The Audacity of Youth

Most 11-year-olds are busy playing games. I decided I wanted to build the place where people find games.

I was taking the Harvard CS50 course online for free. It was the “Old World”—before you could just ask an LLM to explain a stack trace. If your code broke, you had to actually read the error, look at your manual INSERT statements, and pray.

This project was my “Final Project” attempt. I never ended up submitting it, but looking at the codebase now, the fact that I was even attempting to manage a SQLite database and user authentication at that age is honestly a bit insane.

The Tech Stack (The ‘Spaghetti’ Era)

I wasn’t just writing HTML. I was trying to build a full-stack application.

  • Backend: Flask (Python).
  • Database: SQLite (managed via the CS50 library).
  • Frontend: Jinja2 templates and raw CSS.
  • Logic: Pure, unadulterated trial and error.

Visual Aesthetics: The ‘Gamer’ Palette

Looking at index_style.css, I had a very specific vision.

Font: Bebas Neue (The universal ‘I am a serious gamer’ font). Colors: Dark grays (#32313b), deep oranges (#d48141), and aggressive reds (#b33131).

I was obsessed with hover effects. I have code like:

.nav-items li, a:hover {
    color: #b33131;
    transition: all 0.2s ease 0s;
}

Every link had to feel “alive.” If the color didn’t change when the mouse touched it, the site felt broken to me.

Technical ‘Crimes’ That Keep Me Up at Night

Now that I’m older and actually know how security works, looking at this code is like watching a horror movie where the character walks into the dark basement alone.

1. The eval() Incident

In app.py, I found this gem:

data_from_client = request.get_data()
tmp = data_from_client.decode()
data_from_client = tmp
tmp = eval(data_from_client) # <--- OH NO.

For those who don’t know: using eval() on data coming from a user is essentially handing them a loaded gun and pointing it at your server. eval() executes any string you give it as python code. So if a user, for example were to pass in something like "__import__('os').system('rm -rf /')" and you ran eval() on it, the code would actually execute.

But hey, it made the data parsing work, and that was all 11-year-old me cared about.

2. Password Security (Or Lack Thereof)

I was storing passwords in plain text. No hashing. No salting. Just: INSERT INTO users(name,password,login_id) VALUES(?,?,?)

If you registered on my 11-year-old self’s site, your security was non-existent. Sorry about that.

3. The Random ID Generator

I didn’t use UUIDs. I used random.randint(00000000, 99999999). I even wrote a little check to see if the ID already existed, which is actually surprisingly responsible for a kid who was also using eval().

What I Actually Learned

This project was my introduction to the “Deep End.”

Lesson 1: Documentation is the only friend you have. Without AI to explain things, I had to learn how to read the Flask documentation and the CS50 library specs. It taught me how to find answers for myself—a skill that is arguably becoming a lost art in the age of “Just ask ChatGPT.”

Lesson 2: State management is hard. Trying to keep a user logged in, tracking their “best wave,” and routing them through different templates was my first taste of how complex web logic really is.

Lesson 3: Completion > Perfection. I didn’t submit it because it wasn’t “perfect” or finished. In hindsight, I should have. The fact that an 11-year-old built a functional registration system with database persistence is an achievement in itself.

Closing Thoughts

Is the code good? Absolutely not. It’s a security nightmare with weird naming conventions and hardcoded logic.

But it’s my code.

It represents the moment I stopped being a consumer of technology and started being a creator. I didn’t have an AI assistant holding my hand. I had to struggle through every syntax error and every broken CSS layout.

I’m 10x better now, but I still have a soft spot for this messy, orange-and-black gaming portal. It was the start of everything.

You can see the chaos for yourself here.

Ironically I got Gemini to write ts for me. Crazy downfall ngl. From builing flask sites with no AI to not being able to manually type a 100 lines.