious in hindsight. One of the most glaring ones? I underestimated the importance of version control.

In my day job as a finance professional, version control is second nature. When consolidating budgets, every revision is meticulously tracked to ensure nothing gets lost. Yet, somehow, I overlooked this concept entirely while building my app—until I ran into trouble, that is.

Enter GitHub, my new best friend. It’s the perfect tool for tracking every change and storing the last working version of your app. A single line of code uploads your changes, and if something goes haywire, another simple command can roll you back to the previous version. I learned this the hard way after repeatedly fixing the same page refresh issue.

Lesson learned: next time, version control from the start.

?? Key Learnings from My First App Build

1?? Start with a Plan: When I began building the app, I only had a vague idea of what I wanted. I figured I’d improvise as I went along.

Bad idea.

Next time, I’ll map out the entire flow—every screen, feature, and interaction—before writing a single line of code.

2?? Build the Basics First: Authentication was a nightmare. At one point, I locked myself out of my app entirely. The code refused to cooperate, errors kept looping back, and I was this close to giving up.

Persistence paid off eventually, but I’ve learned to prioritize foundational features like login and authentication early in the process.

3?? Don’t Get Stuck on Perfection: Every time I spotted something that needed fixing, I couldn’t resist tweaking it. But if I keep chasing perfection, this app will never see the light of day.

For now, it’s good enough, and that’s okay for a first version.

?? Next Steps: The Play Store

Testing the app on my Android phone has been enlightening. While it runs fine on the emulator, real-world testing revealed a major bug I’ll be fixing in the next couple of days. After that, I’ll tackle the final boss: uploading the app to the Google Play Store.

Do I know how to do that? Absolutely not.

Do I have YouTube and ChatGPT? Absolutely yes.

Once it’s live, I’ll share the QR code here for anyone curious to check out my first-ever attempt at app development.

? Final Thoughts

Building this app has been a challenging yet rewarding experience of my life.

Every mistake taught me something new.

Every fix was a small victory.

And every step forward reminded me that persistence is the ultimate superpower.

To all aspiring no-code developers out there: don’t be afraid to mess up. Mistakes are just lessons in disguise.

Stay tuned—I’ll be back with more updates soon. ??

#NoCode #AppDevelopment #LearningJourney #FlutterBeginner #AIForCoding