# Day 1 - Building Real-time Drawing App: Lessons Learned

## What I Did Today

Today I worked on building a real-time collaborative drawing application. I encountered several challenges with WebSocket connections, database relationships, and error handling that taught me important lessons about building real-time applications.

## Lessons Learned

### Type Safety
- **Always validate data types when working with databases**
- Learned the hard way that Prisma requires proper type definitions
- Missing required fields can cause silent failures

### Error Handling
- **WebSocket connections fail silently - proper error handling is crucial**
- Implemented proper error boundaries and connection state management
- Added retry mechanisms for dropped connections

### Prisma Relations
- **Understanding foreign key relationships and required fields**
- Learned how to properly set up one-to-many and many-to-many relationships
- Importance of cascade deletes and referential integrity

### Real-time Architecture
- **Separating HTTP and WebSocket concerns for different use cases**
- HTTP for initial data loading and authentication
- WebSocket for real-time drawing updates and collaboration

## Code Snippet of the Day

```typescript
// WebSocket connection with proper error handling
const socket = new WebSocket(WS_URL);

socket.onopen = () => {
console.log('Connected to drawing room');
setIsConnected(true);
};

socket.onerror = (error) => {
console.error('WebSocket error:', error);
setIsConnected(false);
// Implement retry logic
};

socket.onclose = () => {
console.log('Connection closed');
setIsConnected(false);
// Attempt to reconnect
};
```

## Next Steps

- [ ] **Implement user authentication**
- Add JWT tokens for secure user sessions
- Implement login/logout functionality

- [ ] **Add drawing tools**
- Brush tool with different sizes
- Shape tools (rectangle, circle, line)
- Color picker and palette

- [ ] **Optimize WebSocket message handling**
- Implement message queuing for offline scenarios
- Add message compression for better performance

- [ ] **Add room management features**
- Create/join drawing rooms
- User permissions and roles
- Room persistence and history

## Reflection

Building real-time applications is more complex than I initially thought. The combination of WebSocket connections, database relationships, and error handling requires careful planning. I'm excited to continue improving this project and implementing the next features.

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*This is Day 1 of my daily blogging challenge. Follow along as I document my journey in tech and personal growth!*