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I think the #1 project every programmer should try is a project that has customers. There's so much involved in achieving that. It will possibly prove more diff

I think the #1 project every programmer should try is a project that has customers. There's so much involved in achieving that. It will possibly prove more difficult than any of these. It will probably lead to a different understanding of every other project that programmer then takes on, too.

chubot 7y ago
I agree with that and would add that dev tools are a manageable way for programmers early in their career to get feedback and learn what matters. It’s pretty hard for one person to solve enough of a problem to have users in the general public. It obviously happens, but it’s not a sure thing. It’s hard to get users that are not in the public too. I had internships early in my career working on IT stuff, at a large business and a university. I found those jobs were actually terrible for getting feedback from users because there was so much bureaucracy. The management would actually insulate you too much from complaints or feedback. Dev tools are a good learning experience because programmers will give honest feedback if they don’t like something :)
- tripzilch 7y ago
  I think the takeaway is that you shouldn't get feedback from users filtered through management. It's exactly the same problem that your "write dev tools for programmers" solution solves. You like it better because you expect you'll get the feedback from the programmers directly instead of through management. If that feedback would have to filter through someone's supervisor before it landed in your inbox, it would be about just as useless.
TAForObvReasons 7y ago
Some problems are "technically straightforward", where it is "easy" to build but "hard" to find and work with customers. To-do lists are a classic example. Others are technically challenging. That difficulty is precisely why others don't tackle the problems, but generally customers are looking for a solution and you have a ton of flexibility when working with customers. To put it in different terms, in some cases "if you build it, they will come" is true. The hard part is determining when it applies.
paxys 7y ago
Solving a programming problem is very different from solving a business problem, and building something that has customers falls more into the latter category. Lots of people want to simply improve their programming and problem-solving skills, and this list is perfect for that. Customers add a whole new dimension of complexity which most people might not want to deal with, especially with fun side projects. So setting the expectation that everything you build needs to have customers is definitely wrong. Building stuff like a text editor, simple game, database etc. from scratch which will never be used by anyone other than yourself can be immensely challenging and satisfying.
- ianai 7y ago
  Build an oss driver for something popular. Or an alternative. Even just addons and plugins for popular products will get users. They don’t actually have to pay you for them to be customers, but that’s a benefit. Go where the demand is.
  - nv-vn 7y ago
    That kind of work is a whole lot less satisfying. Why would I want to deal with GitHub issues and fixing bugs when I could solve genuinely interesting problems?
    - sweetheart 7y ago
      I’d wager that many don’t find it less satisfying, and maybe even more so, if only for the reason that solving an issue for a customer comes with the benefit of immediately and clearly improving the life of someone else. Solving curiosity-sating programming challenges doesn’t have the same social implication built in. Personally, I’d muuuuch rather work on a mundane problem that immediately improves someone’s day than an issue that is in and of itself more interesting, but also lacking the clear customer/user demand. This isn’t to say that solving beat programming challenges doesn’t improve anyone’s day, but the demand for the solution isn’t being made public and clear, which many people see as a necessary requirement for meaningful work.
markus_zhang 7y ago
Or better, just forget about business customers, concentrate on problem solving skills, and build tools just for programmers. Basically I found out the few customers you have and the further you are from business, the happier you are, i.e. considering you are still programming of course. *Edit: For programmers focusing on businesses, the only happy solution, imo, is to be a consultant. But this basically asks for taking business skills. Of course this is a biased view as I work as a BA, who deals with business every minute.
gargarplex 7y ago
Counter-point: if a programmer is successful in delivering business value, the programmer might have an inflated view of their programming abilities. I know I certainly have been affected by this. Being able to get things done does not necessarily make a person a great and talented programmer, but it may make them accomplished. My projects have grossed a lot of revenue, but several of these projects would be challenging for me and push my the limits of my skills. What I am saying is that there is room for more nuanced language to describe all these matters in a way that is detached and clinical.
- busterarm 7y ago
  Counter-counter-point: Delivering business value is a more desired and compensated skill than raw programming ability. Moreover, learning how to deliver value builds empathy for non-programmers who also deliver value and also the realization that programming ability is not where a company lives and dies. These are the number one and number two things most often lacking in programmers. I have to fight with "seasoned pros" on the regular to get them to stop doing things like sending passwords in email or worse, put them in text files in git. Because A) what the hell are you thinking and B) holy shit, we're a public company WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING!? You have to explain to them, repeatedly, why this is bad and also things like why a production-ready database isn't the same as the single-instance point and click AMI they spun up... All of this because the only virtue that they know is "I shouldn't be blocked by anything." Unfortunately some of them are such skilled programmers that they'll drag entire IT and GRC organizations screaming in their wake trying to make sense of the mess.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    > things like sending passwords in email or worse, put them in text files in git. This doesn't sound like the activity of someone with a high level of 'raw programming ability'.
    - busterarm 7y ago
      Being a great programmer doesn't stop you from doing really stupid shit.
closeparen 7y ago
That’s what we do at work all day. Business problems tend to be technically shallow, except when they aren’t, and to handle those you need to keep your skills up.
anonytrary 7y ago
I don't disagree with you, but I think you're missing the author's point. The author suggested these projects as a quick way to learn a new language or get familiar with a set of tools. Arguably, working on a more time-consuming product for customers is not the most efficient way to do this. The author's suggested projects hone in on programming mastery, whereas your suggested project hones in on a plethora of skills. We can't really say that one substitutes the other as they achieve two different things. I wouldn't necessarily start a startup just to learn WebAssembly, but I would learn WebAssembly if I needed to for a startup. In the former case, my goal is to learn WebAssembly, whereas in the latter, it's to start a startup.
