I spent many years before I learned not to over-engineer side projects. I'm a c guy, mostly, so I don't have the stack issues (make and the standard c library

I spent many years before I learned not to over-engineer side projects. I'm a c guy, mostly, so I don't have the stack issues (make and the standard c library and I'm g2g). Now I just start writing code to do the first basic feature, then refactor if needed to handle the second one, rinse and repeat. Once the project takes shape, it gets easier to predict what changes might be needed in the future, and what concessions I can make in the code for them now without slowing me down. Working this way is much nicer for me. It's more organic. I end up with code that evolves, and takes shape of it's own accord. It makes me feel more creative. The best thing is, I have code that does things. It's not out in the wild, but when I come home from work I have a couple of projects that are coming along nicely to work on and play with.