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The Joy of Small Projects

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Re: The Joy of Small Projects

#41

Post by rhizome »

dysoco wrote: post #10

I like the ethos behind this post; I've been struggling to finish projects for years, I get desmotivated, jump into another thing, don't finish it, come back after months now lost again, advance a little bit, drop it after a weekend, repeat, etc. I will try to use the framework presented here but I'm not sure exactly how to apply it, for example the project I've been meaning to finish is what I call a very dumb compi…

I came across this video a while back and though I'm not a wearables hardware guy, the rubric he uses is sound for programmer-y stuff too.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L1j93RnIxEo

Re: The Joy of Small Projects

#42

Post by yurivish »

simonw wrote: post #28

One 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 so…

That's really interesting! Could you say more about the job-like aspects of having users? Do you have advice on infrastructure that could be built to make the job easier?

I'm currently working on my first-ever side project with user accounts, and now I'm wondering what I'm in for. :-)

Re: The Joy of Small Projects

#43

Post by bliteben »

simonw wrote: post #28

One 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 so…

cool project because it encourages you to get out and do things, and maybe things you didn't know much about before!

Re: The Joy of Small Projects

#44

Post by bliteben »

ransom1538 wrote: post #30

My 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…

maybe the world will be ready for you again sometime

Re: The Joy of Small Projects

#45

Post by rmrf100 »

simonw wrote: post #28

One 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 so…

nice tips, Thanks.

Re: The Joy of Small Projects

#46

Post by tbrownaw »

This sounds like it about doing projects for the sake of saying they're completed?

My projects tend to be because I want something from them (explore a new toolset; have a working dish disposal; make my car able to play audio from bluetooth; not have to care about network filtering on random wifi aps; get a history of just how bad the temperature difference between rooms at home really is). They're "done" when either I have (enough of) what I want, or I lose interest and decide it doesn't matter that much anyway.

Re: The Joy of Small Projects

#47

Post by [deleted] »

floucky wrote: post #34
simonw wrote: post #28

One 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 so…

Especially if these users can share content, then you need to do moderation and hooo boy, you don't want to do that.

[deleted]

Re: The Joy of Small Projects

#49

Post by zem »

ransom1538 wrote: post #30

My 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…

you were just linking to projects on github? or cloning/scraping them?

Re: The Joy of Small Projects

#50

Post by thundergolfer »

I shipped my 'smallest' side project last week[1]. It was someone DM'ing me on Twitter trying to engage with my half-finished website that encouraged me to spend most of my weekend getting it to MVP.

It is annoying to ship something that isn't as polished as I want it to be (order fulfilment is a bit janky). But this annoyance is certainly outweighed by the joy of actually delivering something. The polish can come later is a decent amount of people start engaging with the digital project.

1. https://ddiaflashcards.com/

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