- wolco 7y ago
  Not sure these are peojects to tackle with a new language. Simple repeatable projects like hn clones are better suited for those use-cases. More along projects to do in your favourite language bonus points for using language that isn't typical for the domain. Like: A compiler in php or a spreadsheet in cobol or javascript console emulators.
azhenley 7y ago
Author here. I agree with you! This list was about projects for learning. A few months ago I had a blog post that was more product focused, regarding the lessons I learned from releasing games (I think they're generalizable though). Definitely a different world when you have customers to please and motivate you! http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/8lessons8games.html http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/8lessons8games.html
GuB-42 7y ago
From a technical standpoint, I disagree. Customers tend to get in the way of good code, they have everchanging requirements, set deadlines and priorities that more or less force you to be messy. Experimenting with techniques, redoing things, etc... is hard when you have a customer expecting this or that feature to be implemented yesterday, and yet, it is important if you want to progress. Working with a customer will make you a better businessman, not really a better programmer. Doing a project with customers is extremely valuable if you intend to start a business, but if you hate that and just want to be a good coder and make a living out of it, there is a solution: find a good boss/manager. He will take care about the business stuff and allow you to put all the skills you got doing toy projects to good use. Otherwise, if you want to do something that looks more like a real-world project without the hassle of dealing with customers, make software that you really use, and share it. A good candidate would be a video game that you enjoy playing, or some tool for a hobby of yours, or a utility. That way, no one will stop you from experimenting, but you still need to think about usability.
- reedwolf 7y ago
  >Customers tend to get in the way of good code Wow, everything wrong with the tech industry right here.
  - paulannesley 7y ago
    "The tech industry"; maybe. "Hacker culture"; no.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ljw1001 7y ago
    Not even close to everything wrong in the tech industry
  - tripzilch 7y ago
    They're not wrong, but neither are you. As a programmer who doesn't write for customers, I'll say, yeah it's sometimes true. But if I were in the business of writing software for customers, I would word that very differently. The issue described is a challenge in said industry, and being good at navigating that problem is a quality that separates the great from the mediocre. Describing that as "getting in the way" ignores the skill and pride in taking on that challenge. Actually I'm not even sure. I have a little experience with freelance web development around 2007 (browser war veteran), and I found navigating between customers expectations and "good code" to not be hard at all. I did read a lot of blogs on webdev (including the business side of it, contracts and expectation management, etc) so I probably got some great advice somewhere[0]. Reading about it actually got me more enthusiastic about tackling the problem as well as I could. But usually the details that made it good code or not were technical details that I didn't bother them with. Or they were things I could sell; browser compatibility and accessibility (back then I could use the line "Google is your most important blind user" -- now no longer true). Of course I am aware that as a freelancer, I enjoyed a lot of freedoms that you don't always get as a programmer-for-customers in different business environments. But if that's the case, that really proves it's not the customers that get in the way, but the institution. [0] I kinda miss the ... blogosphere.
manojlds 7y ago
Definition of programmer is different from developer.
cerberusss 7y ago
I don't have experience with a side project that has customers, but several times I did do a side project for a paying client. It was one of the most stressful periods of my life. I was picking them up with another programmer, and I completely failed to understand the amount and the quality they would deliver. I solved it by working day and night for a year or two, or so. I'd say, do try a project that has customers. Think twice about a project for a client.
- tripzilch 7y ago
  Wait, what's the difference between a customer and a client? I'm not a native speaker and always thought the words meant the same thing (they have the same root in my language). I thought "client" was just the fancier term, therefore you have customers at a book shop and clients at a law firm. Does a hairdresser or tattoo artist have customers or clients?
  - cerberusss 7y ago
    I'm not a native speaker as well, maybe that causes the problem :D I meant the following: customers -> group of people who buy or subscribe to your application, preferably via the App Store, Google Play or some other in-between party. Usually no contract involved. Paying client -> a single person or business that pays you to develop software, probably with a contract that is signed and specifies what you're going to build, on which timeline, etc.
scarface74 7y ago
How many programmers don’t work for companies with customers?
tripzilch 7y ago
So I'm someone who codes for their own use, what I write isn't meant for customers, it's just tools that make the machine do what I need. Programming as a way of using the computer. However I also used to do some freelance web development back in the day, and sure enough I did learn things. Mostly things about customers, not about programming. They don't know what they want, they don't know what is good and they need help with that. This is called requirements engineering, and IMVHO starting a project that has customers is the literal worst moment to start learning that. Fortunately I had a class about it in uni and I happen to be great at explaining technical things to non-technical people. I also learned that I'm actually really good at what I did (looks great + works well + happy customers), they gave loads of recommendations and I got requests for at least a year after. Too bad about the burnout that happened soon after, for no particular reason, that turned my life upside down. Either way, yes it was educational but in no way did it make me a better programmer. Maybe a better business person? (And I'm not a very good business person) All in all, I think I would recommend "a project that has customers" only to people who are young. It has less stakes when you're young and it's chock full of wonderful learning opportunities for young people. If you're older, I think that most of the lessons you would also have gotten through general life experience. Which again demonstrates how little this exercise has to do with programming. But yeah, it can definitely be a valuable experience.

