
Importance of Side Projects - rawsyntax
http://rawsyntax.com/post/5982784556/importance-of-side-projects
======
cletus
I have mixed feelings about side projects. Sure it sounds good and looks good
but let me tell you my own example.

I am a single core processor.

I am pretty much capable of doing pretty much just one thing at a time. I've
tried to multi-task to the point of switching off from what I'm doing at work
to something else but it just doesn't work. One or both of them suffer.

I tend to be engrossed in what I'm doing at work. If I'm bored with what I'm
doing I'm in the wrong job and that just doesn't last long before I throw in
the towel.

Sometimes I'll work on that problem more. Sometimes I'll just do
research/reading on that or related topics.

But I just don't really have the knack of switching off from solving that
problem and picking up something else with equal vigour.

I have the same issue when it comes to learning new programming languages. I
tend to have limited success when doing it on my own. Where I succeed is when
I HAVE TO learn a new language, typically because that's now my job.

It reminds me of the scene from Swordfish where Travolta and Jackman are being
chased in the car by a hit team, Travolta hands over the wheel to man the
machine gun. Jackman says "I don't know how to drive this." "Learn!" was the
response.

I get the feeling that the US (I'm Australian) has cultural differences that
come into play here. For example, the education system in the US seems to have
a very strong focus on extracurricular activities, something that doesn't seem
to exist (to anywhere near that degree) in Australia. This includes sports,
social clubs, community service and so on.

So much so that it can be an important part of getting into the right college
and then the right graduate school (Australian universities, at least when I
got my degree, typically just looked at your Tertiary Entrance Score and
that's about it; in fact the whole system was AUTOMATED on that). The TES
being a scaled combination of exam and coursework.

I wonder if there is a culture of multitasking because of this?

Whatever the case... I am a single core processor.

~~~
roel_v
But people aren't single core computers. You're not going to tell me that all
you ever do is work on one program. You go play squash in the evening, you
have a barbeque in the weekend. The point isn't that, during your work day,
you switch between 'job' and 'side project' 5 times; the point is that you
work on your job in the daytime, and then at 10pm you hack a bit on that one
algorithm you didn't quite get right, or on that lost sunday afternoon while
you're waiting for your in-laws whose flight was delayed for 3 hours you
experiment with that unit testing framework for language xyz you're been
looking at. That's not multi-tasking.

------
barrkel
Per my contract, every creative thought and act I perform while employed
belongs to my employer. My contract could be interpreted to mean that even my
comments here are owned by my employer. Rather demotivating for genuine side-
projects.

~~~
alnayyir
You are protected from this completely in the state of California. One of the
many reasons this state is so great.

~~~
tricolon
What about New York?

~~~
alnayyir
I'm a coder, not a lawyer. If you have a specific concern you should discuss
it with an IP lawyer.

------
pnathan
I see side projects as a key indicator of someone who is focused on becoming
better, instead of just paying the bills.

------
jswinghammer
I've found that most of my coworkers over the years don't really react very
well to the idea of me having a side project-unless they have one themselves.
I think they believe it's pretty strange to making something not work related.

I'm not sure I've worked with many programmers at all who read on the side let
alone make much of anything. Maybe my experience is just weird.

~~~
pkteison
No, it's normal at big companies or non programming firms. Spare mental
capacity is devoted to sports teams and American Idol.

~~~
jasonlotito
Or family and friends, or dealing with the bureaucracy of the craptastic
health care that is against providing your autistic son anything besides false
sentiment and lies. Unfortunately, the tech industry places too much value on
things like Twitter.

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petercooper
Don't quote me on this in a court of law but I'm pretty sure all of my current
main sources of income (other than consulting) started life as side projects,
including a site I sold for 5 figures, a technology I sold for 6 figures, and
most of my current sites which provide a day to day income now (the biggest of
which was set up as a side project to try and help promote a book I was
writing at the time). A personal blog I started in 2003 as a laugh made mid 4
figures every month in 2008 with Adsense (but almost nothing now, bah). I
started an e-mail newsletter as a side project in August last year.. now up to
12k subscribers across 2 newsletters and making a little money some weeks.

Side projects rock! They sniff out your true interests and true motivations.
But.. I doubt they're for everybody, naturally.

~~~
buildorfail
That is pretty awesome. Nice work. It also keeps the gears turning in your
head to constantly re-invest and re-invent

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bsmith
I recently applied to a PHP dev position. I told the CEO that if hired I would
still be working on a side project or two...didn't get the job. Obviously not
the kind of place I want to be working, anyway.

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Swizec
Balance, though, is key. I've never quite managed to figure out how to make
sure an exciting side project doesn't consume my life leaving everything else
to rot, or conversely, how to keep a side project sufficiently alive when
swamped with more important things.

