I really think with a proper full time job working long hours its unrealistic to spend much time on any side project. Its much healthier to try to spend time with friends and family, or hobbies. If you have young children there is little chance.<p>What everyone should strive for is the side project at work. Making new tools, monitoring systems, refactoring some library, user friendly applications, experimenting with new languages. Google is famous for the 20% project, but most people can get away with spending a few hours a week on whatever they want while working. If you deliver something useful its also a good way of getting recognition.
So, assuming you're early career, I get the idea that you are anxious about your CV and your job security, and you want to build up something of a portfolio that you can show publicly.<p>Me, I'm mid career, and wish I hadn't focused so much on doing more programming in my off time. Most of the side projects I worked on never really came to any sort of long-term fruition, and I'm not even sure that they were <i>that</i> helpful in my career. What really helped was being able to demonstrate domain expertise, and I built that up by becoming <i>less</i> focused on programming, and spending more of my work time just talking to people and understanding their business.<p>There are two big problems with just working on raw programming skills: First, if all you are is a programmer, then you're fungible. The only programming skills that aren't particularly fungible are skills in entrenched-but-uncool languages like COBOL and RPG. The cools ones are cheap; anyone who can stick to a MOOC can build up a portfolio of side projects on popular technologies. On the other hand, domain expertise is very difficult to replace. The resources to build it up typically aren't publicly available, so they're less common.<p>And there are plenty of side projects you can work on that give your brain a break, or at least a change of pace, while still looking good on your CV and opening up job opportunities you might not otherwise have. Lately, for me, it's been learning languages. It's a lot easier to fit into a life, because you can do it while commuting or doing housework. Having a business proficiency can definitely open doors. And, once you get past the beginner stage (which is best undertaken as a solitary pursuit), it's a _great_ social activity.
I don't have side projects. I don't really want one. What I do is satisfy my intellectual curiosity. I've always been very curious how things work. If I see an app with a widget that does something, I will (try to) recreate it. I'll then move on to the next curiosity. I like protocols, so maybe I'll implement a minimalist IRC server. Then move on. I don't fully flesh out these applications. I do the minimum I need to understand and learn and satisfy myself and then move on. I am curious about so many things, I don't have time to have a side project.<p>Another thing is, I love reading code, so if I see an Open Source project that does something really interesting, I'll read the code. If there's a particularly tricky piece of code, I'll print it out, grab a sharp pencil and go sit on the back porch to trace through it and understand it.<p>I don't do side projects. I don't have a github account. But I do code a lot. And I do read a lot of code.
Well first of all, we need to abandon the concept of the 40 hour work week. Very few people are actually working all of those 40 hours and even if they were, it's just a bad way to work for any client or company.<p>In all likelihood, the people managing you aren't technical and have a very small window into the work you're actually doing. On top of that, even if you can outperform your colleagues by as much as 200% by working more or working "harder", there's no point in doing so because our work world doesn't really understand how to deal with exceptional individuals. You'll just get 15% more pay and some meaningless title for all of that hard work anyway.<p>So you work up to the point where people tell you "that's amazing", then you go work on side projects. Simple customer management. They're happy, you're happy. No more exchanging hours for dollars, we all get what we want.<p>Just focus on what matters, both for your own longterm happiness (building skills, scratching an itch, whatever) and for the happiness of your customers (they won't get their project completed if you're burned out and disengaged).<p>Reject the 40 hours. This isn't a factory and we aren't slaves. It will all be fine.
If you've never done a side project, I would definitely recommend the experience. That being said, the people I know who always have to have something software and/or business related on the side are stretched thinner than anyone else I know.<p>I've gotten the most mileage out of the extracurricular pursuits that have the least to do with programming - usually those around art or sports. When I have an interesting idea for a technical side project I pursue it, but when I was in a phase where I felt obligated to do so, it brought more stress than enjoyment.
Alright, I have <i></i>many<i></i> thoughts on this.<p>In summary, this article says:
"I like side projects! I have done a bunch of them, and here are the reasons why you should do them too:<p>1. You can make money<p>2. They're a gateway drug to entrepreneurship<p>3. You can learn new skills, including business skills<p>4. They look good on a resume/when networking<p>5. You can learn about yourself<p>6. Work with friends/make new ones”<p>I don’t think there is anything _wrong_ with this article, but I think it misses the mark a bit.<p>In my experience there are 3 reasons to work on a side project:<p>1. Learning- picking up a specific skill you didn’t have before.<p>2. Experience- doing more programming in total (making you more experienced).<p>3. Fun- sometimes programming is a fun thing to do!<p>I think if you don’t really hit at least one of those, you shouldn’t be doing side projects. On some days I take the even stronger position that unless you are trying to make a career change <i></i>or<i></i> you really find programming fun, you should not be doing side projects.<p>Making money can be part of it, but as the author says it can't really be the driving force of a <i>side project</i>. If making money is your goal, I would argue that that isn't a side project, it's a small business and should be treated as such.<p>It’s also worth thinking about what value you get out of which parts of side projects. You can hit all those goals <i>without</i> actually finishing and releasing your project. I see a lot of devs not bother starting projects when they hit all 3 reasons, because they don’t want to polish their project into a full product.<p>I don’t want to go off too much here, I blog at length about side projects at <a href="https://weeklyproject.club" rel="nofollow">https://weeklyproject.club</a> , and I wrote an article recently about this phenomenon at <a href="https://weeklyproject.club/articles/finish/" rel="nofollow">https://weeklyproject.club/articles/finish/</a>
I've never understood the grind culture. When I'm not at work there are a millions things I'd rather do than more work. I know some people who are always working. I can't. I need down time.
