by weekendvampire on 12/18/23, 11:33 PM with 78 comments
by adrium on 12/19/23, 8:14 AM
I think it's really important to first reflect on the purpose when doing something: is it to solve a problem, is it to learn something, is it to achieve a target, is it to keep yourself busy to wind down and because you like doing it, or is it to promote yourself.
The next step is to define a goal and a scope - not a deadline.
When realizing it, it is important to take a pragmatic approach. All activities should lead towards achieving the goal - do not overengineer.
This way, projects can actually get finished.
From personal experience, I have been successful in software projects, sports competitions, building objects and furniture, and doing musical projects.
Success being defined as achieving the set goal and having completed the project.
Their purpose was never to selfpromote and the activity rarely involved creating art. So maybe art is a niche that is never finished...
Mid next year, I want to pick up writing a blog. The primary purpose is to 'keep myself busy' because I have never delved into this activity and I am curious about the process. The secondary purpose is to improve my literacy: I want to be able to read and write more efficiently, because my new job will require that. And the tertiary goal is to self-promote.
Elaborating on the topic of finishing projects would make a perfect first article. Thanks to the author for your inspiration!
by edg5000 on 12/19/23, 10:38 AM
So true. At some point you stop working on it and start using it. When you start using it and stop modifying it, you start learning the actual characteristics of the thing. Only then will you find what you like about it and what not. Generally, as user or consumer, you will tend to adapt to the shortcoming and try to maximize the use or enjoyment you get out of it.
In addition, whilst working on something, it can be so hard to predict when quality goals will be met, because the incremental progress slows down constantly as the product grows (non-linear). The reliability and quality of a thing are often only known after using or consuming the thing for some time. Only through actually using and consuming, true evaluation is performed. Only in retrospect can one say anything about the quality of something.
by rtpg on 12/19/23, 7:40 AM
Good way to get something out of your system, and maybe 3 years later you open it back up and go for it.
by ryandrake on 12/19/23, 4:41 AM
by SeenNotHeard on 12/19/23, 12:18 AM
by m0llusk on 12/19/23, 3:05 AM
There is a saying that works of art are never done, people just eventually quit working on them. Even that seems somewhat apart from "... finishing a personal project you’re doing just for yourself is impossible" which seems overly broad and very dark.
by inDigiNeous on 12/19/23, 7:31 AM
I think you have to decide at some point: "This is done."
Maybe it requires stripping out some parts, or major parts, of the software you had in mind to reach that, but I feel it has to be done at some point, the feature creep will settle in otherwise and you will never be done.
by rudasn on 12/19/23, 5:26 AM
Months go by, with lots of refactoring, "core" features and no progress at all. Some weeks were most productive than others though and just last month there was something usable.
So instead of doing what I always did, building more stuff, I setup a server, nginx, certbot, and released the damn thing. By released I mean it was available on a URL, but nobody knew about it. And that was calming, because it was out there and that was the goal.
That helped me mentally to just share it with other people and see what happens. And I did, and it wasn't bad, and it was fine.
I still don't have much time to spend on it, but I know it's outhere with people using it, and I can always work on it.
by adityaathalye on 12/19/23, 6:43 AM
_"A Work of Art Is Never Finished, Merely Abandoned"_
by ChrisMarshallNY on 12/19/23, 10:06 AM
He is writing about art (creative writing), as opposed to commercial product. Art is fairly inward-focused, and its goals can be a lot “fuzzier” than product. I was an artist, in my Yute. At one time, I wanted to actually make a living from it.
But artists finish, all the time. Some, treat their art as a product, and that seems to help, but they also risk commoditization of their creativity.
I’ve spent pretty much my entire life, shipping software. That’s been for externally-imposed deadlines, usually as part of an integrated team, with synchronized milestones.
As he mentions, that helps a lot.
Since working on my own stuff, I’ve had to drastically reduce the scale of my work, and practice self-discipline that, I suspect, many folks here would consider extreme.
But I still finish stuff. Finishing stuff is actually part of the personal satisfaction that I get. It’s an art, in itself.
by zmj on 12/19/23, 3:12 AM
by dbecks on 12/19/23, 1:05 AM
by ww520 on 12/19/23, 2:23 AM
Ok. I'm going to comment out the pending feature and just release it.
by matheusmoreira on 12/19/23, 4:20 AM
> I didn't realize this going into it. I wasn't asking for a baby.
> It was a complete surprise to me, after 20-odd years of industry experience, that even writing a simple interpreter would produce a lifetime of work.
https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/06/rich-programmer-foo...
by avg_dev on 12/19/23, 12:10 PM
i remember some years ago reflecting back on some software project that had gone well. in my head, it was a beautiful finished object that i'd created using the tools and frameworks available to me. it was perfect and flawless.
then i went back and read the code and saw so many TODOs and things that i would have accomplished had i only had more time. and i never did get a chance to finish those TODOs, but the project launched successfully and generated a lot of revenue.
by anon35 on 12/19/23, 3:53 AM
by hyperthesis on 12/19/23, 5:26 AM
The things you do for themselves are the only things worth doing - because the value of all other things is merely derived.
by mikhailfranco on 12/19/23, 1:37 PM
He has at least two beautiful chapters on this subject:
Completion p191
The Experimenter and the Finisher p205
The last sentence of Completion:
We can't wait to finish,
because there's another idea calling
that lights us up.
Is it time for the next project
because the clock or the calendar
says it's time,
or because the work itself
says it's time?
by jdblair on 12/19/23, 6:50 AM
The reasons it falls by the wayside are varied. The first big gap happened during a whole house renovation, which in retrospect made a lot of sense! Mostly there is just only so much time in the day and lots of ways to spend my time.
by rwieruch on 12/19/23, 12:47 PM
by eternityforest on 12/19/23, 8:50 AM
I had added features nobody wanted(afaik), that were a hassle to maintain, and that I didn't have any use for.
I just axed them all. And I stopped adding features without real use cases I actually planned on doing. I was spending hours a week but the project was getting crappier instead of better.
With all that gone, I had time to add features I actually wanted, and clean up the architecture to make that possible.
by matthewfelgate on 12/19/23, 12:37 PM
Ha so true!! Perhaps I am just getting old.
by revskill on 12/19/23, 1:04 AM
by HPMOR on 12/19/23, 9:22 AM
by posed on 12/19/23, 1:01 PM
by smitty1e on 12/19/23, 3:38 AM
But I don't enjoy UX work at all.
So if I can get it to a "mud fence" level of usability, I'll need people with a shred of aesthetic sensibility, since I'm done around vi with the UI.
by __jambo on 12/19/23, 12:15 PM
by hyperthesis on 12/19/23, 5:30 AM
It does feel like you should know... but knowing all the parts does not mean you know the whole. The rules of chess do not make you a gramdmaster. The axioms of geometry, of predicate calculus do not make you know all theorems and proofs. Being able to program does not mean you know all programs.
by Log_out_ on 12/20/23, 7:29 AM
So you either have stable but dead, congrats you are the framework developer.
Or you have constantly changing, api breaking rodeos but you might not become a framework developer.
Pick your poison
by alentred on 12/19/23, 6:52 AM
by m463 on 12/19/23, 5:50 AM
I don't know if that's where true wisdom starts, or if it's procrastination at work.
by simne on 12/20/23, 5:24 AM
by DevAbdul on 12/19/23, 9:47 AM
by knubie on 12/19/23, 4:35 AM
by hyperluz on 12/19/23, 10:20 AM
by hmr on 12/19/23, 6:15 PM
by hyperthesis on 12/19/23, 5:23 AM