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How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

sizefivegames.com

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Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#111

Post by jdswain »

lscharen wrote: post #81
mstade wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kill two birds with one stone: my apartment is actually two in disguise. I have two front doors, one leading to a third of the apartment (it's a rather large 4-bed) which is quite literally closed off from the rest by simply locking the internal door that connects the two. It may sound silly to have to literally exit the apartment to enter the office when it's literally next door, but it does have some value. Also…

I totally get it; I also need a separate space to switch mindsets. Your setup reminds me of an article I read many years ago on these sorts of "tricks" to stay disciplined when working from home. One of the tips an individual used was to 1. Walk out his front door 2. Lock it 3. Walk around the block 4. Re-enter the house And he was now in "work mode". At the end of the day, he reversed the process by walking around t…

I used to do something similar. Go out but to a coffee shop and do my emails and planning, then go home and start the real work. I just found it too hard to go straight from breakfast to working at home without some sort of routine to switch to a work state.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#112

Post by leesalminen »

zzzcpan wrote: post #53
erikb wrote: post #41

Now that I've experienced the start-up world twice I have to say: What's the big deal about working full time in big corp? Not all of them have cubicles and ask their devs to wear suits. T-Shirt, free coffee, huge desk, free hardware, other smart people who are just like me, reliable income, some level of attractiveness to the other gender due to stable life. Honestly I don't know why I didn't do that from the start…

I don't think it's possible to work as a software engineer full time and have enough mental energy to do meaningful work on your own projects in your spare time.

I've done it successfully. It was not easy. One of the hardest things I've ever done.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#113

Post by mahyarm »

karmajunkie wrote: post #91

This would be more accurately titled, "I survived 10 years as a solo developer and here are the choices I made". Here's my version: 1) Craftsmen pay good money for their tools. Invest in your office space, whether its a dedicated space in your home or a coworking membership. But be honest about what tools you need. You probably don't need a $1000 aeron chair. But you do need one that's comfortable. You probably don't…

You can buy a $250 aeron chair on craigslist although ;)

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#114

Post by derefr »

hartator wrote: post #5
fapjacks wrote: post #2

"Sit down and do some fucking work." The other stuff is just optional.

and don't make 3d space game I guess. :)

Seems like 3D space rail shooters (e.g. StarFox) do okay, but nobody ever wants to make one of those. (Even the StarFox team seems to only want to make games that are at most half that, to everyone's consternation.)

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#115

Post by Arizhel »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #105
Arizhel wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Currently, with a wife, a kid, and all her kid-friends, carrying on loudly and ransacking the house at all hours, I couldn't imagine making a "bedroom converted to office" work for actual productive remote work. I can't imagine making a setup like this work for even maintaining basic sanity. Every time I read a post like this, I realize I did the right thing by not having kids. I'm constantly stressed out as it is b…

That's a reason to have a separate office, not a reason to not have kids (if you'd otherwise want to have them.)

I can't have a separate office; I'm stuck with the office my employer provides me. I could go find another job of course, but it's going to be the same there, or worse, since all the employers have jumped on the open-plan office bandwagon.

At home is the only place I get a little peace and quiet, aside from my cats jumping in my lap. Kids would eliminate that.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#116

Post by Clubber »

erikb wrote: post #41

Now that I've experienced the start-up world twice I have to say: What's the big deal about working full time in big corp? Not all of them have cubicles and ask their devs to wear suits. T-Shirt, free coffee, huge desk, free hardware, other smart people who are just like me, reliable income, some level of attractiveness to the other gender due to stable life. Honestly I don't know why I didn't do that from the start…

There are several reasons that come to mind:

1. IP ownership - many companies include total IP ownership during your time of employment.

2. If it's a soul sucking place, you'll burn out quickly and won't want to touch a computer, even if you love coding.

3. Making some company 10-20x your salary is disheartening.

4. You are at the whim of your bosses.

5. Many companies make getting anything done a huge pain in the ass. Over zealous security policies, over tight virus scanners choking your development box, requiring shitty company hardware to develop on, some DBA rejecting your SQL because he decided everyone should do it this way this week, network guys not fixing a horribly slow network, etc.

