u/Agreeable_Couple_281

Day 9 – buildinpublic: documentation, tutorials, research (no code, still progress)

Zero lines of code today. But also zero guilt.

Here's what I actually did:

1. Documentation – Wrote down the current state of my source verification flow. API endpoints, expected inputs/outputs, edge cases I haven't solved yet. Future me will thank present me.

2. Tutorials – Finally sat through a 40-minute video on fine-tuning small LLMs for classification. Took notes. Actually understood the loss function this time.

3. Research – Read 3 blog posts from people who built similar fact-checking tools. Stole one good idea (confidence scoring) and added it to my backlog.

No, I didn't "ship." But I feel 10x more ready for tomorrow than I was this morning.

Question for the sub:

Do you count learning/research days as real progress? Or do you feel guilty when you don't write code?

Trying to retrain my brain here.

I have and app idea and i think it has a potential but i don't know i feel like something it's missing to make it perfect

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Did almost nothing today. But I did something.

Fixed a minor bug. Cleaned up two lines of code. Closed the IDE.

That's it.

And honestly? It felt good. Not because it was impressive, but because I didn't let "tired" become "zero."

I'm learning that the gap between "small effort" and "no effort" is where most projects die.

So today I chose small.

Anyone else have days where you just do 15 minutes and call it a win?

No judgment here. Let's hear it.

Day 7 – buildinpublic: wrote zero lines of code, still moved forward

Honest post: I had a long day and couldn't write a single line of code.

But I didn't just give up completely.

I opened my project. Read through what I already wrote. Took notes on:

· Messy functions that need refactoring

· Inconsistent naming

· Places where I hardcoded instead of configuring

Then I watched two short tutorials on the exact ML concept I was stuck on yesterday.

No commits. No deployment. But I feel more ready for tomorrow.

Question for other builders:

Do you count "code reading + note taking" as progress? Or am I coping? 😅

Be honest.

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Day 5 – buildinpublic: finished first part, now moving to ML/AI logic

First part is wrapped up (source verification, basic API structure, database). It works, it's testable, it's boring — exactly what I wanted.

Now the fun part: implementing the actual ML and AI logic from scratch.

No external AI APIs for now. Rolling my own for learning + control. Starting with:

· Data collection / labeling (brutal, I know)

· A small classifier to detect claims worth verifying

· Maybe a light LLM for reasoning? TBD

Scope is still tight — no media detection yet, just text-based claim → source verification with some ML help.

Question for those who've done this:

What's your single biggest piece of advice for someone building their first ML-powered feature solo?

Overwhelm is real. Help a builder out 🙏