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How to Ship Side Projects

blog.andyjiang.com

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Re: How to Ship Side Projects

#21

Post by blackflame7000 »

urs2102 wrote: post #3

I really like the idea of approaching rapid development like writing an essay or a blog the first time. Just getting all the words out on the paper goes a long way; same thing goes for programming.

I understand your mindset, but sometimes a little bit of planning upfront can save so much time in refactoring. I'm not sure code is analogous to writing save for maybe a choose your own ending type novel. An Essay is essentially a sequential flow of ideas where as a program is more like a tree. Perhaps what you are referring to is rapidly developing the nodes(classes) of that tree without concerning yourself to much with the connective branches between classes. If that's the case then I can see the benefit.

Re: How to Ship Side Projects

#23

Post by Swizec »

fogleman wrote: post #19
Swizec wrote: post #7

Start with a credit card form. If nobody would pay for it, why would you invest precious time building it? You have better things to do. :)

If all you have is a form, what am I paying for?

I've paid for products that were literally just a form and someone doing shit manually.

Re: How to Ship Side Projects

#24

Post by spraak »

logicallee wrote: post #11

I'm going to go ahead and disagree. I suggest that instead of this approach, you take an approach of starting by overengineering it and making it absolutely perfect in every way - then just ship the part of that you manage to actually do. Sometimes the best way to write a short story is to write a three-volume epic.

This really increases the likelihood that you won't ever ship anything though

Re: How to Ship Side Projects

#25

Post by logicallee »

SwellJoe wrote: post #16
logicallee wrote: post #11

I'm going to go ahead and disagree. I suggest that instead of this approach, you take an approach of starting by overengineering it and making it absolutely perfect in every way - then just ship the part of that you manage to actually do. Sometimes the best way to write a short story is to write a three-volume epic.

I think I'd need to see some evidence that that is a more effective strategy than starting small. My biggest enemy is always analysis paralysis. The bigger the project, the less likely I am to ever even start, much less finish anything. Likewise, when I do start, if the scope is too big, I'll flit from concept to concept never really finishing any of them. But, when I have a very small, concrete, and actionable item,…

>I think I'd need to see some evidence that that is a more effective strategy than starting small.

"To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker, assembler, and a few other things. After this we will add a text formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of other things. We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including on-line and hardcopy documentation."

Looks like he did all that. (Mostly in the form of Emacs). Anyway it's hard to get more ambitious than a list like that. Other early announcements of effective projects were the same - very large vision.

Re: How to Ship Side Projects

#26

Post by Swizec »

20years wrote: post #17
Swizec wrote: post #7

Start with a credit card form. If nobody would pay for it, why would you invest precious time building it? You have better things to do. :)

I agree with this sentiment. Nothing motivates me more knowing there is potential to make money on it. Then again there are those side projects you do just for fun but those are ones I also don't invest tons of time on.

Those don't need to be shipped, though.

Re: How to Ship Side Projects

#27

Post by codingdave »

My trick has always been to solve one of my own problems, and be my own first customer. Then I know it works, and meets the goals of the audience. I figure that if I need the problem solved, so do other people, but even if nobody else ever shows up, I got my own value from it.

Re: How to Ship Side Projects

#28

Post by logicallee »

spraak wrote: post #24
logicallee wrote: post #11

I'm going to go ahead and disagree. I suggest that instead of this approach, you take an approach of starting by overengineering it and making it absolutely perfect in every way - then just ship the part of that you manage to actually do. Sometimes the best way to write a short story is to write a three-volume epic.

This really increases the likelihood that you won't ever ship anything though

I'm not convinced that what you write is the case. There are lots of small projects that are never shipped. But as a percentage, is it higher or lower than the percentage of over-engineered pieces of perfection do not have any part of it ever shipped?

Re: How to Ship Side Projects

#29

Post by rcdmd »

reedlaw wrote: post #20

Sorry but those animated gifs distracted me from reading. Normally I will scroll things like that off the page but when they come so close to each other all I see is the movement.

We're now coming full circle [1]... Chrome's inspect element followed by the Delete key works wonders though.

[1] http://www.wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/

Re: How to Ship Side Projects

#30

Post by huan9huan »

I agree "Ship it" part. My previous side projects is always by this styles: "good idea" (1 week) => develop it (2 week) => "not satisfaction" （several days） => abandon => next idea .... The passion always dispears after one month, so in one month, need ship it. BTW, the Show HN is really really good channel for every early shipping.
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