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I agree 100% that yak shaving is fun. That said, I've seen so many developers, especially indie game developers, waste their time yak shaving (having fun) and
by socalgal2 4mo ago
I agree 100% that yak shaving is fun.
That said, I've seen so many developers, especially indie game developers, waste their time yak shaving (having fun) and then running out of funds and having to give up their dream because instead of achieving their goal,ship an indie game and have income for the next one, they shaved yaks work on a custom game engine or custom UI system or some other thing that's a solved problem and not the actual goal.
I have a friend doing it now. I know he's having fun so I don't want to tell him to stop. But I also know he'll likely hit a point where he needs to take a job and give up his dream because he's not actually pursuing it, it's having too much fun yak shaving.
- navigate8310 4mo agoExactly how do you stop not losing interest because you suddenly realise you are just reinventing the wheel? On the contrary, how exactly do you generate interest in yak shaving because you know a solution is already out there and you should not waste your time?
- socalgal2 4mo agoFor the specific topic of building a game engine, which I think fits the defintion of "yak shaving", it's fun because it relatively easy to do, there's a know set of things you need, each one is well known, each one can be done in steps, and each step shows progress, so it feels super productive, even if all you're doing is just reinventing the wheel. There might be 1000 steps but each one is small, well known, and doesn't require being all that novel. Conversely, game design is an open book and much much harder to feel like you made progress on each step.