Month: August 2019

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Open Source Costs to Expect website

I have decided to Open Source the Costs to Expect website.

I planned the website and the app for the service as a single app. Over time, I’ve concluded that although it may create additional work, it makes sense to separate the service app (app.costs-to-expect.com) from the public website (www.costs-to-expect.com).

Due to the limited requirements, the public website will never be an excellent showcase of the Costs to Expect service.

Until we decide I need help, I’m creating the Costs to Expect service by myself. Managing three apps is more involved than two; however, there are pluses to separating the products.

The public website is a minor part of the service; I have numerous features planned; however, they are much lower in priority than developing the app. I don’t want to be in a position whereby the website is restricting the development of the app.

For the next three to four months, I am moderately confident that I can develop the app and update the API without negatively affecting the website. I have request tests in place (thank you Postman) that will immediately notify me if I make any change to the API, which affects the website.

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PATCH support…finally.

I added PATCH support to the Costs to Expect API in November. At the time I did the minimum, I only added PATCH support for items as that was the only data we needed to edit.

In March, I reviewed the PATCH code, making a few minor alterations.

It is now time to add PATCH support to the rest of the API. PATCH support will be added for resource types, resources, categories, subcategories and category assignments for items.

When I reviewed the PATCH code in March, I was looking at a single instance. This time I need to implement PATCH support across multiple routes; we will see how many changes I make in attempting to make the code DRY.

I have six tickets in my tracker, one for each route plus one additional chore for minor refactoring. If everything goes well, I should have a release ready in a few days, and I shouldn’t have created any extra refactoring chores.