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Building the Philia App – A Full Stack proof of concept

Built as a proof of concept for a client exploring a dating app idea, this project demonstrates a solid backend foundation using my expertise in Spring Boot. To support the mobile interface, I ramped up on Swift and iOS development, learning the technology hands-on to prototype the user experience and validate the end-to-end flow between the frontend and backend services.

What is Philia?

Philia is a small-scale project combining a Spring Boot backend and an iPhone app frontend—designed to be a sandbox for learning and experimentation.

Spring Boot Backend

The backend is a fully RESTful Spring Boot application with well-organized services, controllers, and JPA-based repositories. Built to be lightweight, it supports user login, data operations, and test coverage for interview-style coding problems.

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Swift iOS Client

The iPhone app is a Swift-based frontend using URLSession to interact with the backend. This was my first foray into mobile development, offering a glimpse into the UI/UX side of app creation, data handling, and mobile constraints.

Spring Boot API Quick Refresher

Here's a snippet guide for experienced devs who need a quick memory jog when building a REST API in Spring Boot.

📘 Essentials

  • @SpringBootApplication for bootstrapping
  • @RestController for REST endpoints
  • @GetMapping, @PostMapping for routing
  • @Entity for JPA models
  • JpaRepository for data access

🛠 Code Snippet

@RestController
		  @RequestMapping("/api/messages")
		  public class MessageController {
		      @GetMapping
		      public List<Message> getAll() {
		          return repo.findAll();
		      }

		      @PostMapping
		      public Message create(@RequestBody Message msg) {
		          return repo.save(msg);
		      }
		  }

Explore the Code

Feel free to fork or star the repositories if you're learning Spring Boot or Swift. This is an ongoing experiment and a reflection of real growth!