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How to never complete anything

ewanvalentine.io

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Re: How to never complete anything

#121

Post by JackFr »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #38
vinceguidry wrote: post #17

I can't imagine ever shipping a side project. That's not why I build them. If I ever got to the point in my life where I do want my own company, a side project is not the way I want to go about it. Companies take a lot of work, that work has to be understood, then delegated and shared. The technology aspect is really only 10% of it. Sure, it's the essential 0-to-1 kicker that gets you going, but once that's done you…

This is a rationalization and you know it. There are tons of other people who also think side project is a way to learn something new, yet they ship. Also there are tons of startups that started out as side projects. Facebook did. You have no excuse. Stop lying to yourself because it's not doing yourself any good. The only reason you're not releasing your side projects to the world is because you are afraid of critic…

There's shipping and there's shipping.

I've got a side project with minus $30/month in revenue, with no plans to do much better. I have 3-5 users who complain when the site goes down and give me feedback on new features.

The motivation for the project is twofold. The simple joy of creating something -- no different than hanging a child's drawing on the fridge, and to keep my skills current and to play with technology I might otherwise not be using at work.

That being said -- I agree with you -- without shipping a working product, you've got nothing.

Re: How to never complete anything

#122

Post by nemacol »

l_t wrote: post #102
nemacol wrote: post #78

As someone who is trying to learn to code on their own, I feel like I understand this. The first question of "which language/stack/etc should I learn first?" has haunted me for the years I have been trying and getting nowhere. Not EXACTLY the same problem as the author, because I am not building out scalable infrastructure. I just spent a ton of time learning the fundamentals of angular and node, then try to understa…

Unless you want to focus exclusively on Web development, I wouldn't recommend picking Javascript as your first programming language. The ecosystem is fragmented, and the language itself is probably not the best for teaching. Have you considered learning Python or Ruby first? On the other hand, if you're committed to Javascript, I think you should start at the most basic level. Angular is good, but it's a complicated…

I have no intentions of dealing exclusively with web, but it seems to be the most accessible and it is easy to come up with projects to do. Where sitting down in front of visual studio trying to learn C# or similar is just way too big and harder to come up with things to do.

I started programming by working with codeacademy.com and taking a MEAN stack bootcamp - which was a good experience but not a great way to learn to code. I took this specific class because it met my work schedule, was online, and not very expensive. Hell, it was better than nothing at least.

I appreciate your feedback. I am at a point where I can build simple websites with html, css, java. I use bootstrap because css makes me angry. I take your point though, work with the fundamentals and progress from there. Thank you for your reply.

Re: How to never complete anything

#124

Post by nanospeck »

Recently, I found some things that works for me and put it out as a book. Interestingly, I finished the book also using the same techniques. A key trick to keep you motivated is to reward yourself handsomely and IMMEDIATELY if you achieve the goal on the PLANNED DATE. For eg. I rewarded myself an iPhone 7 plus ( which is currently the hottest phone in the market) for finishing the book in 30 days. This helps you overcome the fear of loss that, what if no one buys your product and your effort goes in vain. However I still find marketing is harder! (My book here:http://amzn.to/2iUYaOH )

Re: How to never complete anything

#125

Post by nemacol »

flxsrbr wrote: post #100
nemacol wrote: post #78

As someone who is trying to learn to code on their own, I feel like I understand this. The first question of "which language/stack/etc should I learn first?" has haunted me for the years I have been trying and getting nowhere. Not EXACTLY the same problem as the author, because I am not building out scalable infrastructure. I just spent a ton of time learning the fundamentals of angular and node, then try to understa…

Being in the same position (trying to teach myself some web development in my spare time) I recently decided to focus on the absolute basics and work my way up from there. This was after I quit a beginner's course which started with bootstrap, jquery, meteor.js and mongoDB. This may be fine for others, but to me it felt frustrating because all the interesting stuff beneath was kept hidden from me. I just used some to…

This is my experience as well. Started with a boot camp that made me feel like I could actually get stuff done only to struggle with core concepts, debugging, and actually doing things on my own.

I recently enrolled in FreeCodeCamp (2 weeks ago) and have been working through from the beginning.

Thank you for you comment. Best of luck to you, fellow newbie. :D

Re: How to never complete anything

#126

Post by Jemmeh »

0x54MUR41 wrote: post #104
overcast wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well to be fair, this is mostly what we're all discussing on here. Web Applications.

Any advice for non-web applications? Building a library, desktop application, and soon.

Push to your own local repo daily. Push to the actual users less frequently. Weekly, monthly, 3 months, just pick something reasonable and -stick to it-.

Re: How to never complete anything

#127

Post by _audakel »

nanospeck wrote: post #124

Recently, I found some things that works for me and put it out as a book. Interestingly, I finished the book also using the same techniques. A key trick to keep you motivated is to reward yourself handsomely and IMMEDIATELY if you achieve the goal on the PLANNED DATE. For eg. I rewarded myself an iPhone 7 plus ( which is currently the hottest phone in the market) for finishing the book in 30 days. This helps you over…

If you have poor self discipline in the first place what stops you from just buying the iPhone in the first place regardless of goal completion haha?

Re: How to never complete anything

#128

Post by chriswarbo »

tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #115
0x54MUR41 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any advice for non-web applications? Building a library, desktop application, and soon.

Web apps have the advantage that users don't have to actively update anything. One page load and they use the updated product. Receiving daily updates for desktop apps would suck because it typically requires the app to quit and start again. A good compromise would be updates every four weeks. At the same time you as a developer always leave your app in a state were you could push an update anytime. So you still work…

You could have a "nightly" release, which is updated as often as you like, alongside the "real" versions. Those who want the nightly can have it, those who want steady, stable releases can avoid it.
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