Doing projects to learn is great, doing it with someone is a lot better ;)
Tags: career, webdev, showdev, react
Published: 2020-12-08 16:36:26

![shoppingify gif](https://camo.githubusercontent.com/bf3d4a5d485d22d008f8703e77a3b80cb8da3157fd4374c672963c55b9df9575/68747470733a2f2f7265732e636c6f7564696e6172792e636f6d2f747275636d616368696e2f696d6167652f75706c6f61642f76313630323538363537312f73686f7070696e676966795f6465736b746f705f77746e35716d2e676966)

Before doing the Thullo challenge from [devchallenges.io](https://devchallenges.io/) which I wrote an article about [here](https://dev.to/ipscodingchallenge/continuing-my-learning-path-i-did-a-trello-clone-55el), I made the Shoppingify challenge. But for this one, I did not do it **alone**.

As a **self-taught developer** and because I was always working alone, 
I never felt the need to get a deeper understanding of Git. But that was before working with someone on a project ;).

I started posting a message on the [devchallenges.io](https://devchallenges.io) discord saying that I was looking for someone to make one of the FullStack challenges. [Anze](https://github.com/fajfara) who is a Frontend developer contacted me back and we start working on the [Shoppingify](https://devchallenges.io/challenges/mGd5VpbO4JnzU6I9l96x) challenge.

We both agreed that I would work on the Backend and the Frontend while Anze would work on the Frontend. Anze was in charge of organizing the project ( Jira, Github ) and we started to work pretty quickly.

As I was working on the backend on my own I decided to do it with **TDD with koa and Postgresql** ( using Knexjs ) for the database. We decided to do the front with **React + Tailwindcss and Recoil** for state management.

It's when I joined him for the Frontend that things became interesting ;). At first, as we worked on different Github repositories, we used this workflow for Github:

- Create an Issue on Github
- Create a feature branch
- Push to Github
- Make a pull request
- Merge the pull request

I didn't mention it, but we were communicating using discord most of the time or comments on Github for the code specific stuff.

It was my first time working with this workflow and **this is one of the benefits of working together**, I'm now more **organized** when I'm coding and **faster** too. I did the [Thullo](https://dev.to/ipscodingchallenge/continuing-my-learning-path-i-did-a-trello-clone-55el) project using this workflow too. You check the [Github Repository](https://github.com/ips-coding-challenge/challenge_thullo) of the Thullo project ;).

When things started to be more complicated and also because I wanted to learn that, we begin to do **code reviews** before merging the code. That's something pretty interesting to do. Not only for the code but also in terms of communication. I have absolutely no problems to have my code criticized but I was not that comfortable to review his code. Mostly because we didn't know each other and because we were communicating in English ( I am French, he is Slovenian ). I didn't want to see my words be misinterpreted.

Finally, **everything went well**, we worked on the project for 2 months I think.

In conclusion, I think this is the project where I **learned the most**. I learned other ways to do things, a more complete way to use Git and Github, and communicating in English cannot hurt ;). 

If you only worked alone, try to **find some teammate to work with**. You will learn a lot, and maybe not what you think ;). 


You can find the project here: https://shoppingify.netlify.app/
Frontend Repo: https://github.com/Shoppingify/frontend
Backend Repo: https://github.com/Shoppingify/backend

A great Thanks to [Anze](https://github.com/fajfara) and Thanks for reading me.

Happy coding ;)