#3 hits home. I've been "working" on my side project for 3 years now with almost no progress because I'm constantly intrigued by new frameworks and BaaS. I spend all my time tinkering with them until I get bored with it all together. If I had just built the thing in Rails from the start I'd probably have a solid app under my belt by now.
The art of over-engineering your side projects
31–40 of 272 posts
Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects
#32But that's all the fun
Agreed. The best part of side projects is that I can take as long as I want to build it to my satisfaction, rather than to the minimal acceptable state for business purposes.
Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects
#33For me it's very important that I don't discuss projects with friends / family / colleagues etc. until I really have something to show. I have always found it very easy to talk all the energy out of a good idea before I've even got any real work done.
Yeah, that usually means its a shit idea. Talking about it helps you figure that out before you really spend a lot of time down the rabbit hole.
Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a thing. Expressing in public your desire to achieve something makes you less likely to deliver. http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gollwitzer/09_Gollwitzer_Sheeran_Se...
I don't agree with this reasoning. Expressing in public your projects is a compromise and it can help you keep developing it when people ask if it is ready. If you are going to abandon your projects, not telling people will not help you succeed, it will only spare you the shame and effort explaining why you droped another project.
A little bit of pop psychology from my end...
I don't think people start projects with the conscious intention of building identity, but with a genuine intention of delivering. I do think, though, that there's a small (or big!) part of your unconscious brain that binds these efforts to an overarching persona-building (both inwards and outwards) project. Although unconscious, it contributes to this net energy.
I guess that this communicating your intentions satisfies this portion of your brain, and reduces the amount of energy involved in the project.
Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't agree with this reasoning. Expressing in public your projects is a compromise and it can help you keep developing it when people ask if it is ready. If you are going to abandon your projects, not telling people will not help you succeed, it will only spare you the shame and effort explaining why you droped another project.
A little bit of pop psychology from my end... I don't think people start projects with the conscious intention of building identity, but with a genuine intention of delivering. I do think, though, that there's a small (or big!) part of your unconscious brain that binds these efforts to an overarching persona-building (both inwards and outwards) project. Although unconscious, it contributes to this net energy. I guess…
Sure, this makes sense. I just don't think (using only myself as a reference, which is totally biased) that this effect has a bigger impact than the social pressure the public compromise creates.
Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects
#36I think side projects and hobby projects need to be thought of separately.
In the context of hobby projects, over-engineering can even serve purpose of learning new things you otherwise could not.
For side projects, or startup candidates, however, you just ship it
Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects
#37> 4. Use frameworks and customise them – only refactor/build your own when absolutely neccessary. > 5. Build your project first – then worry about continuous delivery. These contradict each other. Building your own deployment system is just as much of a distraction as building your own CSS framework.
Who said anything about building a deployment system?? thats not the project..
Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects
#38If only it was applied to side projects exclusively...
Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects
#39"Continuously Delivering Nothing" is a mission statement for several companies I know.
I'm working on v2 of an app that's been under development for 5 years with no production users. They're still on v1. Pitiful.
Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects
#40For me it's very important that I don't discuss projects with friends / family / colleagues etc. until I really have something to show. I have always found it very easy to talk all the energy out of a good idea before I've even got any real work done.
> I have always found it very easy to talk all the energy out of a good idea
To me, that would suggest it wasn't a good idea in the first place.