5 ms·
Should I take time near the end of a big project to do a side thing?
I have been writing animation software for 2 years. It's nearly bug-free, with all the features I want ( I was scope creeping for about a year ). However, I am now dealing with a large code-base, and I'm thinking about writing an editor/IDE type thing that can help me resolve dependencies and refactor efficiently. I'm debating between the various short term and long term benefits.
I know I should launch, everybody says I should launch. I know people want to use this. I am just so overwhelmed, and it's getting harder to manage this huge code base. Plus, I kind of want to run on something new, but not something new that needs to be polished for launch. This is something that could be fairly rough.
- danschumann 9y agoI know there are some softwares out there that do some dependency scraping, and will help you navigate around your code-base, I just envision one that does more in certain areas, and feels better in others. Making an editor that feels like google maps in some places, a spider web in others, mind-maps in others, and vim in the code parts. It would be smart enough to let you move methods from one class to another class, and automatically update instances. It also needs to allow you to 'highlight' parts of the code base, because I have an editor engine, and a frontend/exported engine ( the animation software exports to html5 and the html5 export version is slim, whereas the editor version has a lot of extras for editing ), so that's one of the big areas, I don't want to maintain 2 code engines anymore. So, a big part of it would be toggling certain lines of code to target to different versions, and then being able to toggle views as well. This might be too big of a side-track at the end of a project, and I could be just wanting something else to work on, because mature projects get very un-fun. It is something I probably will do eventually, to help myself manage the two similar engines. The other option is doing some sort of a JS lint type thing, where I just comment out the extras and they only get compiled in the editor version. I wish someone would just give me $50k for 5%, and I'd have another year to get things ready for mass markets. When I launch I think the animation software will grow nicely, so I want my ducks in a row so I'm not too stressed. That pressure is counter-acted by the fact that I could use cash to live on, cuz 2 years of development with just a little free-lance is kinda draining.
- dukeflukem 9y agoI wonder if you are just afraid to launch? And this tech stuff is an excuse? On t trying to be mean.
- smt88 9y agoNo. Launch. If your code is JS, gradually migrate it to well-typed TypeScript, one file at a time. There are already IDEs that do most of what you want in JS and do everything you want in TS. Use jslint and tslint religiously.
- YuriNiyazov 9y agoSounds like a good way to self-sabotage and not launch.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- aglionby 9y agoLaunch, and figure it out later. Something like that realistically isn't going to give much, if any, added value to your eventual end users. This is the reality of development -- mature projects do get un-fun, but that's why you charge :)
- saluki 9y agoLAUNCH
- dukeflukem 9y agoIt is an odd situation to need to write an IDE. Sounds like yak shaving. What language are you using?