Short projects are an excellent way to learn a new tool or framework. Want to learn Next.js? Looking for an excuse to try that new Golang game engine? Pick an obscenely small goal and you'll likely have more fun exploring the docs and learning the tool than getting stuck in the weeds of the myriad requirements not helping you learn that new tool.
The Joy of Small Projects
21–30 of 103 posts
Re: The Joy of Small Projects
#22For me it works best to start a project in such a way that it is easy to get back to. Fully expecting and embracing getting bored and leaving it gathering dust for a while.
For this to work I have docs folder with a todo.txt, architecture.txt, questions.txt and features.txt. I push it early to a private gitlab repo and use a language like TypeScript that makes it easy to come back to and make changes without fear of braking things. It won't be the first time that I get excited (again) by something and can continue on an existing project.
Re: The Joy of Small Projects
#23I agree with this and I haven't done enough of these kind of projects but I did create this parkrun map as the one on the parkrun website was not very good.
https://www.moreofless.co.uk/map-of-parkrun-5k-running-event...
It's really simple but I use it often myself and other people are finding it too, which is nice.
Re: The Joy of Small Projects
#24Trouble is... I don't think I could build anything that I'd actually have a use for in less than 1-3 months, except for extremely ad hoc things that you can't really predict in advance, like a file convert and rename script.
I can think of 4 projects on my own, lifetime total, that I would consider ready for a "Version 1.0.0" tag, and far more that regret ever spending time on, some that required more time on top of that to disentangle myself one(Especially with hardware, where you've now got physical stuff to deal with).
The only small projects I've been happy with are the pure toys and decorations. One was a replacement for fortune, but it generates them dynamically using a MadLib style text replacement engine. Another was a candle flicker simulator.
Anything tool or infrastructure or library-like has usually become a regret, save for one multiyear megaproject, and a few things with zero reasonable alternatives.
I think the best small projects are the ones that are purely self contained, that will never have anything else depend on them, that will never be part of you "personal baggage" to maintain.
Re: The Joy of Small Projects
#25I think it's important to define what it means for you to "finish the project".
Is your project "finished", when you see an MVP that you can release to the world? Your project now has a minimum set of features that delivers the initial value you thought it would deliver?
Is it worthwhile to do a Show HN on it? (and risk no one clicking on it because HN receives so many submissions? :)
Is it worthwhile to release on PH? (and so many products launched in PH thesedays are... pretty much well-polished, revenue ready - if not funded etc)
What comes after you "finishing" your projects? Will you continue? or move on to something else?
For me, one of the ways to define "finishing" was to make sure that it launches with some type of payment plan. It is an MVP, but it also has monetization in it so that should anyone else wish to pay for it and use it, they can do so immediately.
Sure, not all projects are about payment and those projects are fine (which is why I said 'one of the ways'...) but if I know that this is something that I'd like to continue to work on because I enjoy it and I know it has legs, I try to find some way of generating revenue to see what the response would be.
Thoughts?
Re: The Joy of Small Projects
#26Great read.
I think this is a good place to reference Tiny Projects [0], which to me are a manifestation of what is described here.
Re: The Joy of Small Projects
#27I think it's important to define what it means for you to "finish the project". Is your project "finished", when you see an MVP that you can release to the world? Your project now has a minimum set of features that delivers the initial value you thought it would deliver? Is it worthwhile to do a Show HN on it? (and risk no one clicking on it because HN receives so many submissions? :) Is it worthwhile to release on P…
Love your thoughts and observations!
I think for the most part I align with you regarding calling something “finished” as a project having monetization in it.
As of lately though I’ve been thinking a lot about two different definitions of “finish”, one of them being that I can use it to do some task that I want to do. For example, I handle my finances using beancount and around that I’ve build a few projects that are finished in as much as they do what I want them to do and make managing my finances easier (import transactions from email notifications received from bank, eMacs configuration for my finances, etc.)
The second category is open source projects. I often wonder what would it take to build something that is useful to others but that doesn’t come with all the complications of a monetized products? Like, how Moodle or Drupal became Moodle and Drupal? How did they became known? Who used it first?
I want to find a tiny little problem to solve, and find a way that the people with that problem know about my solution and hopefully can benefit from it… but I don’t even know how to properly ask the question about where to start something like that… and actually finish it!
Re: The Joy of Small Projects
#28One tip I've picked up from experience: avoid projects that have user accounts.
If your project has user accounts, you'll get users who you have to take responsibility for. Then it's not a side-project any more, it's a part-time job.
These days I much prefer side projects which have no user accounts at all (like https://www.niche-museums.com/) or that are open source tools where the end user installs and uses the software without me having any involvement at all (like https://github.com/simonw/shot-scraper)
Re: The Joy of Small Projects
#29No post body was provided.
Re: The Joy of Small Projects
#30My last projects were controversial. lol. Finished it in 3?ish days. Ruby/Rails/mysql. The elevator pitch: "You place your github project on the site, you rate atleast 5 people's github project, people will view and rate your github project ". It was a fun way to view rando github projects and share feedback.
Github security reached out. Banned. All accounts locked. Creepy lawyer emails. Threats. Then i remembered we are in a closed garden now. It isn't 1998.
Then I was like oh! I will try another one. What if we allow people to automatically delete comments under 0 points on HN. I had a simple script anyone could run on their laptop. Posting was Flagged. Removed from front page in 10 minutes.