Realization
Because three great weeks in a row would’ve been too good to be true - this past week, rather than building a new iteration of Dub (v0.03), I jumped into working on Data Persistence with Anupam since it is the last functional unlock we need in order for Dub to be usable, and hopefully incredibly valuable, as an everyday tool for using blockchains.
Thus, there is sadly no realization to share here beyond a lesson painfully learned:
validate ALL key product requirements together as one
For the past several months, the framework of experiments has empowered us to build a browser more modularly (and at a pace of shipping weekly!) however a most of our functional validation has been done step-by-step, and largely in isolation. Of course, there’s been some larger-scale planning on how components of our browser should fit together once built - but we’ve also been blessed with some surprises and grand challenges. Queue Data Persistence.
We’d built a wonderfully functional Data Structure for Dub just through trial, error, and iteration. Our most recent version of Dub does most of the things that we want it to do - but it forgets everything and starts anew once the app is re-opened. We’ve always known this, and always viewed Data Persistence as a save-it-for-later feature. Well, later is now, and we probably shouldn’t have saved this one for later.
Through further evaluation, Core Data (Apple’s framework for Data Persistence) relies on an Object Graph and relationship-based approach to data structures. Dub’s wonderfully functional Data Structure is not built like that. And so, after our recent final_final_final structural changes to our MVP for Dub - we have the opportunity (or rather, the requirement) to make some final_final_final_final core changes. I can’t say I’m enthused by this, but I am excited to complete this piece of Dub and begin evangelizing Dub more broadly and building a better product alongside our community. More there soon ;)
Next Steps
For the next week, I’ll be collaborating closely with Anupam to patch-up Dub to be a Data Persisting beast of a browser. I’ll be building the Views while Anupam crafts the Models. I also hope to support Pavan in scaling-up brand, marketing, and community. If being a Founder is about wearing a bunch of different hats - software development is my ill-constructed trucker hat that I wear just to get the job done - so I’m quite excited to jump back into work where I feel a bit more competent and confident.