The art of over-engineering your side projects • Hacker News Board

Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects

#121

Post by tmaly » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 3:46 PM UTC

I have committed almost all of these mistakes with my food side project https://bestfoodnearme.com .

Probably the best thing I have come to understand in building side projects is that you need to get it out in front of people as soon as possible. After that, just get feedback, use analytics, and iterate quickly to fix issues.

Even more important, go look for existing problems, whether it be in online forums or talking to people in person. If you making a unicorn detector and you spend several years with your nose down, its a rough lesson to learn that no one wants a unicorn detector.

Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects

#122

Post by yummybear » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 3:46 PM UTC

I'm going to try another approach with my next project - not sure if it's a good idea, but I'm going with the Minimum Unviable Product. As soon as the project is bootstrapped and compilable, I'm going to release a version. I figure this way at least I can say I released something, even if it's not that feature rich.

Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects

#123

Post by quadcore » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 3:47 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #102

quadcore wrote: post #12

“I know: I’ll create a triple zoned redundant architecture with pub/sub database replication, a 32 node Kubernetes cluster and private networking across all regions – that way, I can handle anything!” The good news is, once you've done that, you can get a pretty decent job. The majority of software engineers seem to be under the illusion that potential customers care about the stack they are running. This is not enti…

> The good news is, once you've done that, you can get a pretty decent job. And you'll likely have to.

You'll likely have to anyway :) I still make a difference between writing a side project and starting a startup. The way I see it, there is no failing on a side project.

Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects

#124

Post by mindfulplay » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 3:49 PM UTC

karrotwaltz wrote: post #118

shados wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. My side projects are absurdly over engineered and I get nothing done. But I learn what not to do when it matters.

I recently built a C++ meta-programming monster for a side project. I want to make an article about that in the near future, and I am somewhat afraid that some people might think of reusing it in a real project. I had a lot of fun doing it, and indeed learnt to not do it in prod, the compiler errors are a nightmare to read and good luck maintaining that in the long run.

That seems like a great side project. The one that let's you understand things NOT to do. At the same time, it helps engender basic traits like curiosity, try-until-you-fail-and-try-again, engineering skills etc.

There are two types of side-projects though: one such as yours, where you try and understand a concept or engineer something just for the fun of it.

And there is second one: a game that will mature into something; a hobby project that will actually develop into a company. I think it's good to disambiguate these two as the OP was more about the latter where you may never get to a point to see it run or build let alone flourish into something meaningful - as overengineering kills the fail fast fail often mentality and the project itself.

Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects

#125

Post by scott_karana » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 3:50 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #49

quadcore wrote: post #12

“I know: I’ll create a triple zoned redundant architecture with pub/sub database replication, a 32 node Kubernetes cluster and private networking across all regions – that way, I can handle anything!” The good news is, once you've done that, you can get a pretty decent job. The majority of software engineers seem to be under the illusion that potential customers care about the stack they are running. This is not enti…

Potential customers do care about the stack you're running. They care if they have to download Java or Flash. They care if they have to be connected to the internet or can use your product offline. They care if your program starts quickly. They care if your program runs quickly once started. They care if your program has bugs (let's not pretend different languages aren't more or less error-prone). They care if your p…

Those are all client usability concerns, and none of them are stack intrinsic.

Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects

#126

Post by tokenizerrr » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #116

bpicolo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over-architecting infrastructure That's not a problem, that's the goal!

I have never regretted taking the time to make sure my projects have a proper logging infrastructure with every possible thing fed to the logger. I've built logging support libraries to set up AOP hooks to auto-log the call stack at all times, and it's been a lifesaver. I can't imagine not over-architecting this kind of stuff. I know I'd be in a world of pain several times if I hadn't.

How do you prefer to store/ship logs?

Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects

#127

Post by Kiro » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 3:56 PM UTC

0xfeba wrote: post #89

pgm8705 wrote: post #31

#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.

Yeah I've been working on a game for 5+ years that went thru C++/DirectX, then C# and Managed DirectX, and now Java and LibGDX. Thinking about using Unity now...

I'm in the same position. I've built my own game engine from scratch and while it was a really good learning exercise I recently started looking at Unity and wow... So many things I've always wanted in my engine that I will get for free. I don't regret a thing though.

Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects

#128

Post by always_good » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 3:57 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #49

quadcore wrote: post #12

“I know: I’ll create a triple zoned redundant architecture with pub/sub database replication, a 32 node Kubernetes cluster and private networking across all regions – that way, I can handle anything!” The good news is, once you've done that, you can get a pretty decent job. The majority of software engineers seem to be under the illusion that potential customers care about the stack they are running. This is not enti…

Potential customers do care about the stack you're running. They care if they have to download Java or Flash. They care if they have to be connected to the internet or can use your product offline. They care if your program starts quickly. They care if your program runs quickly once started. They care if your program has bugs (let's not pretend different languages aren't more or less error-prone). They care if your p…

Notice how just about none of them are the user caring about your stack.

In other words, when confronted about your high bug rate, you're not going to get anywhere going "heh, you see, Python was just more convenient than a statically-typed language and this lead to..."

Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects

#129

Post by old_chap » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 4:01 PM UTC

As an amateur coder/noob I'm happy I'm not unique in this idea. I constantly start projects in Flask/Python and just try to make them as complex as possible (to the limit of my current capabilities). When I'm at work (im an Incident Manager for a NOC/SOC) I can somewhat hold my own in conversations about infrastructure issues. I'm also hoping to go into the security field soon (OSCP cert).

Re: The art of over-engineering your side projects

#130

Post by wellthen » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC

karrotwaltz wrote: post #118

shados wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. My side projects are absurdly over engineered and I get nothing done. But I learn what not to do when it matters.

I recently built a C++ meta-programming monster for a side project. I want to make an article about that in the near future, and I am somewhat afraid that some people might think of reusing it in a real project. I had a lot of fun doing it, and indeed learnt to not do it in prod, the compiler errors are a nightmare to read and good luck maintaining that in the long run.

My constant on-again/off-again side project is something similar but in C#. Spending a week building a preprocessor and then discarding it because I didn't need it was both infuriating and strangely pleasing at once. :)