Often due to the absence of proper planning, lack of inspiration, no proper technical knowledge and so on, you might hit a roadblock while working on a project.
Do you push forward to complete it no matter how long it takes or do you start to work on others until the inspiration strikes, you have researched enough and then re-visit it?
Latest comments (42)
I use it on my CV and tell people its unfinished. Imperfection make us human :')
This happens to me more often than not. It took me 2 unfinished attempts while I was learning to finally get one project up and running. Took me a really long time, too (like 4 months and 3 months) But I decided to keep them either as reference / practice or as a reminder of how NOT to do things. I ended up with a sweet app to show around in my portfolio.
After that I realized that it is much better to keep the code, the only mistake I was making is setting goals too high and far for my current skillset and time.
I think the only thing you really need is planning. Nowadays, what I do is divide a project into multiple milestones, and then push as hard as I can to reach one of them before stopping. Afterwards, I can either move on to the next milestone or stop and continue with it some other time. Either way, I finished something I proposed myself, so inspiration & morale remains high, and I can use those breaks to learn the things I might need for the next goal.
Many great insights, thanks for starting the conversation.
DEV Community is awesome πβ€
No project is ever 'finished'
I usually freeze it and put it into a private repo. So people won't see my unfinished projects. I'll come back to them (don't know when) when I have an idea. Or never come back!
That's a nice approach π
Unless you have created the repo specifically for collaboration and PLs, you might want to hide the code, otherwise some might think it's your finished code and it's broken π
That's one of the ways I promote myself.
Don't show incomplete, broken, or ugly projects. Because the total of the project might mean nothing.For a long time I had a heaps of these half-started projects. Always over-ambitious, lacking direction and getting stuck (since I always seemed use them as an excuse to try new tech too)
Nowadays I promise myself not to get into them at all, because I've found that by myself I don't have all the tools needed to complete side projects and end up sinking so much time, effort and mental energy.
I was inspired by this question to write this out more fully -
I need three people before I start another side-project
Jono γ» Sep 29 γ» 2 min read
I keep projects in a personal git server via my NAS so, when I stop working on a project, I can remove it locally and fetch it remotely if I feel like taking it up again.
Just did it recently. Started work on an app a while ago, put it on hold, and when I want to come back to it later I, just did a 'git checkout my_old_project' and continued!
I use github issues as my todo list. I feel overwhelmed by all the things I could do to improve the project and I don't know how to do them yet so I get down the intention and maybe a link or screenshot (like for a web component). Then I hope I'll come back to it one day and pick it up.
Sometimes I give up because my interests have moved on and I keep a repo as a record of what I made and how I made it.
Oh and Trello is also nice for building up ideas of projects that I might build one day and there is no repo yet. I links and todo items.
Planning a project before coding it is a a great practice anyway, so you know what obstacles you'll have. And if you pause halfway so you can do something else, you can come back to your plan or someone can pick it up.
But keep the plan flexible - allow for uncertainties to me figured out and the change to change as needs change.
There was a great article, big props if someone can find it, that proposed to have a rule like 100-10-1
MVP is most valued project?
No, it's a concept from the lean startup movement. It means minimum viable product (or minimum loveable product) and is meant to evaluate whether it's worth it to invest time and efforts in a new project.
Lookup lean startup
Thanks
I play games when I face serious issues! :))) Sometimes it helps and opens your mind to find new ways to handle problems! Also, Never delete older projects and write the environment and package versions you used! I think every project has its own difficulties and you may be able to solve them after a while!