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buphmin
buphmin

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Are Side Projects THAT Important?

So I have been trying to force myself to start a new side project recently and it has got me thinking how important it really is to have side projects. I believe learning is important and to keep on top of technology but do you really need a bunch of side projects to do that?

I have had exactly one major side project to build a fantasy football draft board. I first built it in Symfony and Aurelia, but I was not pleased with the result so I rebuilt it with Adonis and Vue for backend and frontend respectively. I learned a lot in the process about building API driven single page apps.

On the other hand I also learn a ton by fiddling with things at work in between projects and by reading articles such as on DEV.

So I wanted to see what the good people of DEV think about side projects and how necessary they are. I for one think that they are nice to have, but not at the expense of your happiness and well being.

Top comments (2)

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itamarst profile image
Itamar Turner-Trauring

If you're doing it for fun, great. But if you just want to learn new tech for career purposes, best place to do it is on the job: you have more resources, you have direct requirements, it's more realistic, and it's not eating in to your free time.

Longer version: codewithoutrules.com/2017/09/09/le...

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bansalsuv profile image
Suvansh Bansal • Edited

Same as you, I believe side projects help in learning and in staying on top.

However, I feel that starting something from the scratch does not help as it takes up a lot of time and energy. Rather yo should focus on what you already have and find a way to reach it to the relevant audience.

We did something similar with remote.tools. You can read more about our journey here - hackernoon.com/how-side-projects-c...

Let me know if you found it helpful.