How to never complete anything • Hacker News Board

Re: How to never complete anything

#141

Post by exDM69 » Fri, Mar 10, 2017, 4:04 PM UTC

RyanHamilton wrote: post #116

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are doing great that you're releasing them into public, but your problem is you are not sharing it enough. I have many friends who release things like you. I'm not saying you are doing this but these guys just release and make no effort to promote them. They are afraid that they will get hurt if they try hard and no one still wants their thing. I understand this is totally valid fear and I have it too, bu…

cough My side projects: http://jpad.io/ - Java snippet runner that means less boilerplate and automatic display as html tables / charts. http://www.sqldashboards.com/ - Real time chart your database queries http://www.timestored.com/ - Niche database training and tools cough always be pushing :)

These are all very neat and polished projects. And you have the advantage of doing web sites / apps which is a lot easier to release than a native app. The stuff I do simply isn't viable on the web (or even if it were, it wouldn't be fun) and I'm not particularly interested in working within a browser sandbox.

It's much, much harder to get a project to a state where someone can git clone, build and run it. Depends a lot on the target platform and the nature of the project, some languages and platforms are easier than others.

No need to be arrogant, though. Nice that you have the time and the ability to finish but don't expect everyone else to have the time and the capabilities to do so.

Re: How to never complete anything

#142

Post by exDM69 » Fri, Mar 10, 2017, 4:10 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #107

exDM69 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I probably do share too little, and I get too discouraged when reddit downvotes my stuff to oblivion. > Next time you build a product try to post it online everywhere like Reddit and Show HN. I'm sure you'll gain more confidence and experience from it. Here's the problem, I never "build a product". My free time is not nearly enough to build a proper product that would a) be fun for me to…

Wow, I was going to write my own story of putzing around with side projects here, but yours matches it perfectly. I've got a local repo with probably dozens of 50-100% completed hobby projects, but I don't really release anything. I used to release stuff but then it becomes a maintenance pain. Users don't get that this is a hobby for you, and don't understand why you don't respond and fix right this minute. This is e…

Yeah, I stopped working on "infrastructure" utility libraries and similar projects because the maintenance burden is too high. Some people just don't get it - I'm not in it to provide a free service to anyone.

Luckily I live in a country where the law doesn't allow an employer to forbid releasing projects done on free time, so I don't have your issue. I would seriously reconsider my employment if I were given such restrictions. As little as I finish stuff, the ability to share and receive feedback from strangers in the internet is still positive to me.

Re: How to never complete anything

#143

Post by choward » Fri, Mar 10, 2017, 4:15 PM UTC

theGimp wrote: post #132

majewsky wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ship daily" only works with web applications. If I were to ship my applications daily (or rather: each day where there occur changes), I would just be compiling packages all the time. (Before you ask: This cannot be automated further. I will not give my GPG key to some automation to sign the packages with.)

You can ship daily even if your process is not automated. I usually automate building and deployment later in an application's life -- not at the beginning. You can automate all steps for building an application but the signing to make your life easier. You can also automate things locally if you're worried about what you're signing. The bottom line is that this applies to all apps (though your users might be irritat…

But trying to automate everything is why I never get shit done.

Re: How to never complete anything

#144

Post by samirillian » Fri, Mar 10, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

Maybe part of it is coming up with a project that you consider too inherently important/interesting to experiment on. I feel like there are projects that are essentially excuses to learn a new skill, and then there are projects where you perceive a real need and simply want that product to exist.

Re: How to never complete anything

#145

Post by bodecker » Fri, Mar 10, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

gerlv wrote: post #26

Ship daily This is the advice I can give to anyone who has a side project. Get to the point where you can show something to the users and just start adding stuff. Even if it's just two lines of code or changing the favicon - still worth it. In practice, it's harder to do than it sounds, but I've been doing it for some time and it's been going great. In reality, you won't have millions of users on day 1 no matter how…

> Ship daily

This is great advice, but when it's not possible to ship daily, I find that even just committing once a day is a good micro-goal to keep projects moving. The GitHub streaks feature can help motivate you too.

Re: How to never complete anything

#146

Post by nikon » Fri, Mar 10, 2017, 4:27 PM UTC

robbfitzsimmons wrote: post #96

> If you're using AdBlocker, fair play, I don't blame you. But please consider chucking me a couple of quid: https://monzo.me/ewanvalentine Am I missing something? It's a nice set of thoughts, but I can't imagine paying to have read somebody's personal blog, and would have been vaguely weirded-out at him having ads on it.

Agreed... Such a strange thing to close with. I had to scroll up to see what he'd given me for free?

