I'm a software developer who writes about Laravel, JavaScript, Rails, Linux, Docker, WordPress and the tech industry. Follow me on Twitter @tylerlwsmith
I absolutely feel this. I quit my job 2 years ago to become a web developer because I had a couple of personal projects I wanted to build. Truthfully, I was probably a competent enough developer to build out an acceptable version within 10 months of becoming a dev, but two things always stopped me:
Shiny object syndrome. I wanted to make the project with the best platform possible, so I switched from WordPress, to Laravel, to Django and then started reading up on serverless. It was a great learning experience, but I got nothing done.
I wanted more features than I could reasonably turn out by myself.
I got stuck for a year without launching anything.
I think what helped me was a combination of reading a bunch of articles about Minimum Viable Products (also known as MVPs) and just getting fed up with not having anything done. I lowered my ambition from ~10 features to 1 feature and built a workable site in WordPress in 14 days. It doesn't matter that it's in WordPress because no one is visiting the site yet anyway so scalability is a total non-issue 🤷♂️
I've spent the past two weeks trying to figure out how to promote something that I think is really cool, and even though the codebase is kind of messy, I'm really happy with it and no one cares about the code.
Best of luck as you jump into your projects, if you focus on getting code out the door you'll do great!
Just a coder and a dad. I love my family and I love to code!!!! started coding at 11, so I have 25 years under my belt. Still love learning about it every day. Black lives matter!
You nailed it with the shiny object syndrome. I have been there so many times. Along with the fact that at work, we tend to plan out way in to the future, with many many developer working on the same code base. So by habit I end up bringing that to my personal projects. So my projects become so bogged down with proper process and design, that I end up losing myself in it.
So you're right, it's about determining the MVP and moving to that goal.
I'm a software developer who writes about Laravel, JavaScript, Rails, Linux, Docker, WordPress and the tech industry. Follow me on Twitter @tylerlwsmith
I've been a freelancer the entire time I've been a developer, which has meant on most projects I don't have to worry about implementing a lot of process. It's been a blessing and a curse: I definitely can work faster but I've found on bigger projects I end up needing to do big refactors after a while because I didn't have as much process in place.
I'd love to show you my project! The site is SacMusic.com, and it's a directory of the open mics and jams in the Sacramento California region. It's the site I wish I had when I started playing open mics a decade ago.
Just a coder and a dad. I love my family and I love to code!!!! started coding at 11, so I have 25 years under my belt. Still love learning about it every day. Black lives matter!
I'm a software developer who writes about Laravel, JavaScript, Rails, Linux, Docker, WordPress and the tech industry. Follow me on Twitter @tylerlwsmith
It's a hard thing to fight! This year I'm trying to get into more of a production-oriented mindset where I spend less time fighting with technical details and more time building, even if I'm doing it in a less than ideal way.
I absolutely feel this. I quit my job 2 years ago to become a web developer because I had a couple of personal projects I wanted to build. Truthfully, I was probably a competent enough developer to build out an acceptable version within 10 months of becoming a dev, but two things always stopped me:
Shiny object syndrome. I wanted to make the project with the best platform possible, so I switched from WordPress, to Laravel, to Django and then started reading up on serverless. It was a great learning experience, but I got nothing done.
I wanted more features than I could reasonably turn out by myself.
I got stuck for a year without launching anything.
I think what helped me was a combination of reading a bunch of articles about Minimum Viable Products (also known as MVPs) and just getting fed up with not having anything done. I lowered my ambition from ~10 features to 1 feature and built a workable site in WordPress in 14 days. It doesn't matter that it's in WordPress because no one is visiting the site yet anyway so scalability is a total non-issue 🤷♂️
I've spent the past two weeks trying to figure out how to promote something that I think is really cool, and even though the codebase is kind of messy, I'm really happy with it and no one cares about the code.
Best of luck as you jump into your projects, if you focus on getting code out the door you'll do great!
You nailed it with the shiny object syndrome. I have been there so many times. Along with the fact that at work, we tend to plan out way in to the future, with many many developer working on the same code base. So by habit I end up bringing that to my personal projects. So my projects become so bogged down with proper process and design, that I end up losing myself in it.
So you're right, it's about determining the MVP and moving to that goal.
Share your project with me, I'd love to see it!
I've been a freelancer the entire time I've been a developer, which has meant on most projects I don't have to worry about implementing a lot of process. It's been a blessing and a curse: I definitely can work faster but I've found on bigger projects I end up needing to do big refactors after a while because I didn't have as much process in place.
I'd love to show you my project! The site is SacMusic.com, and it's a directory of the open mics and jams in the Sacramento California region. It's the site I wish I had when I started playing open mics a decade ago.
Dude this site looks great! Well done. I viewed it on the iPhone and it works nicely. Great work.
The same happens to me 🙋♂️
It's a hard thing to fight! This year I'm trying to get into more of a production-oriented mindset where I spend less time fighting with technical details and more time building, even if I'm doing it in a less than ideal way.
I have almost same story; quit job 2 years ago and all other shiny object stuff. So we are not alone :)