My first Web project

I started learning Python in 2010. It was not long after Google App Engine became publicly available. I loved the fact that I could deploy an app to “The Cloud” and run it there for free.

What’s the best way to learn a new programming language? Of course it’s to build a Todo list app, right? I chose a slightly different approach. I built a Web app to fight bicycle theft in my home town Riga, Latvia. It was very common to buy used bikes from private persons. Everybody knew that it’s very likely that the bicycle you’re buying might have been stolen. But there was no way to check that. Police didn’t care much either.

The app was free and it became relatively popular over time. People were posting their stolen bicycles. I got some press for free and some people approached me to collaborate on the project. I created a Twitter account that would automatically post a bicycle that was stolen (or found). Entire project was in Latvian. Interesting that the Twitter account still has 153 followers!

But for the reasons I don’t recall, I abandoned the project. It was probably due to the fact that I moved to live in Berlin, Germany and my priorities changed.

This not only was my first project in Python but also it was the first Web application I’ve ever built. Source code is still available on my github.com account. Some of this code makes me cringe, but also it brings some good memories about how much simpler some things were back then.