Re: How to never complete anything

#147

Post by novaleaf » Fri, Mar 10, 2017, 4:27 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #92

gerlv wrote: post #26

Ship daily This is the advice I can give to anyone who has a side project. Get to the point where you can show something to the users and just start adding stuff. Even if it's just two lines of code or changing the favicon - still worth it. In practice, it's harder to do than it sounds, but I've been doing it for some time and it's been going great. In reality, you won't have millions of users on day 1 no matter how…

"Ship daily" only works with web applications. If I were to ship my applications daily (or rather: each day where there occur changes), I would just be compiling packages all the time. (Before you ask: This cannot be automated further. I will not give my GPG key to some automation to sign the packages with.)

I automate my deploy process by passing my password as an argument to my automation script. maybe you can try figuring something similar out.

Because yeah, by hand, even deploying my webapp would take a couple hours. it took me maybe 8hrs of labor to setup my deploy script but given as I've deployed maybe 50 times so far it's paid off.

Re: How to never complete anything

#148

Post by srvlsct » Fri, Mar 10, 2017, 4:28 PM UTC

I can relate to this. I created several products that I never launched. Now that I look back, I wish I hadn't been so reluctant to publishing them. Granted, I learned a lot but I wish I launched early and often to get over the psychological hurdle. Most people don't really care about your project anyway.

I finally bit the bullet and launched http://www.survivalscout.com in January. It's a definitely whole new set of challenges going from coding to trying to market and sell your project.

Re: How to never complete anything

#149

Post by SomeStupidPoint » Fri, Mar 10, 2017, 4:43 PM UTC

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…

I dont want everything I do criticized. I dont want every small doodad I make to have to worry about licenses and IP. I dont want to have people yelling at me for not supporting a weekend project.

As a specific example, I wrote a personal set of Minecraft tools.

I read a lot of file format information off the wiki to get compatibility with their map (and other) files. Did I accidentally use protected IP because the wiki wasnt clean information? Maybe. Did I stray in to copyright violation by using their names for blocks, rather than renaming the numeric codes? Possibly.

Then there's the fact version 1 was a hacked together spaghetti ball with magic values all over the place I wrote in an evening. Would I have benefited from having that feedback told to me? Not at all -- that was actually solid engineering to get 'er done as a prototype.

A week later version 2 was out, but it was a complete rewrite that didn't have any compatibility. Maybe feedback would've been helpful here, but even I thought there were still some obvious flaws because I was trying a new style of programming in Python, and it hadn't gelled yet.

Version 3 was a week or two after that, with another breaking rewrite. This time it used a model of automata from a completely different source, changing the storage format, adding a scripting interface, etc. with only a thin definition file for and import/export layer to Minecraft.

And that's where it sits on a drive, 90% finished automata development tools with MC compatibility because I learned what I wanted to from the project and moved on to other things. (I say 90% finished because while it works fine, there are features I thought of but didn't add.)

I don't want to keep working on it, I don't want to share the implementation of the automata engine because it's slightly buggy, and I don't want to support the project if others choose to use it. (And they very well might -- MC development tools suck.)

What would've been gained, at any point, in "shipping" it (beyond using it myself to make a few maps, which I did)?

Re: How to never complete anything

#150

Post by alkonaut » Fri, Mar 10, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

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…

> 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 criticism.

I often set the bar so high there is no chance I could ever finish. The only projects that are attractive and shiny enough are those that are too big to finish.

E.g. I could choose between writing, completing and shipping a small indie game. Or I could write an OS from scratch, or the next Unreal Engine because I think it looks shiny.

Obviously I have no chance in hell of compleing a AAA game engine. Or an OS that does any more than say "Hello world" on boot. But I can pretend to be writing a AAA game engine - and I can keep pretending for many nights, until I have 1% of a game engine. At that point, there is probably something shinier that gets my attention.

So releasing it to the world: Obviously: I could put my 1% of a game engine on github for everyone to see, and that would be "releasing it to the world". But most likely no one would see it! I have hundreds of projects sitting around in various stages of completeness. Perhaps 2 or 3 were ever in some kind of usable state - and what they do have in common is that it was horrible to "finish" them in terms of making a proper repo, readmes, deployments, setups etc...

The reason finishing stuff and shipping them is so boring is because even a trivially small project that people actually want to use will have a ton of work required that aren't coding. I have no interest deploying a web app, no interest in drawing (or searching for) graphics for the little indie game etc. I'd rather make a new placeholder game than finishing the first one! I just want to code. I don't mind showing my code. I just normally don't want make a finished product of it. I get enough of that at work.

Edit: noticed someone said pretty much exactly this already and you responded. Oh well.