New Project: Refined Idea

Patrick Burrell -

Now that I've restarted this blog again, I can write about how my idea for a personal project has changed.

I want to expand the idea from comparing two things to ranking several things; the original idea is contained in the expanded idea. If I can arrange N number of items in a ranked order, I can indicate a preference between 2 items using that ability.

I have several variations in mind for how I can specify a ranking among several items:

  • simple ordering, e.g., 1-10, A-E
  • tier list, with multiple entries per level
  • sparse, e.g., 1, 3, 25, 82, 87
  • Conan O'Brien's Clueless Gamer rating system :)
  • bonkers, e.g., 1, F, blue, cat, tall, smelly
  • multiple dimensions

I won't spend time implementing all these ideas for an initial release, but keeping this flexibility in mind will help keep me from being too rigid with my data structures and storage early on.

Also, while I procured a domain name for my initial idea, I let that expire, and I grabbed a new one for the new app name: RankOrder at rankorder.net - a clearer name with a cleaner web destination, IMO.