chubot 7y ago

I agree with that and would add that dev tools are a manageable way for programmers early in their career to get feedback and learn what matters. It’s pretty hard for one person to solve enough of a problem to have users in the general public. It obviously happens, but it’s not a sure thing. It’s hard to get users that are not in the public too. I had internships early in my career working on IT stuff, at a large business and a university. I found those jobs were actually terrible for getting feedback from users because there was so much bureaucracy. The management would actually insulate you too much from complaints or feedback. Dev tools are a good learning experience because programmers will give honest feedback if they don’t like something :)

tripzilch 7y ago
I think the takeaway is that you shouldn't get feedback from users filtered through management. It's exactly the same problem that your "write dev tools for programmers" solution solves. You like it better because you expect you'll get the feedback from the programmers directly instead of through management. If that feedback would have to filter through someone's supervisor before it landed in your inbox, it would be about just as useless.

TAForObvReasons 7y ago

Some problems are "technically straightforward", where it is "easy" to build but "hard" to find and work with customers. To-do lists are a classic example. Others are technically challenging. That difficulty is precisely why others don't tackle the problems, but generally customers are looking for a solution and you have a ton of flexibility when working with customers. To put it in different terms, in some cases "if you build it, they will come" is true. The hard part is determining when it applies.

paxys 7y ago

Solving a programming problem is very different from solving a business problem, and building something that has customers falls more into the latter category. Lots of people want to simply improve their programming and problem-solving skills, and this list is perfect for that. Customers add a whole new dimension of complexity which most people might not want to deal with, especially with fun side projects. So setting the expectation that everything you build needs to have customers is definitely wrong. Building stuff like a text editor, simple game, database etc. from scratch which will never be used by anyone other than yourself can be immensely challenging and satisfying.

