One year ago today I officially released my first tool to the Lisk community, the Lisk pending tool. While I had been a Reddit member for a few months and an investor for a short time longer, I consider this day to be the day that I officially became a part of the community (My Lisk Birthday, if you will).
The pending tool itself has grown so much over the past year. Who remembers the original and fantastic UI I setup in 10 minutes?
A couple more little fun facts about those days:
– The original tool took over a minute to load results. While by today’s standards this is an eternity, at the time you had to go to each individual pool site (which collectively weren’t well known then) and do the math yourself. Therefore a minute didn’t really seem that long at all 🙂
– The original server was a used laptop that was at least 10 years old that I salvaged from work. I kept the laptop running in my living room, much to the dismay of my wife. During those months, 2 storms over Pittsburgh caused my power to go out and thus shut down the pending tool. A 3rd downtime was caused by my cat somehow unplugging the laptop.
– The first person to see the pending tool was delegate vekexasia. I had inquired about his sharing rewards for the purposes of the tool, and since it was the day before launch, I sent him the link to show why I was asking.
It took only a few days before I was contacted by JayJay from Lisk.support, asking me if I was interested in implementing the tool on their site. Seeing how it would be mutually beneficial to me, Lisk.support, and the Lisk community, I did not hesitate to accept. During its time on Lisk.support, it has seen many improvements. Load time has steadily decreased to the point that it is a non issue, delegate sharing information is now listed, estimated dates of payouts for each delegate are now provided, and delegates without tools are now included by way of a special algorithm I created.
Of course, the pending tool was only the beginning. After the success and outpouring of support and encouragement from the pending tool, I set off to make as many tools as I could for the community. The Total Payout Tool, Chainalysis, Richlist, Data Field Search, Lisk.support API, and even the now defunct Lisk Delegate Charts, are all the result of the positive feedback from the community, and of course my friends here at Lisk.support
To me, this day marks much more than an anniversary of a tool release, but rather a new beginning for me. Before this day 1 year ago, I considered myself a programmer. Today, I am a developer. The distinction between the two is subtle, but powerful. As a programmer, I would have never had the skills or confidence to leave my teaching job to pursue a development position, which is something I have desired for quite some time now. Today I can proudly say that I have made that transition, and it has made all the difference in my life.
Its been an incredibly fun and exciting year for sure. I’ve learned so much and met so many great people. I had planned to shout out all of the people that have helped and inspired me over the past year, but the list is just too long and I would undoubtedly forget someone and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. On that note, I wish to sincerely thank everyone in the community. You are the driving force behind my motivation to continue to develop and spread awareness of Lisk to the world.
On a final note, I am now running as a Lisk delegate. You can read my proposal, which gives an exstensive list of my contributions at www.tonyt908.com. I would be very appreciative if you considered voting for me. I have some very big plans as a delegate, but I need your support!
I look forward to seeing what the next year brings us!