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I'm in a similar situation to GP. I've done tons and tons of side projects but I rarely have anything to show for it. And why should I? I'm doing it mostly for

by exDM69 10y ago

I'm in a similar situation to GP. I've done tons and tons of side projects but I rarely have anything to show for it. And why should I? I'm doing it mostly for the fun of coding, and striving to "ship" things takes some of the fun away. I most certainly do not want to start a start up from any of my side projects. Perhaps an established open source project at most. I do "release" my project, ie. push them to GitHub, but they don't really gather any attention or contributions from others. Sometimes I share some snippets in relevant discussions and receive positive feedback but I have no idea what it would take to actually gain any traction. So I've basically given up on the idea of "finishing" or "shipping" or whatever. I have 3 hours of free time on Saturdays and I get to choose how to use it. I can either do fun stuff (coding, art, etc) or desperately try to "ship" and gain traction but that just isn't fun. That said, if anyone is interested in open source space simulation (my current "main" side project, 5+ years in), get in touch on HN. There's no way I'll ever ship it alone, but it's nearly impossible to get anyone else to help me with it because I don't have anything cool and shiny to show.

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
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, but I also know that getting the word out vs not doing it makes a huge difference. 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.
- exDM69 10y ago
  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 write b) interesting enough for the general public. Basically the best I can do is show a few screenshots or a few hundred lines of interesting code. In my experience, that's not enough to gain traction on Show HN or Reddit. Sometimes I share screenshots on IRC and do get some interesting follow-up discussions but that doesn't really help me to get these projects any further. Maybe I should gather up the courage and start posting to reddit /r/gamedev "screenshot saturdays" threads for getting feedback and encouragement. Although I'm not really doing a game here. But yeah, I mostly try to not think about the idea that I'll never finish these projects and have fun while hacking on them. I've been doing this for 20 years now and never really "shipped" anything, so I might as well stop worrying about finishing and just have fun.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    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 especially true for free projects. I currently work full time for a company whose policy forbids releasing anything I work on in my free time, so it's kind of nice--the decision is pretty much made for me. I guess the advice is learn to _finish_ things but don't get too hung up on releasing them. Unless you're trying to build a business in which case you need to follow a totally different path (release MVP early, get feedback, iterate, market fit, etc.).
    - exDM69 10y ago
      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.
    - watwut 10y ago
      Out of curiosity, how did they pressured on you and which community was it in (linux/frontend/java/python/etc)? Many project I seen (and used) seem to be abandoned after a while or are maintained slowly, so you not being able to maintain long term seems pretty much standard to me.
      - ryandrake 10y ago
        Mostly free iOS apps.
  - khedoros1 10y ago
- ttoinou 10y ago
  They are afraid that they will get hurt if they try hard and no one still wants their thing. I'm in this kind of release, not because of fear, but because promoting project takes times (a full time job for some people) and I prefer to spend my time programming something else
  - exDM69 10y ago
    Yeah, it takes a huge amount of time and effort to make your voice heard and your project promoted. I have a feeling that naturally extroverted people do not understand that it takes a real push from other to show your work to strangers. Same thing as the discussion about "demo days" earlier today. Those who are good in promoting are not necessarily those who are good in building projects. This applies to other aspects of life as well as it does to pitching startups.
    - ttoinou 10y ago
      I have a feeling that naturally extroverted people do not understand that it takes a real push from other to show your work to strangers. Well... It takes times. Even building reputation on the internet is boring to me (I don't think it's an extroverted / introverted issue)
- RyanHamilton 10y ago
  cough My side projects: http://jpad.io/ http://jpad.io/ - Java snippet runner that means less boilerplate and automatic display as html tables / charts. http://www.sqldashboards.com/ http://www.sqldashboards.com/ - Real time chart your database queries http://www.timestored.com/ http://www.timestored.com/ - Niche database training and tools cough always be pushing :)
  - exDM69 10y ago
    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.
- wtetzner 10y ago
  > 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. The thing is, not everyone builds things to have something at the end. A lot of my side projects exist because I enjoy hacking on them, not because I have some particular end result I'm looking for. Of course, I have other side projects where I want both, and for those, shipping probably has value.
- Nadya 10y ago
  I write a lot of personal userscripts that I upload publicly to Greasyfork just in case they benefit someone else or someone asks me to share with them. I rarely have plans to improve or maintain any of my work beyond my own benefit. I fix bugs only when they are an issue to my personal work flow. Most of them are quick hackjobs I write in 10 minutes to fix some personal pain point on websites I use. The amount of users that (a) browse the same websites I do and (b) take issue with the same things I take issue with are next-to-zero. I also don't care to hear how I could refactor huge parts of my code to be more extendable in the future - because I have no plans to extend it to begin with. I know the code is absolute garbage and I can easily improve it if I took 10 minutes to refactor it. But it works and that's all I needed, so that's all that gets done. People have different motivations for releasing publicly. I know you were probably speaking more to side projects, especially potentially profitable ones, but I felt I'd throw in my $0.02 to accompany all the others.