There are advantages, of course. The problem is you probably will never be able to get a business up and running while working at another job, it just takes too much attention.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#117

Post by throwanem »

ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #107
karmajunkie wrote: post #91

This would be more accurately titled, "I survived 10 years as a solo developer and here are the choices I made". Here's my version: 1) Craftsmen pay good money for their tools. Invest in your office space, whether its a dedicated space in your home or a coworking membership. But be honest about what tools you need. You probably don't need a $1000 aeron chair. But you do need one that's comfortable. You probably don't…

>> You probably don't need a $1000 aeron chair... my most productive setup is a self-made workshop desk and a $40 craftsman workshop stool :)

Not gonna lie, I'm in love with my Aeron at home. I've never had such a comfortable chair. But I'm building a desk from scratch to go with it - just a few more coats of polyurethane and a weekend spent getting it set up, and I'm good to go.

Tips from the process:

- The "get a solid core door and stick legs on it" process really works. You don't need to get fancy unless you want to - legs can be as simple as chunks of 4x4 cut to length and mounted with right-angle brackets and lag screws, and you don't need to be remotely competent at carpentry to get a solid result. (But if possible, get a door that isn't veneered, because that'll have a microscopically thin layer of wood veneer over several layers of what's basically cardboard, which is just terrible to try and work. $70 versus $300 isn't nothing, though, and you can work with a veneered door if you have to.)

- Iron acetate stain really works, too, but you need to know what you're doing, and you need to test on a scratch piece of the same wood first. I let the steel wool soak about 18 hours and got a very handsome steel-gray result. Then I stupidly put on a second coat without testing, and got a medium brown that's still decent but not what I was going for.

- If you don't have shop space, you can get away without it, but be prepared to put in more effort as a consequence. I'm doing all the work, including staining and sealing, in my ~600sf one-bedroom apartment's living room. A circular saw is pretty much a non-starter, but that's okay; a miter saw will go through 4x4s with enough effort, and you can hand-drill pilot holes for lag screws. (A drill press stand is preferable, though.) A dropcloth or two preserves the carpet from stain and sealer drips. The only hard part was getting an eighty-pound door up three flights of stairs - I don't want to do that again!

- Iron acetate-stained wood will smell of rust to the touch forever, so you really need to seal it. General Finishes water-based polyurethane is effectively odorless; where the vinegar reek of the stain lingered for hours even with the windows open, the sealant doesn't smell at all even while it's being applied.

- It's a really nice feeling to build a piece of really solid furniture out of wood with your own two hands and have it exactly meet your needs. I highly recommend it!

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#118

Post by bartread »

Arizhel wrote: post #115
pilsetnieks wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a reason to have a separate office, not a reason to not have kids (if you'd otherwise want to have them.)

I can't have a separate office; I'm stuck with the office my employer provides me. I could go find another job of course, but it's going to be the same there, or worse, since all the employers have jumped on the open-plan office bandwagon. At home is the only place I get a little peace and quiet, aside from my cats jumping in my lap. Kids would eliminate that.

I feel similarly.

Where I'm working at the moment, apart from the noise and distraction of an overcrowded open plan office, there are people in my face literally all the time due to meetings, questions, pairing, dealing with outages, and other miscellaneous interruptions. As an introvert this all becomes seriously draining so home is very much my escape.

I don't think I'm alone in this either - plenty of introverts in software, and I certainly didn't choose software as a career so I could sit around yakking to people all day. Quite the opposite in fact. (I may have made this observation in a comment on HN before, so apologies to anyone who may already have read it.)

The real downside of all this is that I often don't want to socialise with my friends or talk to my family outside of work because I'm basically peopled out and need some peace and quiet.

Add to this the fact that the work is boring and the commute is a gruelling 2.5 hour motorcycle roundtrip (>4 hours by car, due to traffic, or about 5 hours by public transport) and it's probably high time for me to find other work.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#120

Post by Nition »

mstade wrote: post #65
raamdev wrote: post #8

> I find it astonishing that startup indie devs pay out for an office, with all the extra bills that entails. Work from home, keep your overheads as close to zero as possible. I've been a solo dev for nearly a decade (8 years) and I found that sometimes it makes complete sense to pay for an office. Before my daughter was born, I was able to work from almost anywhere: noisy cafes, at home, the library, etc. But after…

I kill two birds with one stone: my apartment is actually two in disguise. I have two front doors, one leading to a third of the apartment (it's a rather large 4-bed) which is quite literally closed off from the rest by simply locking the internal door that connects the two. It may sound silly to have to literally exit the apartment to enter the office when it's literally next door, but it does have some value. Also…

I'm not sure about the US but here in New Zealand, even if you just work in a room in your usual home, you can claim that percent of your home's costs in your business expenses.[1] So I definitely wouldn't say you're doing anything immoral tax-wise.

[1] http://www.ird.govt.nz/business-income-tax/expenses/homebus-...

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