Blog Posts

**Let's go a little back...** This whole thing started out of sheer boredom. I was looking for something to kill time with, so I figured I’d build a small project. That “small” project quickly turned into a mess of random features and overcomplicated tech choices, which, in hindsight, I probably should have avoided. But here we are. **Overview** I’ve been working on **Neura.ink** for a couple of weeks now, logging about 3-4 days of actual work. Things are moving along, but I know there are probably a ton of bugs and issues hidden somewhere in both the frontend and backend. I turned off **ESLint** checks during the build process because I didn’t want to bother with them initially. In hindsight, that was a dumb decision, but I’m not exactly eager to turn them back on. --- ## **Tech Stack** **Backend** The backend is built with **Node.js** and **Express** for the API. It’s not a horrible choice, but it definitely wasn’t my smartest move. I thought this would be a quick little project to kill time, but of course, I ended up adding random features and getting a bit too invested. **Frontend** For the frontend, I’m using **TypeScript** and **Next.js**. It's generally a good combo, but I’ve definitely made some questionable decisions along the way. The frontend looks fine from a user’s point of view, but the code? It's a mess. I’m starting to think I might need to rewrite it to clean things up. --- ## **Features and Integrations** I’ve thrown in a bunch of features, more than I initially planned. Some of the highlights include: - **AI image generation** - **Email services** (temporary and permanent) - **Manga readers** - **Discord, Spotify, and PayPal integrations** And more. Cool stuff, but reliable? Not at all. The backend’s disorganized, and I’m sure someone could find an exploit pretty quickly. The **guest system** is especially bad. It lets users rack up free generation credits—easy to abuse. --- ## **Next Steps** While the features technically work, I don’t trust them to be secure long-term. I’ll probably finish polishing the existing features, but a complete **rewrite** is looking more likely. I’d go for a more secure and reliable system with **TypeScript** across the board. At this point, I’m either going to abandon it or give it a major overhaul. Either way, I know it’s going to take a lot of work to make it functional and secure. --- ## **Conclusion** The project’s a mess, plain and simple. I either need to fix it up or start over with something more solid. Neither option is easy, but I’ve clearly dug myself into a hole. At the end of the day, it’s not going to be quick or simple. I’ll deal with it—unless, of course, I get bored and ditch it, like I do with most of my side projects.