3/x: 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐨: pipelines

In a feature-driven world, support-software rarely gets the stage it deserves. Ask a stakeholder what a pipeline is and get 🙃 .. which is sad. Because how else do you want to verify it you built it correctly?

Anyway: automated testing and linting is always part of my process. From day one – not in the final stages. Of course, you should have at least a tiny build-able fragment of your project, but the earlier you add #automation, the better. I usually run with local and continuous integration pipelines.
This project is hosted on GitHub, so I went with GitHub actions for the CI. We have 20 named pipeline stages which form a single commit gate. “Cheap” ones like linting and format checks run before the more “expensive” ones, which need a build. 129 automated tests are done, which cover 98% of the code. Together with the 30 unit and widget tests and a real-target integration suite we have fitting coverage. The local version runs as pre-commit hook, the GitHub one is also capable of doing the releases. And so far I made six public releases.
Also, Dependabot is integrated, so if I would miss the release of any dependency, then this neat little bot would create an automatic PR (pull-request) for me. 🐦‍⬛

The pipeline turns engineering expectations into executable policy. 𝐈𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞. 𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭.

If you want to give this Croatian-German-language learning app a try, download the package from https://github.com/marcelpetrick/CroLingo/releases/tag/v0.0.63 and run it on your Android phone.
Have fun and enjoy learning!

I’ll keep you updated on what comes next. 🇭🇷 ❤️ 🇩🇪

#continuousIntegration #continuousDeployment #pipelines #automation

2/x: 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐨

As written, I had started to gather all ideas and document what we want. Of course, there exist magic tools which transform unstructured input into well-defined #requirements and which help you to make them conflict-free, unambiguous, atomic, feasible and verifiable. Yada yada, you know the drill.

Then the development started, and we have a first #MVP (minimum viable product) now, as an Android release package and Linux Desktop build. The first content has been added, so the first user feedback could be gathered today. I have to admit, offering an app with well-known competitors yields a lot of “oh, but here it should behave like this” … anyway, input from the target audience is really dear to me. So we now have plenty more things to implement and some to adjust. But we did not experience a single crash or logic deadlock.

✨ 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬. ✨

I’ve added on-device screenshots from one of the recent builds. If you want the hands-on experience, go to https://github.com/marcelpetrick/CroLingo/releases/tag/v0.0.40

I’ll keep you updated on what comes next. 🇭🇷 ❤️ 🇩🇪

New project: 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐨 🇭🇷🇩🇪

Just wanted to share that I started the design and implementation of an app for learning Croatian.
The market for language-learning apps does not offer the combination I need, so it is time to roll our own custom software.
Also a playground for #Flutter and #Dart, since I have so far only used Kotlin for Android apps. And it will run on x86_64 Linux desktops as well. Maybe I’ll do an iOS version too.
Most of the preliminary work was spent on the design and concept. #Ideation is quite important in the age of agentic AI.
Of course, I will avoid writing code and keep you updated 😉