From f2a69d073577f143f14315d2446f09f9915dec15 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Stevan Freeborn <65925598+StevanFreeborn@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 09:58:30 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] posts: begin work on draft

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+```json meta
+{
+  "title": "How Building A Discord Bot Made Me A Better Developer",
+  "lead": "Some practical lessons I picked up while wrestling with WebSockets, concurrency, and Discord's Gateway API",
+  "isPublished": true,
+  "publishedAt": "2025-06-17",
+  "openGraphImage": "posts/how-building-a-discord-bot-made-me-a-better-developer/og-image.png",
+}
+```
+
+I wanted to build a Discord bot for my server. How hard could it be, right? Connect to Discord's API, listen for messages, respond when needed. Should be a weekend project.
+
+Spoiler alert: it wasn't.
+
+What I thought would be straightforward turned into a crash course in building resilient network clients. By the time I had a working `DiscordGatewayClient` that could stay connected reliably, I'd learned a bunch of things that made me a better developer.
+
+Here's what building this bot taught me—maybe some of it will be useful for your projects too.
+
+## Abstractions Are Worth The Extra Work (Even When They Feel Unnecessary)