I somewhat agree. I've written about this before, but working on AlgoDaily[1] has helped me develop an amazing amount as a software engineer and entrepreneur. I've gotten to work with tech that I don't get to play with at work, learned what really makes a business tick, and have been able to network with many amazing people.<p>At the same time, there's been days that I've had to step back and reflect on the time spent in front of a computer, when I could've been traveling or partying like many peers.<p>It also can be a ton of work on top of your regular job.<p>[1] <a href="https://algodaily.com/lessons/getting-your-first-software-job-without-professional-experience#get-experience-via-your-own-projects" rel="nofollow">https://algodaily.com/lessons/getting-your-first-software-jo...</a>
I already spend 7 to 8 hours a day working on software, the odds that I'll spend a single minute working on anything remotely close to that are close to 0: I have significantly more enjoyable stuff to occupy my time with.<p>Sure, I find my work to be interesting and engaging but there are extremely few activities that I enjoy doing for over 8 hours.
I had been been working for 18 hours a day (for a duration of 1 month) - this is what happened to me.<p>1. Woke up at 4 am - 15 minutes - planning and thinking about the schedule for the rest of the day.<p>2. Review the code I wrote previous day (30 mins)(though I was the only one developing this I do PRs :)(iOS mobile app - swift for front end, golang for microflow, docker, k8s and google cloud)<p>3. Refactor and add features for the next 2 hours.<p>4.Glance through NYTimes(liberal left), Fox(republic) RT, South China Morning Post, Global Times(CN), Economic Times(IN) and DW(EU) to understand where world stands.<p>5 Get ready for office (train 30 mins) - attend the standup - provide and listen updates - fix issues , develop features - (NodeJS & Java)<p>5. Thankfully all the office meetings - are scheduled only on
Mondays.<p>6. 5:30 leave office, get into train and reach home at 7:20 pm (walk from train station to home - 2 km approx. - and take a shower<p>7. Play with kids, read stories (and fight with wife :))<p>8. Family prayer and got to bed.<p>9. On Fridays - have a beer or a glass of wine after prayer.<p>10. Saturday & Sunday - take children for extra curricular activities, shopping (mostly groceries and house hold items.<p>After one month - I couldn't carry on with waking up at 4:00 am - couldn't concentrate at work - getting irritated easily etc. I switched to waking up at 6:00 am.<p>Side projects are possible - but there is a cost :)
Is anyone else working full time and getting a degree part time? I’m a year away from my masters and it’s just been grueling, especially given that the government sees no difference in terms of taxes whether my tuition is paid directly by my employer or if they just gave me a $20,000 check every year and I ran it straight to the bursar <i>on my own accord</i>, so I’ve been screwed for money <i>and</i> time for it seems like as long as I can remember.<p>I really want to do side projects (I’m getting a degree in machine learning and google colab is free) but I have a job to go to, classwork to do, tests to study for, groceries to shop for and dinner to cook because I can’t afford instacart or delivery...and then I read posts like this about the joys of side projects. It’s really depressing.
I agree with some of the points from the article, but I also agree with the people saying to spend your free time with your family and on your hobbies.<p>So I have always had side projects that combine them. I'll write tools that help my family do something together. It used to be mapping tools to help us plan outdoor exploring in the mountains and deserts. Then it was conversion programs to turn photos into craft patterns. Most of those are offline now, too, I just left up a basic cross-stitch one. I turned the others off for the same reason I stopped the mapping tools -- similar tools were popping up everywhere, so I stopped putting my time into it. Now my kids are getting into writing, and I am working on a writing tool that can help them organize their thoughts... which will probably get seen and copied into more robust tools, and then I can turn it off.<p>These projects always go the same way -- they are something cool to help my family, they let me practice new things, I learn more, and some day people with more time surpass my idea with a real product.<p>I really have no problem with this cycle. It seems like everyone involved gets something out of it. And I'm way too old to play the game of every new idea having to have a goal of becoming a startup.
