Hello again, world 👋

A little while after having kids, I mostly stopped doing side projects and posting on Twitter. Renovating a house, taking care of children, plus a full-time job will eat up most of your time. I didn’t have the surplus energy for much more.

I’ve been an iOS developer for ten years now, and before that, I worked for years on a desktop app. Nowadays, I mainly help teammates fix issues, interview, plan stuff, deal with releases or Continous Integration problems, deal with app review, or solve complex merge conflicts.

I have wanted to start a side project for a while, preferably an app I would use myself. I’m no business- or marketing genius, and I’ve read my fair share of stories about indie apps with zero users, so I should at least make sure it’ll get at least one user: me.

I’ve long been thinking about what kind of app I should make. It needs to be something that I’d actually use. There is one thing that I have had a constant relationship with, pretty much since day one as a developer, and that is version control. More specifically: Git.

As a consequence of my job, I’ve become a bit of a Git power user over the years, and one of the most painful experiences in Git is merging branches and dealing with merge conflicts. I do this all the time, and I have a lot to say about how merging could be made more accessible.

Before I can start solving those problems, I need to build many components. I need code that speaks to the Git repository. I need views to display changes and diffs. I need to show code changes over time and reveal similarities, patterns, and repetitions.

At first, I’ll use these components to build a simple Git client, and then I can take on improving the merge process.

If the end result of this project can cut my weekly merge time in half, then it’ll be worth it. I think it will reduce it far more. I will be returning to my roots by making a desktop app for the Mac again. It will be fun, it will be mine, and no product manager shall come near it.

I don’t know if anyone will read this. If a tree falls in the forest, and all that. I’ve decided to journal this little side project on Twitter to motivate myself. Even if no one reads this, I’ll pretend someone is and use that to hold myself accountable. 👈