by exDM69 10y ago

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago

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, but I also know that getting the word out vs not doing it makes a huge difference. 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.

exDM69 10y ago
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 write b) interesting enough for the general public. Basically the best I can do is show a few screenshots or a few hundred lines of interesting code. In my experience, that's not enough to gain traction on Show HN or Reddit. Sometimes I share screenshots on IRC and do get some interesting follow-up discussions but that doesn't really help me to get these projects any further. Maybe I should gather up the courage and start posting to reddit /r/gamedev "screenshot saturdays" threads for getting feedback and encouragement. Although I'm not really doing a game here. But yeah, I mostly try to not think about the idea that I'll never finish these projects and have fun while hacking on them. I've been doing this for 20 years now and never really "shipped" anything, so I might as well stop worrying about finishing and just have fun.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  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 especially true for free projects. I currently work full time for a company whose policy forbids releasing anything I work on in my free time, so it's kind of nice--the decision is pretty much made for me. I guess the advice is learn to _finish_ things but don't get too hung up on releasing them. Unless you're trying to build a business in which case you need to follow a totally different path (release MVP early, get feedback, iterate, market fit, etc.).
  - exDM69 10y ago
    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.
  - watwut 10y ago
    Out of curiosity, how did they pressured on you and which community was it in (linux/frontend/java/python/etc)? Many project I seen (and used) seem to be abandoned after a while or are maintained slowly, so you not being able to maintain long term seems pretty much standard to me.
    - ryandrake 10y ago
      Mostly free iOS apps.
- khedoros1 10y ago
ttoinou 10y ago
They are afraid that they will get hurt if they try hard and no one still wants their thing. I'm in this kind of release, not because of fear, but because promoting project takes times (a full time job for some people) and I prefer to spend my time programming something else
- exDM69 10y ago
  Yeah, it takes a huge amount of time and effort to make your voice heard and your project promoted. I have a feeling that naturally extroverted people do not understand that it takes a real push from other to show your work to strangers. Same thing as the discussion about "demo days" earlier today. Those who are good in promoting are not necessarily those who are good in building projects. This applies to other aspects of life as well as it does to pitching startups.
  - ttoinou 10y ago
    I have a feeling that naturally extroverted people do not understand that it takes a real push from other to show your work to strangers. Well... It takes times. Even building reputation on the internet is boring to me (I don't think it's an extroverted / introverted issue)
RyanHamilton 10y ago
cough My side projects: http://jpad.io/ http://jpad.io/ - Java snippet runner that means less boilerplate and automatic display as html tables / charts. http://www.sqldashboards.com/ http://www.sqldashboards.com/ - Real time chart your database queries http://www.timestored.com/ http://www.timestored.com/ - Niche database training and tools cough always be pushing :)
- exDM69 10y ago
  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.
wtetzner 10y ago
> 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. The thing is, not everyone builds things to have something at the end. A lot of my side projects exist because I enjoy hacking on them, not because I have some particular end result I'm looking for. Of course, I have other side projects where I want both, and for those, shipping probably has value.
Nadya 10y ago
I write a lot of personal userscripts that I upload publicly to Greasyfork just in case they benefit someone else or someone asks me to share with them. I rarely have plans to improve or maintain any of my work beyond my own benefit. I fix bugs only when they are an issue to my personal work flow. Most of them are quick hackjobs I write in 10 minutes to fix some personal pain point on websites I use. The amount of users that (a) browse the same websites I do and (b) take issue with the same things I take issue with are next-to-zero. I also don't care to hear how I could refactor huge parts of my code to be more extendable in the future - because I have no plans to extend it to begin with. I know the code is absolute garbage and I can easily improve it if I took 10 minutes to refactor it. But it works and that's all I needed, so that's all that gets done. People have different motivations for releasing publicly. I know you were probably speaking more to side projects, especially potentially profitable ones, but I felt I'd throw in my $0.02 to accompany all the others.