Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taking this to the next level: I come across people all the time that put tremendous effort into building similes for... everything. Not every concept needs an analogy to be understood if we can explain things using correct and simple language.
> Not every concept needs an analogy to be understood if we > can explain things using correct and simple language. That's a pretty big linguistic 'if', actually... how do you come to understand the 'correct and simple language' in the first place?
Finish your stuff
111–120 of 177 posts
Re: Finish your stuff
#112I find it irritating when people look at some of my projects on Github and consider then "abandoned" because they haven't had any commits in a year or two. They're not abandoned: they're finished. They do what they're designed to do, and I use them regularly. Outstanding issues may exist for feature requests that I don't need, or for minor bugs that won't occur in anything but obscure edge cases that don't apply to t…
See I never assume a project is abandoned unless there are open issues regarding bugs (or possible bugs) that the owner never commented on. That combined with commits a long time ago is usually a pretty good tell in my opinion.
Simply just not having in a commit in a year isn't a tell but it is concerning; I haven't come across tech stable enough that even very minor commits don't become necessary within even a few months.
Re: Finish your stuff
#113This is absurd. A finished project is a dead project. If it isn't improving, it's dying. Never finish your projects (unless you're just doing homework). Software is a system. Systems of any non-trivial complexity are living things that must adapt and evolve. Constantly. (Also, there is absolutely nothing wrong with abandoning a project. Gain as much as you can from your experience and quickly move on to something bet…
Is TeX dead?
Given the state of its unicode support, yes.
Re: Finish your stuff
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nice idea. Call it a "FinishUp Weekend" as opposed to a "StartUp Weekend"?
I searched my old emails and indeed we called it "Finish Up Weekend." It was held May 10, 2013 at Work In Progress (in Las Vegas). I'll credit John Hawkins (9seeds.com) with the name.
I live in Vegas and would love to attend something like this.
Re: Finish your stuff
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I ever buy a car with skateboard as a chassis, I'll be very disappointed! Sorry, just had to =)
Probably it should be build the tyre first. This is a functionally complete thing that can, along with many other functionally complete things be composed into the car.
No, you miss so much when you try to make a component you think will be useful. The first piece must be something that makes someone's life a little bit easier - that's the only way to be sure you're making something actually useful.
Re: Finish your stuff
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's anything you expect other people to use, then I'd consider anything that hasn't been updated in the past year "abandoned", yeah. If it's your personal projects though, I don't make that assumption.
Abandoned or stable? If it has no dependencies and a small feature set, it may just be done. "Stable" is a good thing.
Let me give a more concrete example: if something was developed in Rails 3 but was not updated for Rails 4, then I assume it won't work (I'm on Rails 4.1).
This doesn't mean the entire project needs to be re-written. Often times, a simple note that says "compatible with Rails 4" would be satisfactory.
But if even the readme is not updated, that makes it difficult for me to put any faith in it. And unfortunately there are tons of projects like that on GitHub.
Re: Finish your stuff
#117I thought the Unix philosophy embraced the idea of "small tools that do one thing really well." > Please join me in my effort and do finish your projects. Hear, hear. A friend and I hosted a "Finish it! Weekend" once (as opposed to a "Startup Weekend"). The idea was to get people together for one weekend and finish that last 10% or whatever of a project. Sadly we were the only two to show up. (And we both finished ou…
This is a fantastic idea! I think I will host one in LA this summer.
Re: Finish your stuff
#118Run of the mill software exhibit life cycle patterns more like a small animal. It starts out all nimble and has to grow and change over time to become an adult of its kind; then it eventually dies.
Finishing your projects is good advice overall though.
Re: Finish your stuff
#119There's a great list of project management advice by Jerry Madden of NASA that gets posted here occasionally[1]. One of the points is; "Rule #30: It is mainly the incompetent that don't like to show off their work." Madden's remark is based on the specific environment he was involved in (NASA engineering); if you're surrounded by people who are good at their jobs and who know how to criticise constructively then ther…
There are also simple human flaws that prevent people from showing off their work, such as lack of confidence and fear of failure (failure in succeeding). They tend to falsely be perceived as extreme modesty, too.
Re: Finish your stuff
#120A lot of people equate "done" as "abandoned". Wasn't there some ruffled feathers between Rob Conery and some user over Massive being "done"?
But, then, who wants those kinds of users, right?