Side project endgame

Friday 5 June 2009 — This is more than 15 years old. Be careful.

Titus said that a side project is like a mistress: you only spend an hour a night with her, catch as catch can. I totally agree. Except these days, while trying to put the finishing touches on a release, what with packaging and docs, it’s like spending an hour a night working on my mistress’s tax returns.

» 4 reactions

Comments

[gravatar]
will 8:33 AM on 6 Jun 2009
That's definitely the same boat I'm in. Furthermore, it's really difficult to have multiple mistresses, er, side-projects.
[gravatar]
Giacomo 10:49 AM on 6 Jun 2009
It's a horrible paradox: for small projects, the boring bits (packaging etc) are also the ones you need in order to gain real popularity.
[gravatar]
Malcolm Tredinnick 3:37 PM on 6 Jun 2009
Ok, I'm probably weird (well, I'm definitely weird), but I usually this sort of stuff. Particularly when I spent a lot of time working on the GNOME project, I specialised in build stuff and packaging and docs polishing because it was satisfying to get everything just so. That's still true these days: I like clean code, noiseless logs, tidy installation procedures and enjoy making it happen.
[gravatar]
Ned Batchelder 3:36 AM on 8 Jun 2009
@Malcolm: I agree with you that it is very satisfying to get everything "just so". I like having all my ducks in a row. But I guess I'd characterize it as "I like having gotten them all in a row" more than "I like getting them all in a row". Packaging and docs will just never be the part of the project that captures my imagination.

Add a comment:

Ignore this:
Leave this empty:
Name is required. Either email or web are required. Email won't be displayed and I won't spam you. Your web site won't be indexed by search engines.
Don't put anything here:
Leave this empty:
Comment text is Markdown.