Side Projects Baby!
Like many people, I have a long list of cool side projects that I've always wanted to work on but never found the time. Having recently moved and now somewhat settled in to a new home, I think it's a good time to take a few months for myself and focus on busting out some of these projects.
Before I get stuck in, I thought it might be a good idea to set some ground rules to follow so I have at least some structure to work from:
Have fun!
First and foremost, I want to work on something fun. If I'm going to be my own boss and pay myself a $0 salary, the work had better be enjoyable!
Use some new technology and/or language
I've been fortunate enough to be able to work with a few different languages and environments but it's always fun to learn something new and see what new paradigms are developing.
Have a clear deliverable or outcome
Some of my ideas are more concrete than others. I need to make sure that I don't dive into a black hole of coding and then end up with nothing to show for it. It's important to have a tangible outcome to work towards. An ambitious goal might be to publish a mobile app. That's all well and good but even that goal can be broken up into sub projects, each with their own tangible deliverable.
Blog about it
Before you get to coding, there are a bunch of things you need to do for any project. You need to sketch your ideas and spec out what you want to build. If I force myself to blog about each project then I'm hoping it will both encourage me to better organize my thoughts as well as give potential future employers a view into my methodology for approaching any new project.
Before I get stuck in, I thought it might be a good idea to set some ground rules to follow so I have at least some structure to work from:
Have fun!
First and foremost, I want to work on something fun. If I'm going to be my own boss and pay myself a $0 salary, the work had better be enjoyable!
Use some new technology and/or language
I've been fortunate enough to be able to work with a few different languages and environments but it's always fun to learn something new and see what new paradigms are developing.
Have a clear deliverable or outcome
Some of my ideas are more concrete than others. I need to make sure that I don't dive into a black hole of coding and then end up with nothing to show for it. It's important to have a tangible outcome to work towards. An ambitious goal might be to publish a mobile app. That's all well and good but even that goal can be broken up into sub projects, each with their own tangible deliverable.
Blog about it
Before you get to coding, there are a bunch of things you need to do for any project. You need to sketch your ideas and spec out what you want to build. If I force myself to blog about each project then I'm hoping it will both encourage me to better organize my thoughts as well as give potential future employers a view into my methodology for approaching any new project.
So, let's get to it! My next post will aim to list some of my ideas and decide what to work on first!
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