ianai 7y ago
Build an oss driver for something popular. Or an alternative. Even just addons and plugins for popular products will get users. They don’t actually have to pay you for them to be customers, but that’s a benefit. Go where the demand is.
- nv-vn 7y ago
  That kind of work is a whole lot less satisfying. Why would I want to deal with GitHub issues and fixing bugs when I could solve genuinely interesting problems?
  - sweetheart 7y ago
    I’d wager that many don’t find it less satisfying, and maybe even more so, if only for the reason that solving an issue for a customer comes with the benefit of immediately and clearly improving the life of someone else. Solving curiosity-sating programming challenges doesn’t have the same social implication built in. Personally, I’d muuuuch rather work on a mundane problem that immediately improves someone’s day than an issue that is in and of itself more interesting, but also lacking the clear customer/user demand. This isn’t to say that solving beat programming challenges doesn’t improve anyone’s day, but the demand for the solution isn’t being made public and clear, which many people see as a necessary requirement for meaningful work.

markus_zhang 7y ago

Or better, just forget about business customers, concentrate on problem solving skills, and build tools just for programmers. Basically I found out the few customers you have and the further you are from business, the happier you are, i.e. considering you are still programming of course. *Edit: For programmers focusing on businesses, the only happy solution, imo, is to be a consultant. But this basically asks for taking business skills. Of course this is a biased view as I work as a BA, who deals with business every minute.

gargarplex 7y ago

Counter-point: if a programmer is successful in delivering business value, the programmer might have an inflated view of their programming abilities. I know I certainly have been affected by this. Being able to get things done does not necessarily make a person a great and talented programmer, but it may make them accomplished. My projects have grossed a lot of revenue, but several of these projects would be challenging for me and push my the limits of my skills. What I am saying is that there is room for more nuanced language to describe all these matters in a way that is detached and clinical.

busterarm 7y ago
Counter-counter-point: Delivering business value is a more desired and compensated skill than raw programming ability. Moreover, learning how to deliver value builds empathy for non-programmers who also deliver value and also the realization that programming ability is not where a company lives and dies. These are the number one and number two things most often lacking in programmers. I have to fight with "seasoned pros" on the regular to get them to stop doing things like sending passwords in email or worse, put them in text files in git. Because A) what the hell are you thinking and B) holy shit, we're a public company WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING!? You have to explain to them, repeatedly, why this is bad and also things like why a production-ready database isn't the same as the single-instance point and click AMI they spun up... All of this because the only virtue that they know is "I shouldn't be blocked by anything." Unfortunately some of them are such skilled programmers that they'll drag entire IT and GRC organizations screaming in their wake trying to make sense of the mess.
- esotericn 7y ago
  > things like sending passwords in email or worse, put them in text files in git. This doesn't sound like the activity of someone with a high level of 'raw programming ability'.
  - busterarm 7y ago
    Being a great programmer doesn't stop you from doing really stupid shit.

closeparen 7y ago

That’s what we do at work all day. Business problems tend to be technically shallow, except when they aren’t, and to handle those you need to keep your skills up.

anonytrary 7y ago

I don't disagree with you, but I think you're missing the author's point. The author suggested these projects as a quick way to learn a new language or get familiar with a set of tools. Arguably, working on a more time-consuming product for customers is not the most efficient way to do this. The author's suggested projects hone in on programming mastery, whereas your suggested project hones in on a plethora of skills. We can't really say that one substitutes the other as they achieve two different things. I wouldn't necessarily start a startup just to learn WebAssembly, but I would learn WebAssembly if I needed to for a startup. In the former case, my goal is to learn WebAssembly, whereas in the latter, it's to start a startup.

wolco 7y ago
Not sure these are peojects to tackle with a new language. Simple repeatable projects like hn clones are better suited for those use-cases. More along projects to do in your favourite language bonus points for using language that isn't typical for the domain. Like: A compiler in php or a spreadsheet in cobol or javascript console emulators.

azhenley 7y ago

Author here. I agree with you! This list was about projects for learning. A few months ago I had a blog post that was more product focused, regarding the lessons I learned from releasing games (I think they're generalizable though). Definitely a different world when you have customers to please and motivate you! http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/8lessons8games.html http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/8lessons8games.html

