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I think we need to differentiate between a "learning project" and a "side project." Those are two very different things, at least to me. A learning project is

I think we need to differentiate between a "learning project" and a "side project." Those are two very different things, at least to me. A learning project is a project you're doing with the express intent of learning a new technology. The focus is on the learning, not the delivered functionality. A side project is a project you're doing for the community. It's a labor of love. The focus is on functionality and meeting the needs of your users, not learning technology. You may even be able to grow it into an actual business. From a career perspective you want to focus on learning projects. As you've mentioned learning projects are very important for your continued learning. Side projects on the other hand have the risk of distracting you from your work and my advice would be to avoid them unless you're scratching your own itch or maybe even want to explore starting a side business. Bottom line - be clear with yourself on what you're doing and why you're doing it.

dheera 6y ago
I disagree here. In the business world, delivered functionality matters. I think building something for the community that the community actually uses teaches you a lot about product management and building reliable systems and designing products people want. You learn a whole lot about the reality of the industry by doing something purposeful. There's a big difference, for example, in machine learning engineers who can train a model in a Jupyter notebook and an engineer who can both train and actually deploy a model like that on a self-driving car. Companies often very much appreciate having dipped into the practical aspect of things, where things like optimization, uptime, and consistency matter. Also, building things that give you a feeling of success make you more driven and motivated to learn and improve. Sometimes having a thousand users is that feeling of success that is the driving force for more learning.
tasuki 6y ago
So we have three already: - learning project (focus on learning) - side project (focus on functionality) - cv-enhancing project (focus on optics, what the original article was mostly about and against) In my experience, side projects are by far the most fun. All of the learning projects I've done in the past had some goal to achieve, something I could show someone and feel proud. I find it difficult to learn just for the sake of learning. Perhaps this is why I struggled with schooling.
- ganafagol 6y ago
  A good interviewer easily figures out which type some side project is that a candidate lists on their resume. Just ask an appropriate probing question and you realize if they did this to learn something or to solve a problem they had or just to have something with javascript on their resume. It's almost counterproductive, if that's supposed to provide the basis for a "fluent in javascript" claim.

dheera 6y ago

I disagree here. In the business world, delivered functionality matters. I think building something for the community that the community actually uses teaches you a lot about product management and building reliable systems and designing products people want. You learn a whole lot about the reality of the industry by doing something purposeful. There's a big difference, for example, in machine learning engineers who can train a model in a Jupyter notebook and an engineer who can both train and actually deploy a model like that on a self-driving car. Companies often very much appreciate having dipped into the practical aspect of things, where things like optimization, uptime, and consistency matter. Also, building things that give you a feeling of success make you more driven and motivated to learn and improve. Sometimes having a thousand users is that feeling of success that is the driving force for more learning.

tasuki 6y ago

So we have three already: - learning project (focus on learning) - side project (focus on functionality) - cv-enhancing project (focus on optics, what the original article was mostly about and against) In my experience, side projects are by far the most fun. All of the learning projects I've done in the past had some goal to achieve, something I could show someone and feel proud. I find it difficult to learn just for the sake of learning. Perhaps this is why I struggled with schooling.

ganafagol 6y ago
A good interviewer easily figures out which type some side project is that a candidate lists on their resume. Just ask an appropriate probing question and you realize if they did this to learn something or to solve a problem they had or just to have something with javascript on their resume. It's almost counterproductive, if that's supposed to provide the basis for a "fluent in javascript" claim.