Meta Tour

All right. GM, GA, GE everybody. Welcome to what's going to be another great DevNTell. So if you didn't know, DevNTell is a 30-minute window for members of the DAO to showcase something they're passionate about or been working on. This can be an awesome project you've been working on, demonstrating new testing best practices, automation goodies, smart contracts, how to structure a project, etc. Basically, if you've got a passion for something, this is your opportunity to share with the community. And today, I am excited to introduce to you Afoma, who will be giving her overview of her project, Meta Tour. And before we begin, just as a fun fact, tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of DevNTell. So can you believe it? It's been one year. It's crazy. But as I said, ecstatic to have Afoma here. Afoma, take it away.

All right. Good evening. My name is Afoma Orji. I'm from Nigeria. I'm a frontend developer, technical writer, and developer advocate. I'm a contributor at Women Build Web3 DAO and Developer DAO, and I also contribute as a Graph advocate at the Graph Advocates DAO. I've been in tech for quite some time, but I only got serious with it a few months ago. So in order to solidify my stand in tech and break free from tutorial hell, I decided to build a project for the first time in my life. And most importantly, I also decided to build something that appealed to me personally. So I built Meta Tour. I built this app, an app that will be easy for me and some of my friends to easily navigate across Web3. So I'll be sharing my screen just to give us a tour around Meta Tour.

So yes. Um, so what is Meta Tour? So Meta Tour is a simple go-to application that functions as a pocket map to regularly visited links by Web3 enthusiasts and users. It's still in progress. So for the meantime, you can navigate through some DAOs here, through Web3 schools, Web3 grants, and Web3 jobs. And finally, some NFT marketplaces. So many other features are yet to be added. I'll be adding them as soon as possible. This app is still a Web2 app, and I intend making it a Web3 application. I don't know how to go about it yet, so I intend getting more ideas from friends and the Web3 community in general on features that you would want me to add and improve upon. So I am open to answering as much questions as possible and receiving feedback from you. Before I conclude, I would like to say that the stack I used in building this app is ReactJS and vanilla CSS, and I deployed it to Vercel. So that's all for the demo.

Excellent. So if I understand correctly, this is basically like a big page of Web3 bookmarks, right? Like if anyone was to click one of those in the drop-down, would they be taken to that particular site?

Well, yes, yes, they would. So this is supposed to take us to OpenSea for the marketplaces. Then for the DAOs, because I didn't have the website of all the DAOs, I made it in such a way that the links would direct people to their Twitter handles for the DAOs and some of the schools because at the time I built it, they were still in progress, but they already had their Twitter account. So the ones that had the links ready were the marketplaces and the grants and also the Web3 jobs. But then the Web3 schools and then the DAOs, I used the Twitter handles.

Nice. So you mentioned that you were in tutorial hell. Just how long were you going through tutorials and could you kind of speak on which ones you were looking through?

Oh yes, okay, like I can't... it was so embarrassing that I couldn't actually tell people my duration of experience as a frontend developer because my journey has been off and on and has been laden with endless consumption of tutorial content without even remembering what I had earlier learned. Like I've been in tech for like about two years now, but I just keep watching videos and watching videos without building something. I've learned JavaScript, I also tried learning C#, and then when I got into Web3, I started with Solidity and then later on Rust. But then I wasn't building anything, I was just watching videos and it wasn't productive for me. So I just decided to go back to the basics, go back from scratch and then start to build this so that I can now start improving on it and then adding more features to it.

Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, it's... sorry, go ahead.

No, no.

I was just going to say, I've been there in terms of that tutorial hell and watching videos and not actually doing anything. So I relate with you in this way and it's very awesome to see you actually taking the initiative to go and build. And we have a couple of questions in here. So Ahmed asked, could you repeat what tech stack you used to build this?

Oh yeah, sure. I used React, React and I also used vanilla CSS. At the time when I was building this app, I didn't know about Next.js and I didn't know how to use it. But I just watched some videos on Next.js two weeks ago and it actually was very easy, so I'll be integrating it into this application. So I just used ReactJS and then I used pure CSS for it and I deployed it to Vercel.

Nice. And there's also a great follow-up question to this is: how long did it take you to develop it and did you do it alone? This is from Rocio Gonzalez Toral in the chat.

Okay, it's quite embarrassing, my answer is quite embarrassing because it took me long to build because literally when I was building it, it was as if I was actually empty. So I was wondering, what was the point of all the videos I'd been watching for years? Because it was just as if I was very new, I was quite new into programming. So it took me... let's say about two months to build, to do this. And because I had hardcoded these things that are inside the navbar, so I had to start researching and finding some things and then the designs and all that. The rest of the application took me like about four months max. It was quite embarrassing so I don't really like saying it because I know that people that are actually good at this should finish it in less than a month.

Hey, but I don't think it's correct to compare yourself to everybody else because you're on your own journey and you are enjoying... you want to enjoy what you build, right? So you don't want to have to rush. But what you did here is awesome and echoing what Kemp said, it's really cool. So do you have any plans in terms of what you want to do next with it? I know you mentioned you wanted to integrate Web3 somehow, someway.

