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A one-side-project-per-month challenge

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

#81

Post by krapp »

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…

One Game a Month projects aren't about producing quality games, so much as learning to complete something within a deadline. If you can finish even a simple game in a month, then you know you can finish a more complex, longer term project. Finishing games is a skill in and of itself, and one most new game developers may not realize they need to develop.

Far from being aimless programming, it's meant to teach you to judge the value of your own initial concepts and estimate the time and effort it would take to pull them off, and to prioritize practical work over bikeshedding and unnecessary iteration. Having the arbitrary deadline is what helps you focus on the end goal - projects with open ended or nonexistent deadlines tend never to be finished.

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

#82

Post by strictfp »

tener wrote: post #51
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…

Slightly OT: are you actually able to do anything meaningful in a single hour? It usually takes a lot more for me to dig in into the topic, at least if there is multi-day pause between the sessions.

Well, sort of. I have established a habit of thinking about my problem during workdays and planning actions for my commute. During the commute I execute one or two planned actions.

This works really well for me, since I easily get overwhelmed if I just sit down without an action plan.

But occasionally I use longer sessions to cleanup, refactor and review my code and assess the current state of the project.

Sone days I just read up on some subject instead of coding. But there is always a risk in getting bogged down by resesearch until the point where you can think of 20 possible solutions. I then sit down and code a bit to help me decide which method would work best for my concrete case. You can always come back and reevaluate a decision if you discover problems further ahead...

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

#83

Post by kowdermeister »

jt2190 wrote: post #46
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 headline should be "The One Project Per Month Challenge." For me, the term "Side-Project" implies that the goal is to generate revenue, which is not the goal of this challenge. (Edit: phrasing)

It might mean for you, but some people just enjoy creating stuff for fun with no intention to make money.

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

#84

Post by untog »

coldtea wrote: post #74
untog wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 n…

Well, sure, but if you're doing the "The 1 side project per month challenge" and the "1 side project per month" part is optional, what are you actually doing?

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

#85

Post by gravypod »

coldtea wrote: post #75
gravypod wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In software development? Defintely. In art? No.

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

#87

Post by marcosdumay »

untog wrote: post #84
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 n…

Well, sure, but if you're doing the "The 1 side project per month challenge" and the "1 side project per month" part is optional, what are you actually doing?

You are losing the challenge. And not caring the least.

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

#89

Post by coldtea »

untog wrote: post #84
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 n…

Well, sure, but if you're doing the "The 1 side project per month challenge" and the "1 side project per month" part is optional, what are you actually doing?

Obviously the "1 side project per month" part is not optional, it's conditional, which is something different.

The "1 side project per month" challenge being conditional on not having too much success with one of the monthly projects (thus prompting you to stop and focus on that) is not that different on it being conditional on numerous other things:

1) In that you continue to want to do the challenge (e.g. it's perfectly legitimate to decide it's BS and give up after a few months).

2) In that you have the time to do it (e.g. you might suddenly have to stop because you have too much on your plate from your day job a few months in).

3) In that you are able to do it (e.g. you might have to stop if you have a health issue).

And tons of other things besides.

So the question makes no more sense than asking "if you decide to run at your local marathon, and you stop after 12 miles because you got tired, or because there's an emergency at your home, or because you strained your ankle, or because you just felt like it, then what are you actually doing"?

The answer is obvious: you are doing the challenge for AS LONG AS YOU PLEASE.

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

#90

Post by karimf »

I remember quality vs. quantity story of ceramics class. [0]

> The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an "A".

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

[0] https://blog.codinghorror.com/quantity-always-trumps-quality...

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