Over the last several years, besides my regular job as backend engineer, I've been chipping away at my own open-source side projects whenever I could. It's been a hobby I've poured time into, tinkering with it during weekends and evenings. It's my way of exploring new things and ideas outside of work and giving back to the community in a small way.
Not all my hobbies were strictly bound to web development; some involved creating my own workshop, building 3D printers and laser cutters, programming CNC and Arduino micro controllers, soldering, and much more.
- go-bloggy & my blog 2.0
Since February 2024, I've been working on restoring my own developer blog. I used to write about 3D printers and CMS systems a while back, but I stopped around 2017. Now, I'm determined to breathe new life into it focusing on backend development and system design. I'm building the backend of the blog, called go-bloggy, using Golang, and the frontend with VueJS.
- FinThread AI news bot
FinThread is designed to aggregate financial news from a dozens of sources, analyze the content using the cutting edge in AI technology, and deliver concise and relevant news directly through Telegram public channel (proof of concept). Written in Golang and PostgreSQL.
- Hopa Bot
A tiny comic telegram bot project based on a local meme from the Georgian IT community. Written in Go using Redis for request limiting and OpenAI LLM.
- RVP - Remote Value Parser
RVP is a CLI tool written in Rust for parsing string values from static web pages. With RVP, you can create configurations for each site to parse and retrieve information as a table or as JSON.
- Short-Fork 2.0
I recently overhauled my old but fairly popular stock viewer Short-Fork from scratch, now rebuilt using NestJS for the backend, VueJS for the frontend, and transitioning exclusively from MongoDB to Redis.
- Validity.Red - document validity manager
Validity.Red is a free web service for managing the expiration dates of documents (passports, travel cards, vaccinations, insurance, etc) and synchronizing them with your calendar. It is written in Go, TypeScript, Vue, and Rust on top of gRPC.
Despite pouring considerable effort and affection into this side project, it ultimately ended up being a complete flop. - TightShorts - FINRA screener
The Tightshorts Screener is a daily short volume screener tailored for the US stock market, leveraging FINRA data. Developed with TypeScript, NestJS, Golang with MongoDB the project serves its purpose despite harboring a codebase deemed a complete mess, arguably one of the worst I've ever produced, plagued by numerous N+1 issues and suboptimal design choices leading to slow queries. In 2023, I attempted a ground-up refactoring but abandoned the endeavor for newer projects.
- Short-Fork 1.0
Stock market helper: financial data, multipliers (PE, PS, PEG etc), insider selling, debt and short volume charts from various sources. The project was not originally conceived as a big service. Initially it was just a copy-paste of data from a couple of different financial resources that I used myself.
During this time I've built multiple public NPM packages for fetching financial data from various sources. - TradingView scripts
I've been diving into writing TradingView scripts using PineScript, and it's been quite the journey. Despite not trading based on technical analysis myself, I've found joy in building oscillators and charts, even cultivating a small community around it. This venture has reignited my passion for open-source coding after a period of quiet reflection.
- CNC, 3D printers & lasers
Between 2016 and 2021, after landing my first job as a web developer, I shifted my focus away from building websites for myself and friends. Instead, I embarked on a period of self-discovery, channeling all my spare time and resources into crafting CNC machines, assembling 3D printers, programming micro controllers, and working on large CO2 laser cutter. I immersed myself in soldering and designing microelectronics using Attiny85 or Arduino boards in Autodesk Eagle and 3D modeling with Autodesk Fusion.
Establishing my own workshop initially for 3D printing and later for producing wooden gifts from laser cutting, I poured my heart into these endeavors. Fortunately (yes), despite my dedication, these ventures ultimately faltered due to various challenges and personal reasons. - YoptaScript: 2k stars on GitHub
In 2016, I created a humorous programming language for Russian "gopniks" called YoptaScript. Essentially, it was a transpiled programming language into JavaScript. Through word of mouth, it quickly gained popularity, becoming the second fastest-growing project in the region on GitHub that year. Media outlets often interviewed me, and I became recognizable within Slavic IT communities.
What better way to enter the profession than with a bit of humor and creativity? - My path into programming
From 2010 to 2016, while I was still studying, I spent a lot of time creating websites for friends and acquaintances. Besides those, I also started several projects that are now inactive, like a website teaching how to develop modules for CMF MODX using PHP & Fenom, a site for a local auto repair shop, and one for a musical group. There were many more, but they've been forgotten. One of the projects that survived until today is my personal blog - the reincarnation of which you are currently witnessing.
- The Game
Back in 2009, when I was just 12 years old, I got seriously into programming for the first time. It all started with creating mods for computer game Stalker, initially by tweaking other people's work. Soon, I had a small group of followers, which encouraged me to make my own website for game mods. And that's how gaming became my gateway into a professional career!