Yes, yes, I... currently now, it's still a Web2 application and I want it to be a Web3 application. So I don't know how to go about it because I learned that adding a connect wallet button and enabling people to sign in to an application with their wallet doesn't automatically make it a Web3 project. So I ditched that idea because I initially added a connect wallet button. I also added a claim NFT button on the page, but then I felt like maybe I didn't see the need for it. So I didn't see the need for it. Maybe if people tell me to go ahead with it, then I'll go ahead with it. But as to how to go about making it a full Web3 project, I don't know how to go about that, so I'm just open to ideas and suggestions and feedback from the community and then I'll hopefully reach that.

For sure. There is one suggestion... sorry, go ahead.

No, no, I'm done.

Was there anybody else that was asking a question? Oh, maybe it was just my voice. But I was going to mention that in the chat, Don mentioned that you can look to explore Fleek, which is the Web3 equivalent of Vercel, which allows you to deploy your app to IPFS, for example. So even though technically you wouldn't have a sign-in with Ethereum button per se, but deploying it on IPFS makes it a dApp. So that's something you can go down the rabbit hole with.

Okay, wow. Okay, I've noted it down.

And another thing you could look towards is storing your bookmarks on decentralized storage, so whether that's Filecoin or Arweave like it's on the screen now. That could also be like a next step you could look towards.

Okay, okay. So storing the bookmarks to Arweave, right?

Yeah, that could be something you look to.

Yes, yes, I would. Thank you. I've noted it.

And I guess, is this project currently open source? And if so, is there anything you would foresee Developer DAO helping you out with in terms of building out your vision or a little too early to say?

Um, yeah, it's actually open source because it's public on my GitHub. But then I want to submit it as a hackathon project, so I don't know if I can submit an open source project as a hackathon project. But if it's possible, I would love to submit it as a hackathon project. But if it isn't going to be allowed, then I don't know, I might make it personal for the meantime before deploying to open source. I just want to see that maybe I just submitted a project for a hackathon at least for the first time in my life.

Yeah, that would be awesome. And I mean, some hackathons allow you to progress on an existing project, but others don't. But if they do, you could look to those suggestions on how to integrate Web3 as the hackathon part of the project so to speak. But yeah, there's lots of different things you could look to explore with here. I guess I've spoken quite a bit. Are there any questions from the crowd or comments?

Yes please, I'm open to any questions or feedback from anyone so far.

Hi, how are you, Afoma? My name is Miguel and I really like your project. I really think that you're doing a great job by learning and building things. I don't think you should say that you're ashamed of your work, I think that everyone is on their own journey and you're doing a great job. Congratulations.

Wow, thank you so much, Miguel. I really appreciate this. It's quite encouraging to hear this from you. You know, I built this project a few months ago, like I was done with it. I intended to submit it for a hackathon. But then maybe I guess everybody's first project always feels like their best project at that time, at the time when they build it. So when I built it, I thought I had built something exceptionally good and I was just telling everybody about it and I was telling my friends I was going to submit it as a hackathon entry. So when I now got to look at other people's hackathon projects, just few days before the deadline, I was mind blown at what they had built and it discouraged me and I didn't go ahead in submitting the application. So it dampened my spirit but then I now talked about this on Twitter and many people encouraged me to just deploy it and show it off maybe to a few friends just and get feedback from them instead of hiding the project.

Yeah. I mean, there's always this mantra of building in public and sharing what you build, no matter exactly... learn in public. This is the way. And it's how a lot of people actually have found success in Web3. I'm just repeating what Kemp said. But yeah, it's excellent and you should 100% continue the charge and keep building away regardless of what you may perceive anybody really thinks. So it's all in the name of learning and the more you iterate, the more that app will start to grow and you'll also start to grow yourself. So 100% sentiment with Miguel, just keep on rocking.

Thank you so much.

For sure. Anybody else questions? Just taking a look at the chat. No other questions from the crowd here. Oh, sorry. Yes, Ahmed also had a suggestion where you can add some paragraphs below when the users choose something before they are referred to the website. So I think what he means is you add like a little description of what that particular topic is, if I'm not mistaken.

Okay, description on the page. Yes, okay, okay, fine, I will. Thank you very much.

And a Twitter share button. To Kemp's point, and your handle to show, to give yourself credit for your work. Exactly. So there you go, we already gave you like another quarter's worth of work. Mob programming, that's right. Yes, fren programming is best. Well, I guess we have about 10-ish minutes left. If there are no further questions from the crowd, sold. And with that, Afoma, thank you so much for coming on and it was wonderful to see Meta Tour live. It was awesome. We did fren programming, as Kemp mentioned, and gave you a whole bunch of new avenues to go down to continue to expand the app here. Lovely job again, sharing the sentiments of the crowd.

Honestly, thank you so much. I'm really, really overwhelmed with the compliments and the support from everyone. I didn't even know that this DevNTell was going to turn out this well and I'm actually grateful for the support from my friends here at Developer DAO. It's quite encouraging for someone that is starting out in tech or is already in tech but is not yet sure of what he or she is doing to have a supportive community. I think it can't be overemphasized, so I'm actually very, very grateful for this session and for this community at large. It means a lot to me. Thank you so much.

100%. 100%. And we pride ourselves on just that. So love to see it as well. And with that, just want to mention that I'll be dropping the POAPs for this event in this chat as well as general. And Afoma, I will be giving you your special kudos for being a speaker today. And alpha: watch out for a code giveaway tomorrow because like I mentioned at the beginning of the session, tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of DevNTell. So we gotta celly. So be on the lookout from the DevNTell official Twitter handle on that. And with that, want to wish you a wonderful rest of your day, a happy weekend, and we will catch you back here next week. Cheers gang.