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A one-side-project-per-month challenge

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

#91

Post by SonicSoul »

karimf wrote: post #90

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…

I love this story and I want it to be true. I've tried to trace it in the past but seems every source tells a story without any details. So not sure if this is a parable or actually happen. I believe that practice/iteration is the way to improve, it just seems a little too black and white

In a similar vein on producing quantity of work before trying to be perfect, I always refer to Ira Glass's video The Gap. Must watch if you haven't seen

https://vimeo.com/85040589

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

#92

Post by hawkice »

The comments here are borderline nonsense. I kept up a pace of releasing a working web widget (didn't charge for them, but all meant to be useful) every four days for months. Last year I released at least three dozen without burning out and honestly probably would have been happier releasing more.

One for-pay product a month would be pretty reasonable, as long as you set expectations well. Sound hard? "Costs $3" sets the expectations correctly.

The amount of scaling back on ambition here is bizarre. This isn't shooting for the moon.

Now, marketing, that's something that takes time. I have no words of wisdom there.

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

#93

Post by pmontra »

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…

I upvoted you because you pinpoint a real problem and I understand why you're afraid of it. Still I don't agree that this problem should necessarily thwart the 1PPM Challege.

A monthly project could be as small as a library you'd have to do for your real job, or a polished generalization of it (chec U. Check the first entry of the hall of fame: https://github.com/ggerhard/parsecal/blob/master/parsecal.rb is a 120 lines Ruby script. It reads and parses "data from a google calendar (or other iCal calendars) and create an Excel Timesheet." It could be the core of a web service but it doesn't have to be a web service when it's posted in 1PPM.

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

#94

Post by sjs382 »

ianai wrote: post #53
sjs382 wrote: post #52

I tried this about 2 years ago (or 3?) and man, it's a hard pace to keep up. I think I ended up with 4 projects out of the bunch before I needed a burnout break. One of the projects ended up supplying a bunch of mostly-passive income, so that was great.

What kind of project was it that paid out?

The first of the bunch: https://SendToMyCloud.com

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

#95

Post by sesteel »

neogodless wrote: post #60
sesteel wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I would prefer a milestone challenge where people put up demos/videos/blogs of their progress (same project or not). Maybe my first month's project is creating a site for people to share their progress towards whatever their goal is. If you think that is a good idea, vote me up :)

I have a nearly five old idea that is very similar. Eventually someone will build it (well) and it'll become very beneficial!

If you would like to work with somebody on it; hit me up. Or if you have some ideas you'd like implemented, let me know.

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

#96

Post by dang »

darkstar999 wrote: post #61

> I'm surprised by all the negative reactions. Welcome to Hacker News, where everything gets shit on!

Please don't diss this community while participating in it.

Your comment actually does the thing it is criticizing. That's indicative of how complex the problem you refer to is.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13284556 and marked it off-topic.

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

#98

Post by icebraining »

gravypod wrote: post #85
coldtea wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Deadlines are set for art all the time, and some of the greatest works were commissioned on a deadline.

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

#99

Post by jt2190 »

neogodless wrote: post #64
jt2190 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Ironically I think the meanings are the exact opposite! "Project" means billable to me, while side-project means "hobby" or practice.

I realize that this is becoming horribly pedantic, but the term "side project" is used a lot [1][2] to mean: "Someone who works full time but also builds a product on the side in the hopes that it will one day generate enough revenue that they can quit their day job."

In the context of this thread (a complaint about negative comments) I thought I'd point out that the title had been changed from the original [3], and that the change could perhaps, for some people, cause them to think that this was about trying to generate income outside of their day job, when in fact it was about just doing some small projects on a timeline.

[1] https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/do-not-en...

[2] https://blog.asmartbear.com/working-startup.html

[3] HN doesn't generally allow for changes to the title. Why it was allowed in this case is unclear to me.

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