Hand On Developer

Intro

In the world of AI taking over all the fun (I love coding), I decided to continue learning Go — something I started a long time ago but left in the background.

I wanted to do something with Go — in the spirit of Advent of Code challenges, but less about algorithms and more about small, hands-on projects using system libraries to understand them better. Most importantly: doing it manually, by hand — no AI involved (not even Copilot).

The Idea

One small project every week. Because we’re all busy and never have “free time” — but we can always find a bit of it before or after work. Each project is a chance to explore the language and its capabilities.

Project for this week: CLI Notes Manager

Goal: Build a simple command-line tool to manage personal notes stored locally.

Description: Create a CLI application that allows the user to create, list, and search notes. Each note should include a timestamp and optionally tags. The tool should support storing notes in a local file (plain text, CSV, or JSON).

Core Features:

• Add a new note with optional tags.
• List all notes, optionally filtered by tag or date.
• Search notes by keyword or tag.
• Use timestamps for each note.

Configuration:

• Allow specifying the notes file location via a command-line flag or environment variable.
• Optionally configure default sorting, output format, or other preferences.

Extra / Stretch Goals:

• Export notes to JSON.
• Support simple tagging system for notes.
• Allow batch import/export.
• Enhance search with multiple keywords or tag filtering.

Learning Focus:

• CLI argument parsing
• File I/O
• String manipulation
• Working with timestamps
• (Optional) JSON serialization

Join In

You can:

• Take the weekly assignment from this page, pick any language, and do it just for fun.
• Or join the mailing list — I’ll send you a weekly reminder about the next project. No ads, no course, nothing to sell — just building for the joy of it.

I’d love to hear your feedback and see your results (and share them with others!).

Final Thought

Pick a language. Take the task. Let’s have fun!

Not sure which language to pick? Try .

Bored with the task? Don’t just criticize — suggest something better! I’d love to hear your ideas.