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

A one-side-project-per-month challenge

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 121 posts

Re: A one-side-project-per-month challenge

#71

Post by bluedino »

gravypod wrote: post #67
davidwparker wrote: post #18

I'm surprised by all the negative reactions. Of course you're not going to be making anything substantial in a month (most likely). Instead, you'll learn to actually finish (or semi-finish) projects and ship them regularly. This is very much like One Game a Month ( http://www.onegameamonth.com/ ). The idea is that write, learn, ship. It's nice. If you find that one of your projects takes off, or you really like it, t…

The problem isn't the idea of doing one thing per month. It's the implementation in my mind. I don't like when people just wander around programming aimlessly. I also don't like when we drop standards to meet deadlines (I've got a looooong history of doing this and I hate it, check my github). I think completeness, reliableness, and also practicality should be king. You shouldn't be focused on pumping out something 2…

Define a 'game'. You could get the basics of any 8-bit game done in a weekend. Heck even faster than that once you learn a game library or save enough code from previous projects.

Re: A one-side-project-per-month challenge

#72

Post by wheelerwj »

davidwparker wrote: post #18

I'm surprised by all the negative reactions. Of course you're not going to be making anything substantial in a month (most likely). Instead, you'll learn to actually finish (or semi-finish) projects and ship them regularly. This is very much like One Game a Month ( http://www.onegameamonth.com/ ). The idea is that write, learn, ship. It's nice. If you find that one of your projects takes off, or you really like it, t…

> Instead, you'll learn to actually finish

This is the pretty close to hitting the nail on the head. In order to actually complete something, you have to learn to scope a project to be complete-able. This means you have to actually focus on your mvp and ship that and not let yourself get pulled into feature creep.

Re: A one-side-project-per-month challenge

#73

Post by atmartins »

gravypod wrote: post #67
davidwparker wrote: post #18

I'm surprised by all the negative reactions. Of course you're not going to be making anything substantial in a month (most likely). Instead, you'll learn to actually finish (or semi-finish) projects and ship them regularly. This is very much like One Game a Month ( http://www.onegameamonth.com/ ). The idea is that write, learn, ship. It's nice. If you find that one of your projects takes off, or you really like it, t…

The problem isn't the idea of doing one thing per month. It's the implementation in my mind. I don't like when people just wander around programming aimlessly. I also don't like when we drop standards to meet deadlines (I've got a looooong history of doing this and I hate it, check my github). I think completeness, reliableness, and also practicality should be king. You shouldn't be focused on pumping out something 2…

Man I'm glad you're not making business decisions for my company...

Re: A one-side-project-per-month challenge

#74

Post by coldtea »

untog wrote: post #50
davidwparker wrote: post #18

I'm surprised by all the negative reactions. Of course you're not going to be making anything substantial in a month (most likely). Instead, you'll learn to actually finish (or semi-finish) projects and ship them regularly. This is very much like One Game a Month ( http://www.onegameamonth.com/ ). The idea is that write, learn, ship. It's nice. If you find that one of your projects takes off, or you really like it, t…

> If you find that one of your projects takes off, or you really like it, then continue to work on it. I think this is the thing. It's a slightly weird set of incentives for you to create a new project every month, irrespective of whether last month's worked out or not. I'd instead describe it as "12 months of ruthlessness". Start a project at the beginning of the month. Has it gotten anywhere by the end of the month…

>I think this is the thing. It's a slightly weird set of incentives for you to create a new project every month, irrespective of whether last month's worked out or not.

It's not always necessary to spell out everything.

If one's 3rd month product proves widely succesful and shows great potential, they can always decide by themselves to continue on it and not go on to their 4th and next months' products.

They don't need that spelt out in the challenge rules... And if someone is so dense that they do, there are slim chances that they'd be creating any great product anyway...

Re: A one-side-project-per-month challenge

#75

Post by coldtea »

gravypod wrote: post #70
coldtea wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You shouldn't be focused on pumping out something 24/7 you should be thinking of how to make the best product that you can possibly make. This is a false dichotomy. "Timely delivery" is also an essential feature of any product. Or, as they say, the better is the enemy of the good. While you're "thinking of how to make the best product that you can possibly make" others can just go ahead and make something. And that…

When the product is contracted work*. When the work is for yourself, you set the due date. Setting the due date at 1 month is bound to yield unsavory results.

>When the work is for yourself, you set the due date. Setting the due date at 1 month is bound to yield unsavory results.

People have created profitable side projects in a couple of weeks or even less.

Re: A one-side-project-per-month challenge

#76

Post by gravypod »

bluedino wrote: post #71
gravypod wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't the idea of doing one thing per month. It's the implementation in my mind. I don't like when people just wander around programming aimlessly. I also don't like when we drop standards to meet deadlines (I've got a looooong history of doing this and I hate it, check my github). I think completeness, reliableness, and also practicality should be king. You shouldn't be focused on pumping out something 2…

Define a 'game'. You could get the basics of any 8-bit game done in a weekend. Heck even faster than that once you learn a game library or save enough code from previous projects.

My definition of a game is an interactive story or experiance that is provided through information provided directly and indirectly to the player. However this is acomplished is acceptable but the only measure for it's success is if people enjoy it, just like any other art.

Re: A one-side-project-per-month challenge

#77

Post by strictfp »

joshux wrote: post #21
strictfp wrote: post #9

Excuse my ignorance, but aren't we glorifying speed here at HN? I think one project per month is way too fast to acheive anything of substance. If you're spending one hour three days a week, you'll only have 12 hours to finish a project. Even if you quadruple that, 40h isn't all that much for completing anything interesting at all. I have spent more than a year off and on on my latest side project, and it's not finis…

Ken Thompson wrote Unix in a month.

Allegedly, it took him a month - https://www.princeton.edu/~hos/Mahoney/expotape.htm. But the idea had probably been growing on him for several years, while working on very similar projects.

I think this actually supports my idea of letting ideas grow on you before executing them.

Re: A one-side-project-per-month challenge

#79

Post by taneq »

davidwparker wrote: post #18

I'm surprised by all the negative reactions. Of course you're not going to be making anything substantial in a month (most likely). Instead, you'll learn to actually finish (or semi-finish) projects and ship them regularly. This is very much like One Game a Month ( http://www.onegameamonth.com/ ). The idea is that write, learn, ship. It's nice. If you find that one of your projects takes off, or you really like it, t…

As the old Apple folklore page says, "Real artists ship."

It makes me think of the classic Glengarry Glen Ross scene. "If you want to work here, CLOSE!"

Re: A one-side-project-per-month challenge

#80

Post by freyir »

I was thinking about doing something similar this year. I settled on one project per quarter, which would let me take on things slightly more ambitious. But in a way, I like the extreme constraints set by one project per month, which will likely force someone to approach projects completely differently than they're used to.
Post reply on HN