[Accusta for Steem] - Weekly Support: #1. History of Accusta creation

semasping (60)in #accusta • 6 years ago

This post is intended to cover the servers costs for https://steemit.accusta.tk and to enable me to continue my development in the future.
For my work, I use two servers.

One for developing and testing.

12gb of ram
300gb ssd

Second for production.

24gb of ram
600gb ssd

History of Accusta creation

In February 2017, I knew about the phenomenon of blockchain and, in particular, about the Golos platform (the Russian language version of blockchain). A bit later I got acquainted with the English-speaking blockchain Steemit. Approximately 5 months later, in the summer of 2017, I decided to look at the statistics of my earnings (author's rewards) by every month but did not find such a service (tool). And then I came up with the idea of a system for displaying data on rewards, grouped by month. Later in my system, there were opportunities to view curator and beneficiary's payments.

Some problems and difficulties

The first time I received data quickly, each time scanning the account history. Also, I grouped and brought the needed information to the necessary form. But over time, the number of operations increased and the server did not have the ability to process them instantly. So I came to use the database, where I retrieve all the information from the history of the requested account. MongoDB is used as the database. In the process, I had to understand the structure, with the mechanism of data storage in the blockchain. I have worked with PHP for ages, I created Accusta in PHP language, so I needed a library in this language to work with the blockchain. On Golos, I found an author who had already begun to work on such a library, and I joined his development.
I'm interested in making my system Accusta. In the process of creating this system, I learn a lot of new things, learn modern ways of programming, understand the structure of servers, for example, I did not know MongoDB, and now I confidently use this resource.

How much time do I spend to develop this system?

It depends on many factors. One of the factors is the availability of free time. Accusta does not bring constant and necessary income for my family, I work on several projects, and I do not spend all my working time only on Accusta system. An important nuance is that I do not have a team and some things have to be changed several times. Working in a team is often more productive and more interesting.

I am a backend programmer and I am not a designer. I see my own system as a well-coordinated product with a beautiful, understandable and functional interface, and sometimes I do not have enough of a designer thinking and artistic or designer's skills to realize the picture I have and represent in my head (the financial component is not the least important in the search for a designer).

In the process of creating Accusta, I collect information, users' wishes, communicate with users, this is a huge challenge for me, but communication and feedback, give strength and desire to continue working on the system.

The present and future of the system

I see my system as a system full of account statistics that show all-round information about the account. At this moment there are many services, scripts that display different information about the account, my system has a unique function of displaying curator and beneficiary's rewards, and indeed any rewards.

In my plans I am going to create an informative and convenient, structured system that unites diverse statistics, but at the same time fast, convenient and not heavy.

Recently, my wife has asked me to make the function of displaying the most interesting articles for the month (it is clear that the most interesting = most paid articles). Also I got a request for information that was received in percentage chart, how many visitors (upvoters) and followers were added. A follower is not always an upvoter and not every upvoter is a follower.

All these cross-sections are interesting to me and it would be great to combine them in one system. This is my goal. Again, I repeat, the system should maintain speed, ease, clarity. As the programmer I want to create beautiful code, and I put myself in user's shoes and I want to work with a beautiful interface.

Previous changes

The last few weeks I worked on another project because the current income from Accusta project does not cover my family's expenses. But I could find time for changing a few things:

Changes needed for Golos HF 0.18
Change footer information and position
Fix few bug in Golos part of Accusta
Fix for sentry logging
Fix for csv benefactor export
Add sort by timestamp in export to csv

Working on

Next week I'm working on adding graphics on author's rewards.
I want to display the author's awards as well as curator ones in the charts on which there is data on the total month's run-out and the number of posts for the same month.

But in curator rewards, there is only one type of payments that go to SteemPower.
And in the author's rewards, there are SBD, Steem and SteemPower, and I have not yet decided how best to display them on the charts

on one chart, all three values?
on one chart, the total payment to the currency?
several charts, each with their own data.

Please vote in the comments.

Also, leave your wishes and ideas what would you like to see in Accusta system. I need your feedback.