GuB-42 7y ago

From a technical standpoint, I disagree. Customers tend to get in the way of good code, they have everchanging requirements, set deadlines and priorities that more or less force you to be messy. Experimenting with techniques, redoing things, etc... is hard when you have a customer expecting this or that feature to be implemented yesterday, and yet, it is important if you want to progress. Working with a customer will make you a better businessman, not really a better programmer. Doing a project with customers is extremely valuable if you intend to start a business, but if you hate that and just want to be a good coder and make a living out of it, there is a solution: find a good boss/manager. He will take care about the business stuff and allow you to put all the skills you got doing toy projects to good use. Otherwise, if you want to do something that looks more like a real-world project without the hassle of dealing with customers, make software that you really use, and share it. A good candidate would be a video game that you enjoy playing, or some tool for a hobby of yours, or a utility. That way, no one will stop you from experimenting, but you still need to think about usability.

reedwolf 7y ago
>Customers tend to get in the way of good code Wow, everything wrong with the tech industry right here.
- paulannesley 7y ago
  "The tech industry"; maybe. "Hacker culture"; no.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ljw1001 7y ago
  Not even close to everything wrong in the tech industry
- tripzilch 7y ago
  They're not wrong, but neither are you. As a programmer who doesn't write for customers, I'll say, yeah it's sometimes true. But if I were in the business of writing software for customers, I would word that very differently. The issue described is a challenge in said industry, and being good at navigating that problem is a quality that separates the great from the mediocre. Describing that as "getting in the way" ignores the skill and pride in taking on that challenge. Actually I'm not even sure. I have a little experience with freelance web development around 2007 (browser war veteran), and I found navigating between customers expectations and "good code" to not be hard at all. I did read a lot of blogs on webdev (including the business side of it, contracts and expectation management, etc) so I probably got some great advice somewhere[0]. Reading about it actually got me more enthusiastic about tackling the problem as well as I could. But usually the details that made it good code or not were technical details that I didn't bother them with. Or they were things I could sell; browser compatibility and accessibility (back then I could use the line "Google is your most important blind user" -- now no longer true). Of course I am aware that as a freelancer, I enjoyed a lot of freedoms that you don't always get as a programmer-for-customers in different business environments. But if that's the case, that really proves it's not the customers that get in the way, but the institution. [0] I kinda miss the ... blogosphere.

manojlds 7y ago

Definition of programmer is different from developer.

cerberusss 7y ago

I don't have experience with a side project that has customers, but several times I did do a side project for a paying client. It was one of the most stressful periods of my life. I was picking them up with another programmer, and I completely failed to understand the amount and the quality they would deliver. I solved it by working day and night for a year or two, or so. I'd say, do try a project that has customers. Think twice about a project for a client.

tripzilch 7y ago
Wait, what's the difference between a customer and a client? I'm not a native speaker and always thought the words meant the same thing (they have the same root in my language). I thought "client" was just the fancier term, therefore you have customers at a book shop and clients at a law firm. Does a hairdresser or tattoo artist have customers or clients?
- cerberusss 7y ago
  I'm not a native speaker as well, maybe that causes the problem :D I meant the following: customers -> group of people who buy or subscribe to your application, preferably via the App Store, Google Play or some other in-between party. Usually no contract involved. Paying client -> a single person or business that pays you to develop software, probably with a contract that is signed and specifies what you're going to build, on which timeline, etc.

scarface74 7y ago

How many programmers don’t work for companies with customers?

tripzilch 7y ago

So I'm someone who codes for their own use, what I write isn't meant for customers, it's just tools that make the machine do what I need. Programming as a way of using the computer. However I also used to do some freelance web development back in the day, and sure enough I did learn things. Mostly things about customers, not about programming. They don't know what they want, they don't know what is good and they need help with that. This is called requirements engineering, and IMVHO starting a project that has customers is the literal worst moment to start learning that. Fortunately I had a class about it in uni and I happen to be great at explaining technical things to non-technical people. I also learned that I'm actually really good at what I did (looks great + works well + happy customers), they gave loads of recommendations and I got requests for at least a year after. Too bad about the burnout that happened soon after, for no particular reason, that turned my life upside down. Either way, yes it was educational but in no way did it make me a better programmer. Maybe a better business person? (And I'm not a very good business person) All in all, I think I would recommend "a project that has customers" only to people who are young. It has less stakes when you're young and it's chock full of wonderful learning opportunities for young people. If you're older, I think that most of the lessons you would also have gotten through general life experience. Which again demonstrates how little this exercise has to do with programming. But yeah, it can definitely be a valuable experience.