Boekmap
Fall has arrived, and I have fallen into nostalgia.
Back in November 2015 I was a second-year bachelor student at Howest.
Life was simple: get an assignment to make an 'API mashup';
rage against the assignment; do the assignment.
Now, 11 years later, I give the same assignment to my first year students,
and every year I'm reminded of how much I actually liked doing this kind of thing!
So, why this post?
I've spent a weekend cleaning up old hard drives, and I found it!
Amid old Illustrator files, lab exercises, and class notes, there it was: My precious Boekmap.
In 2015, I was a student without any money but with a lot of imagination, so Boekmap started with a simple thought: what if you could explore a place by discovering fiction set in that city, region, or country. A way to travel somewhere without actually going there.
Written in PHP I now wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole and which no self-respecting sysadmin would ever allow on their servers. With state-of-the-art JavaScript from 2015 that would definitely not earn me any credits in my 2026 course. And with a still functioning API key!
So, what now?
I did the thing we do now, and which I blame others for doing too much: I asked Claude to do the minimum to revive it.
I just sat there and watched as it violated something in which I once poured my skills and my heart.
That being said, the result is functioning and retained much of my original project.
Is it accessible? No. Does it use modules? No, 2015 remember. Does it look outdated? Maybe a little. But
I can always have Claude throw in some purple gradients and useless hover effects if that's your thing.
Put the kettle on, place yourself in your most comfy chair, and wrap yourself in the ugliest and snuggest blanket you can find. And explore the world!