~~~
rawsyntax
I always make sure the work that's paying the bills is done, before I work on
the side project. Other than that, I'll typically commit to 5 hours a week.
Usually in 2 sessions.

~~~
akaak
having a dedicated time to work on the side project tasks is a good idea.
Balance does matter and it is sometimes difficult to stop what you want to do
on the side project. OP's point about not getting into analysis/paralysis is
the reason that I work on the side projects just to get see if the damn thing
works or not.

------
Sandman
I can definitely relate to the part that talks about analysis paralysis. When
starting a new project, like everybody else, I'm usually faced with several
different options on how I'm going to design it, which libraries I'm going to
use, what the overall architecture is going to look like, what features I'll
implement and so on. And very often, I get stuck deciding between two options,
weighing which one is better, which one might prove to be a bad decision in
the future and which one might make my code more flexible/inflexible to change
and refactoring.

But then I slap myself (figuratively, of course) and remember to "just do it".
To just release any kind of working code, never mind if it's a suboptimal
design, never mind if there are a few bugs or if it's slower than it could be.
The important thing is to release _anything_. The code can be improved upon
after that.

~~~
Hisoka
I fall into the same trap. It's an addiction to perfection.

------
dkersten
My latest side project just attracted attention in a big way and it looks
likely that we (myself and my brother; we worked on it together) will be
founding a startup around it soon. We started the project for fun and all we
expected out of it was some cool toys to play with, a little "oh thats cool"
publicity and a fun learning experience. Its been a crazy past few weeks.

So, yes, side projects are very important!

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exratione
Seems to be a common theme around here:

[http://www.exratione.com/2011/03/the-side-project-
considered...](http://www.exratione.com/2011/03/the-side-project-considered-
as-a-necessity.php)

"It seems strange to me that there exist developers who do not have side-
projects: exploratory exercises in coding, tinkering, and scratching personal
itches that run on the weekends, or here and there in the evenings as a
replacement for mindlessly consuming mass-market entertainment. Do these
people not enjoy their chosen profession?"

~~~
pagekalisedown
Wait 'til you have kids.

~~~
jackbean
I don't have kids and it is highly hypocritical of me to say so but "Leo
Tolstoy wrote War and Peace while living with his wife and 13 children."

~~~
bmunro
Was War and Peace a side project or the main project?

If it wasn't done as a side project then it isn't really relevant.

~~~
the_decider
War and Peace was the side project. Tolstoy's main project consisted of
managing the land and peasents on his country estate.

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ww520
Side projects are great. They are great motivator for learning new stuffs.
There are so far you can go with tutorial or sample codes. You have to do it
in a serious enough project to learn the nitty gritty details.

Some of them will die away but some will stick. Here're my recent more
successful side-projects.

<http://www.previouslook.com/hnews>

<http://www.topchan.tv>

Android game Starxscape.

~~~
ardit33
I agree with ww250.

I always have had some small-ish projects on the side. Some for fun, some for
more serious things.

Most didn't make it past the prototype phase, expect two of them. And one of
them helped me a lot when I was interviewing for the current job (it is
actually a non-trivial/large project).

As long as they don't become your main focus, small projects will actually
help on your day to day job. (you end up applying a lot of the things that you
learn on your side projects, to your day to day job).

Cool, game ww250. BTW are you looking for a job? I am working currently at
Yammer, and we are looking for few good Android developers. (iOS as well).
shoot me an email at ardit33@gmail.com

------
JoeAltmaier
My side project turned into a consulting company and fed my family for 4
years. Now I'm on my own again, still consulting. Its kind of like every
project is a side project - they change from month to month and lots of new
development.

Now my main project gets to be my family, which is really a great life. Envy
me.

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rawsyntax
I'm the author, will answer any questions / criticisms of the post. Thanks for
the upvotes

~~~
wallflower
I really liked your succinct definition of what a side project is. What are
your thoughts/experiences/opinions on team side projects?

~~~
rawsyntax
I find it can be hard to sync up schedules and reliably work on it each week.

~~~
wallflower
Interesting, the most successful team side project I've ever worked on - we
met regularly every week at a coffee shop.

Looking back, that served two purposes - one, nothing beats face to face
debugging and arguing over the merits of various UX approaches and two, having
that weekly meeting was a hard deadline - that pushed each of us to get their
stuff done and committed to the repository before the meeting (even if it was
5 min. prior to the meeting).

------
coenhyde
I like side projects. I have a few myself for many of the reasons listed here.
In fact I'm much more inclined hire someone who has side projects. It shows
they have a passion for programming/creating things.

