Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Side projects

antirez.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 243 posts

Re: Side projects

#201

Post by rday »

js2 wrote: post #180
rday wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link. I'm putting that one on my list. I like how you said "most valuable". My time isn't any more valuable then someone else's. I'm just most valuable writing code. Someone is else is most valuable cooking. Others are most valuable curing diseases.

A small tangent, but Michael Pollan's "Cooked" makes a reasonable counter-argument. By delegating everything that we're not "most valuable" at to others, we potentially end up becoming impotent and un-informed, unable to make intelligent decisions outside our area of expertise. Thus we lose our ability to be good citizens. He specifically makes the point in the context of cooking, something he argues is so fundamenta…

I agree with that. It's one of the reasons I'm trying to learn to cook. How can I be so bad at something I do multiple times every single day? It makes you think differently.

"A dash of salt, a pad of butter, cook until brown". None of that means anything to me! I've been coding my whole life. How much is a dash? What shade of brown?

Obviously I'm more into baking :)

Re: Side projects

#202

Post by Blackthorn »

jldugger wrote: post #183
bglazer wrote: post #42

I'm working on a side project now that will eventually be an open source project. I think it could benefit a lot of people. My problem is that I have a full time job. When I come home at night I want to cook dinner, run, socialize, drink a beer with a friend, or work on an art project. I don't particularly want to configure Ansible or read the OpenVPN docs. At most I can get 3-5 hours of productive work per week on t…

> If anyone has been in a similar situation, I would greatly appreciate advice. You can't have it all. A wife & kids, a full time job, a social life and an open source hacker reputation. Many of the biggest names in open source have none of those other things.

This is the most impactful thing I've ever read on Hacker News. No sarcasm.

You made me stop and consider my own life and what I do with it. I don't have it all -- in fact, I have that "side project" (open source hacker reputation) that's languished for a long time and I've always felt bad about it. But I have a demanding job, a wife (no kids), and my social life and leisure time is very important to me. But now I've, mostly, made peace with that fact.

Re: Side projects

#203

Post by lugg »

bglazer wrote: post #42

I'm working on a side project now that will eventually be an open source project. I think it could benefit a lot of people. My problem is that I have a full time job. When I come home at night I want to cook dinner, run, socialize, drink a beer with a friend, or work on an art project. I don't particularly want to configure Ansible or read the OpenVPN docs. At most I can get 3-5 hours of productive work per week on t…

Sounds like a scheduling issue to me, you either have to go full tit and code for 3-5 hours a night, every night, or you dont see progress.

That is the wrong way to tackle the problem, and you probably know it.

Attempt to set aside 30minutes to an hour a night to work on it, but no more, and you have to stop yourself from working more.

This is the only way I found worked for me. You dont have to set time every day (that part just helped in my case, I need consistency to build a habbit)

Re: Side projects

#204

Post by wuster »

I agree with his sentiment. Working on side projects keeps this career interesting. During the most boring, most soul-sucking projects of my corporate jobs, being able to accomplish projects on the side reminded me of why I am excited to be building software in the first place.

Re: Side projects

#205

Post by megablast »

bglazer wrote: post #42

I'm working on a side project now that will eventually be an open source project. I think it could benefit a lot of people. My problem is that I have a full time job. When I come home at night I want to cook dinner, run, socialize, drink a beer with a friend, or work on an art project. I don't particularly want to configure Ansible or read the OpenVPN docs. At most I can get 3-5 hours of productive work per week on t…

Well, you can hire someone to work on it for you.

You can upload the project to github and try to get people to help you for free.

Re: Side projects

#206

Post by [deleted] »

vonmoltke wrote: post #184
jldugger wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anyone has been in a similar situation, I would greatly appreciate advice. You can't have it all. A wife & kids, a full time job, a social life and an open source hacker reputation. Many of the biggest names in open source have none of those other things.

Then the industry should stop expecting people to have open source hacker reputations in order to be considered "good". I'm glaring at you specifically, "Github-is-your-resume" crowd.

[deleted]

Re: Side projects

#207

Post by infinotize »

jsankey wrote: post #177
bglazer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Unfortunately public transit is non-existent where I live. I'd love to spend my commute time working on the project rather than hoping that a distracted uninsured driver doesn't smash into me. I do enjoy thinking about the project while cooking. Good luck on your project!

Obviously moving can be a big deal, but IMO you should seriously consider it. You have a problem with available time, and commuting by car is a massive time sink. It's pretty insane how much "human capacity" is wasted this way!

The grass isn't always that green on the other side. Commuting on the nyc subway is no place to get work done, just as stressful and/or boring as driving, and despite the numerous and comprehensive lines commute times are still as bad as many drives.

Re: Side projects

#209

Post by someotheridiot »

bglazer wrote: post #42

I'm working on a side project now that will eventually be an open source project. I think it could benefit a lot of people. My problem is that I have a full time job. When I come home at night I want to cook dinner, run, socialize, drink a beer with a friend, or work on an art project. I don't particularly want to configure Ansible or read the OpenVPN docs. At most I can get 3-5 hours of productive work per week on t…

Wife and 2 kids with full time job here, trying to build a side project currently worth approx $1-2k/month. If you're not prepared to spend the hard hours to build it up, you're not going to succeed. Suck it up if you believe in it. Sorry to be so harsh, but most people don't get fairy tale success stories.

Re: Side projects

#210

Post by someotheridiot »

josephschmoe wrote: post #51
bglazer wrote: post #42

I'm working on a side project now that will eventually be an open source project. I think it could benefit a lot of people. My problem is that I have a full time job. When I come home at night I want to cook dinner, run, socialize, drink a beer with a friend, or work on an art project. I don't particularly want to configure Ansible or read the OpenVPN docs. At most I can get 3-5 hours of productive work per week on t…

The only way to do it is to have a job where you can complete the work in less than 5 hours a day. Preferably one that gives you the freedom to leave early/come in late so long as you're doing well on your work. No one actually works 8 hours a day and comes home to work 4 hours sustainably. I couldn't see someone doing that for more than two months without getting burned out.

I've been doing that for 3+ years now. If you truly enjoy what you are doing in your side project it can work. If not, perhaps you are just doing it for the money?
Post reply on HN