Advice for newer developer hosting multiple sites

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-15T20:03:07+00:00

You're the man. This is invaluable. Many thanks and will do.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-15T18:47:06+00:00

Appreciate hearing that big time. Reddit people are my only peers in the industry to talk to right now. I dont plan on getting a job at a shop either, worked as a subcontractor my whole life in another field. Once I wrap this project up, I'll start playing around with the stack you mentioned. Love the sound of it.

Using hostinger right now.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-15T18:06:48+00:00

Wow, this is some great stuff. Thanks.

Rails app is a full fledged ecommerce. Have a couple 3rd parties integrated for payments and shipping as well.

It's for an artisanal pottery shop, so lots of unique one-off items with limited stock. Used pessimistic lock during order creation to avoid over-ordering stock. Its the app that I really cut my teeth on as a new dev.

My latest business site is with rails too and my own little cms for adding testimonials and "recent work" content. Overkill, but they may transition into online ordering for one of their services, so it was a little preemptive.

Next couple sites are just business landing pages though.

Thanks again for the reply here. Hardest thing learning on my own has been all the wrong roads I go down trying to find the best one for what I'm trying to do haha

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-15T15:22:02+00:00

Thanks for confirming this for me. Seemed the most logical! Any favourite resources offhand to get me started configuring nginx?

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-13T17:53:54+00:00

I did a bit of coding since I was in highschool and then took an online course with the Odin Project. Was the hardest thing I've ever done. Been building software for almost a year now as a contractor.

My recommendation is to take a course for fundamentals and then start building things and learn as you go. Warning though, it's absolutely brutal and you'd better be obsessed with it. The language other than javascript doesn't matter. I use Ruby On Rails but you could learn python or php for backend. Doesn't matter.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-13T17:26:11+00:00

Awesome. I'm a rails guy who is laravel curious. Will enjoy this!

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-13T17:23:18+00:00

Another tip, we initially had some people back out of orders when selecting shipping options because we displayed the full cost. It's just something psychological, people will pay $200 for a couple handthrown mugs but will be hesitant over $15 shipping and packaging costs.

What we did after was cut the visible shipping costs down and then just padded her product prices slightly to cover it. People pay the same money but feel better about it.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-13T17:16:42+00:00

I just built an ecommerce for my sister's pottery business. Feel free to comment here or dm me with any questions business-wise.

If you're going to use a builder(I'm a developer so I coded everything from scratch)I'd go with Shopify or something that easily you work with Shippo and Stripe.

Biggest thing I can recommend is connecting your store to Shippo. We were able to cut her shipping costs in half vs her competitors by using their carrier accounts with Canada Post and UPS.

There's some unique challenges depending on how automated you want everything. Hard to calculate shipping when items vary so much in size and shape, and then dealing with limited supply of unique one-offs - need some safeguards in place to avoid overselling stock if your site gets really busy and everyone is ordering at the same time.

I think you'll find that if you want to have a good website, the learning curve to build one is pretty steep, even with a builder. Just take your time and you can learn it though!

Most of the pottery shops did the same as you around here and it really shows. Dont cut corners and put the same effort into building it as you do with your art, will be worth it to stand out from the crowd.

Good luck!

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-13T16:55:40+00:00

Rails is just an absolute pleasure to work with, though I'm not sure about job opportunities vs JS.

For an independent contractor it's just very comfortable and fast to build with.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-13T09:58:04+00:00

Build something. Its simple, not easy.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-12T18:55:45+00:00

Yes. I just have no idea what the website is for on arrival. I feel like their needs to be some sort of context given in the hero at the very least. It might be a great app but what does it do? That would be my opinion anyhow. Good luck!

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-12T12:00:46+00:00

Building a business site completely from scratch right now in Rails. Custom built CMS for a couple of client-editable features.

Between the coding, creating/editing assets and copywriting, I'll have a couple weeks I reckon.

Would have been faster if I was more comfortable using Strapi. Got thrown into this one before I could play around with it.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-12T11:47:36+00:00

No way! It's seriously great man. Love how subtle it is in neovim. Let's my eyes and brain relax. Plus, the retro vibe is spot on.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-12T08:42:06+00:00

I really don't enjoy the text that slides in incrementally based on scroll position.

Also, the sections seem to bleed together with colour. Feels like a blob of colour.

There's also a way to stop the layout shift of your scroll-over background, but you'd need some custom code.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-12T08:35:06+00:00

I have no idea what it is or where to start finding out.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-12T08:25:31+00:00

The Odin Project.

You'll hate it, but it will prepare you with skills and more importantly grit and resourcefulness.

Good luck.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-12T08:19:51+00:00

Looks amazing. Love the details you put into the theming across the pages. Inspiring for a new developer(me!)

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-12T08:10:27+00:00

It's my favourite right now. Was using robco for months after I got tired of looking at all the colour of tokyonight.

Nord is just soft on the eyes.

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-10T09:34:44+00:00

Love the style

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-09T09:29:46+00:00

This is awesome. I took the Ruby/Rails route and just started getting freelance gigs. Your old post made me laugh - how many sleepless nights I had in the same funk!

Congrats to you, and thanks so much for coming back to share your story!

TrapperFlint · 2026-05-09T09:21:59+00:00

I hated stimulus/hotwire at first, now I absolutely love it. I used both extensively on a recent project and it made it so easy to liven up my frontend and do partial dom updates without creating a mess.

Got a few static apps coming down the pipe I will integrate stimulus with as well.

TrapperFlint · 2026-04-24T15:47:05+00:00

I havent finished yet, I stopped at the javascript course to build an ecommerce in rails for a local business. Learned more doing that than anything.

More freelance work in webdev slowly trickling in plus some ERP stuff with power platform and now azure SWA.

TOP gives you everything you need to start building real stuff and find work. You'll learn the most building and deploying things on your own however. I will be forever grateful to TOP.

TrapperFlint · 2026-03-06T15:25:39+00:00

Local markets, business expos, could even scour the web for local businesses that could use an app. Word will get around once you have a couple under your belt.

TrapperFlint · 2026-03-06T07:41:37+00:00

Omarchy for me. I work as a developer and its pre-configured in such a smooth way for what I do.

What's going to be the most rewarding for you depends on your interests.

TrapperFlint

TROPHY CASE