
Should I take time near the end of a big project to do a side thing? - danschumann
I have been writing animation software for 2 years.  It&#x27;s nearly bug-free, with all the features I want ( I was scope creeping for about a year ).  However, I am now dealing with a large code-base, and I&#x27;m thinking about writing an editor&#x2F;IDE type thing that can help me resolve dependencies and refactor efficiently.  I&#x27;m debating between the various short term and long term benefits.<p>I know I should launch, everybody says I should launch.  I know people want to use this.  I am just so overwhelmed, and it&#x27;s getting harder to manage this huge code base.  Plus, I kind of want to run on something new, but not something new that needs to be polished for launch.  This is something that could be fairly rough.
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YuriNiyazov
Sounds like a good way to self-sabotage and not launch.

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smt88
No. Launch.

If your code is JS, gradually migrate it to well-typed TypeScript, one file at
a time. There are already IDEs that do most of what you want in JS and do
everything you want in TS.

Use jslint and tslint religiously.

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danschumann
I know there are some softwares out there that do some dependency scraping,
and will help you navigate around your code-base, I just envision one that
does more in certain areas, and feels better in others. Making an editor that
feels like google maps in some places, a spider web in others, mind-maps in
others, and vim in the code parts. It would be smart enough to let you move
methods from one class to another class, and automatically update instances.
It also needs to allow you to 'highlight' parts of the code base, because I
have an editor engine, and a frontend/exported engine ( the animation software
exports to html5 and the html5 export version is slim, whereas the editor
version has a lot of extras for editing ), so that's one of the big areas, I
don't want to maintain 2 code engines anymore. So, a big part of it would be
toggling certain lines of code to target to different versions, and then being
able to toggle views as well.

This might be too big of a side-track at the end of a project, and I could be
just wanting something else to work on, because mature projects get very un-
fun. It is something I probably will do eventually, to help myself manage the
two similar engines.

The other option is doing some sort of a JS lint type thing, where I just
comment out the extras and they only get compiled in the editor version.

I wish someone would just give me $50k for 5%, and I'd have another year to
get things ready for mass markets. When I launch I think the animation
software will grow nicely, so I want my ducks in a row so I'm not too
stressed. That pressure is counter-acted by the fact that I could use cash to
live on, cuz 2 years of development with just a little free-lance is kinda
draining.

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aglionby
Launch, and figure it out later. Something like that realistically isn't going
to give much, if any, added value to your eventual end users.

This is the reality of development -- mature projects _do_ get un-fun, but
that's why you charge :)

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saluki
LAUNCH

