4 ms·

Having done passion projects for 15 years, the elephant in the room is: Do you have dependents and do they support you? At some point in time, your worthless ob

Having done passion projects for 15 years, the elephant in the room is: Do you have dependents and do they support you? At some point in time, your worthless obsession will feel like selfishness to your dependents and yourself. Its a material world after all. This is a great article, but a reality check will be helpful!

graeme 7y ago
He talked about children in the article. And also, work that matters generally doesn’t leave a genius starving: it’s the difference between obsessive interest into things that matter and bus ticket collecting. You could of course be at the point where you started too late and you haven’t time to ramp up useful work into successful outcomes through obsessiveness, as you already have dependents. Or you could be in the unlucky edge he talks about of people who only went down the wrong paths due to risks turning out wrong. But I believe the article did address all of your points.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  Obsession with work that matters won't leave you starving, but it will leave you starved for time; anything that's a priority will draw away time and attention from other priorities e.g. relationships and family.
jacquesm 7y ago
> Having done passion projects for 15 years What were those? Genuinely interested, I'd rather hear about people's passion projects all day long than about ways to make money.
- QueensGambit 7y ago
  Quite a lot. But, the one I spent most time was in creating a programming language that stores its source code as parse tree instead of text file. If you rename a variable, it will automatically change all the code, UI and DB that refers it.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    That sounds like a very useful idea! IDEs have made refactoring large projects much easier than it used to be but I can still see how your representation is superior. Text files as storage for computer programs are awkward, you're always left with huge impedance mismatch between the form in which you specify what you want and the form it eventually takes. Thank you for answering my question.
  - Rexxar 7y ago
    Does it have its own integrated source control ?
    - QueensGambit 7y ago
      Yes. It was meant for novice programmers who don't understand refactoring. So, it had its own source control and UI to edit code.

graeme 7y ago

He talked about children in the article. And also, work that matters generally doesn’t leave a genius starving: it’s the difference between obsessive interest into things that matter and bus ticket collecting. You could of course be at the point where you started too late and you haven’t time to ramp up useful work into successful outcomes through obsessiveness, as you already have dependents. Or you could be in the unlucky edge he talks about of people who only went down the wrong paths due to risks turning out wrong. But I believe the article did address all of your points.

PeterisP 7y ago
Obsession with work that matters won't leave you starving, but it will leave you starved for time; anything that's a priority will draw away time and attention from other priorities e.g. relationships and family.

jacquesm 7y ago

> Having done passion projects for 15 years What were those? Genuinely interested, I'd rather hear about people's passion projects all day long than about ways to make money.

QueensGambit 7y ago
Quite a lot. But, the one I spent most time was in creating a programming language that stores its source code as parse tree instead of text file. If you rename a variable, it will automatically change all the code, UI and DB that refers it.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  That sounds like a very useful idea! IDEs have made refactoring large projects much easier than it used to be but I can still see how your representation is superior. Text files as storage for computer programs are awkward, you're always left with huge impedance mismatch between the form in which you specify what you want and the form it eventually takes. Thank you for answering my question.
- Rexxar 7y ago
  Does it have its own integrated source control ?
  - QueensGambit 7y ago
    Yes. It was meant for novice programmers who don't understand refactoring. So, it had its own source control and UI to edit code.