I'm currently full-time on my side project as I'm done with graduating, tired from searching for the right job (it has been months) and I just need to do some actual coding, to get it out my system or something.<p>It is a code vacation, because when job hunting, I'm not coding that much.<p>I'll try to be brief:<p>1. I am passionate about digital creation again<p>What I find really cool is that learning to program has been worth it. It has taken one bachelor and 2 masters, but it has been worth it. Studying computer science has been worth it. I'm capable of deep diving if I have to, and otherwise just stay on a web stack flying on a high level zipping code together by gluing npm packages but creating my own ones if I have to.<p>2. Passion has downsides<p>I'm seeing my friends less, I'm seeing my girlfriend less. I feel that everyone around me tolerates my behavior, but I don't suspect they like it too much as I'm thinking 24/7 about this thing. It also makes me a bit mentally absent when I'm with them. The issue is, I can't help it. IMO, it's a good lesson on how passion is overrated as the downsides of pure passion are not being discussed. My sleep (and code quality) is terrible as I'm too excited to get up again, and the problem is: I can sustain this a lot longer than I thought I could.<p>3. It allows me to do some much needed self exploration<p>Why do I like this? Why am I now procrastinating on creating the backend but am neck deep in learning how to rearchitect the backend to a p2p architecture (easy: because p2p web apps are more unusual ;-) ). I'm getting a lot of questions and answers that I need.<p>4. It feels like a game<p>I think the reason it feels like a game is because I have my own agency. I get to decide to solve a problem that I think is worth solving for whatever reason. That type of agency is quite common in games: you're in a big world with tons of quests and you can decide what to do (even abandon the whole quest line!).<p>---<p>All in all: doing your own side project on a full-time basis is a much needed and interesting exploration for me. For 9 years people told me what I should do. It's interesting to see what I do when I tell myself what to do. It's a much needed break from just doing what other people want.
On this note, I'm setting up an OSS side project (finally going public after a year+ of internal revisions) for many of the reasons cited in this project. It's something I care about.<p>With that said, part of my plan is to have a hosted version of the application - at least until the moderation of content makes me regret it, hah. However, I am concerned about the overhead of both writing and maintaining a complex FOSS project, but also handling [dev]ops of the project.<p>I know enough ops to be dangerous, but not much beyond that. I also know enough to know how little I know. Due to budget constraints, I will likely be hosting this on a very low cost server and exploiting CDN caching/etc very, very heavily - but I do imagine I'll need a cheap VPS. Ie, I don't think I can exploit a fully managed Function as a Service architecture; I think I'll be managing a VPS.<p>So for a low budget project with minimal ops experience, how can I ensure security and safety? What path to growth can I walk, without consuming my time trying to become an expert in [dev]ops?
I've never been able to get into side projects, but I have recently taken up contributing to open source projects. It was accidental, but I ended up making my first ever real contribution to an open source project after patching a driver to work with some hardware I was too lazy / cheap to replace. I'm in the process of moving, but I think afterwards I'm going to ramp up my work because that was the first time I generally enjoyed programming in years and it could also have a good impact on my career. I don't have any real friends or family right now so I have plenty of free time.
I feel switching two words around in the article title brings things into better focus:<p>Why Should You Have A Side Project?<p>Ask yourself:<p>- What do you want out of this side project? Money? Fame? Learning?<p>- How would you define success for this side project?<p>- What will you do if it succeeds? (unlikely)<p>- What will you do if it fails? (likely)<p>You need to chart a rough path. Creating something open source and aiming for popularity and notoriety is much different than hoping to make enough money to quit your day job from your side project. You end up in two vastly different places if you succeed. If you fail, you end up in the same place. Plan and be ok with both end results.
Doing some side projects for a while. Nothing else made me happier and more fulfilling then this. It makes you grow and challenge yourself and opens your eyes to what you can do or be without your employer.
A very much related article, which can even be considered a response to
the articles like OP of sorts, is “I Can't Do Anything for Fun
Anymore”[1][2] by Dave Bennett. I seriously recommend reading it.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.bennettnotes.com/post/making-money-out-of-every-hobby/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bennettnotes.com/post/making-money-out-of-every-...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19727156" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19727156</a>
If you read the "making money" numbers as how much you could make from a side project, remember that the values appear to be <i>revenue</i> and not profit.
I have strong feelings about the "making money" reason.<p>As much as I do like 2-3,000 USD extra in my pocket every year, investing the time directly into getting better skills and better-paid jobs trumps such amounts even if you get just 1% more every year.
Ah all these comments.<p>I pity those who are in this industry only for money :(<p>It sounds so miserable not to get any joy from your profession . What side project can we talk about if you can't wait to get out of the office, to run away from the code to literally do ANYTHING except coding.<p>What creativity and progress can we talk about when we have a bunch of miserable oompa loompas.
www.Levels.fyi started out as a side project! One benefit of starting out as a side project is it allowed us the flexibility and freedom to focus on user features without needing to worry about revenue.
I actually count much of my hobbies as 'side projects' as well even though almost none of them include actual programming. It's something I do which isn't work. And most of them do involve some other kind of skill and labour. And also almost none of them get me any money, and that also usually isn't a main motivator for me. tldr; I sort of agree with the general sentiment here, but feel the article is written a bit too much from personal experience without much more general reflection on the topic and focussing only on programming and not treating other things as side project. Or maybe that's the definition of side project, not sure :)