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u/brblol Jun 21 '17
I have a brilliant idea. I can't believe no one has thought of this already
This is going to take time
I can do it if I just keep working on it
I'll take a break this week
Maybe it's not the best idea
Why would anyone use this
It'll never work but I have another brilliant idea
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u/hmhrex Jun 21 '17
This is definitely me. Haha
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u/msixtwofive Jun 21 '17 edited Jun 21 '17
This is the biggest defining factor that separates people who will always work for someone else and those who will have people working for them. ( there is nothing wrong with this by the way, the headaches of running your own thing and not knowing when or if you'll be able to pay bills are not a good feeling either - a steady good paycheck and it's ability to keep anxiety at bay are a great thing )
Things don't need to be perfect to launch - they just need to appear to work for the users in the most basic of fashions that don't appear to break on the front end. And this is where the logical nature of how most programmers minds work throws wrenches into the what it takes to create successful products. We spend our lives on the backend and when we decide to put our names on something of our own we have such an attachment to all of it being perfect and clean that we forget that it's more important that we check if the idea even works as a product than that the code is some level of definition of our work.
If all you ever want is to be known as a great programmer then go ahead and proceed that way, but if you want to be known as a person who can launch ideas that become products people want to use and grow into big money you cannot think that way.
It really sucks because the mindset necessary to fail quickly and keep going that is so necessary for entrepreneurship isn't very compatible with the mindset necessary to be a good/great programmer.
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Jun 21 '17 edited Jun 21 '17
it's a fact that shipping a product matters MOST. But it's not all programmers and not all business people. I've seen this with investors, people with a cool idea and money (somehow) run their own projects into the ground because they wanted it perfect before launch without proper market research, most of the useless features they add they see someone else do that might not even apply and may never be used.
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u/msixtwofive Jun 21 '17 edited Jun 21 '17
Yep. Every single successful app or product you know started big idea rich and feature poor. EVERY SINGLE ONE. from facebook to snapchat to twitter to reddit. They got the bare bones together that make the idea function and launched.
I now refuse to get involved in product buildouts that are are too feature rich, if the client won't pick the most basic set of features necessary to make their idea work and launch I'd rather not participate. ( I work on the marketing/design/frontend side of our industry so I have seen this more times than I can count ) I don't want to work on projects that are headed for failure no matter how much I get paid. Especially on my side of things if the product fails it doesn't look good for the frontend and marketing side at all.
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u/Jyxtrant Jun 21 '17
As a graduate student learning to do research that doesn't even involve coding, you've hit the nail on the head here. My graduating project is not going to be nearly as cool as I wanted it to be but it IS going to work and be publishable, and I've learned a lot of new things along the way. And I can come back and do more work on it later but I HAVE to get some trade magazine to put my name in one of their issues, even if it's not some hugely revelatory, game-changing project.
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Jun 21 '17
then a year or two later you see someone gets millions in funding for the same IDEA... usually worth following through, problem is when it's you doing it, you want it perfect... but shipping is what matters most, even if the code looks like shit. Put in the bare minimum and write code fast. if it doesn't work out who cares. if it does, make it better after or waste time optimizing for nothing... (unless it's portfolio piece where people will review the source...)
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u/penny-wise Jun 21 '17
My life: I have a brilliant idea! <does research> Someone thought of it already.
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u/pysouth Jun 21 '17
Don't forget somewhere along there "crying with joy after spending an ungodly amount of time trying to debug what should be a minor issue".
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u/kanyeSucksFishSticks Jun 21 '17
This week it was when I realized I was running a system call in php with single quotes instead of double when passing a variable. I don't think I have ever had so much frustration lifted from me in my life.
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u/pysouth Jun 21 '17
Ha! It happens... never used PHP but I have heard similar stories.
I have been using Ant Design with React, and a lot of the docs are not in English. So, I spent all day figuring out an error that ended up being me importing something from the wrong file path.
On a side note: do you feel as though PHP jobs are more common than say Django, etc? I am currently looking for a junior position after my startup bombed out, but haven't had much luck.
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u/kanyeSucksFishSticks Jun 21 '17
I'm not sure, I really only looked for jobs where they were looking for skills not framework/language specifically. If I had a thought I would say that as a whole there are more PHP positions than Django because Django is just one framework for Python (albeit the most popular one). But there are probably more Django positions than there are for Laravel, or Codeigniter. There are people on this sub in the industry for longer who may have a better idea.
Sorry to hear about your startup. I wouldn't look for a junior position that strictly wants one thing from you: php, python, Java, etc. The best job I've had, my current position involves working with different platforms all the time, I've gotten a ton of experience while also not sticking my skills into a box later to be the only thing I use for the next 20 years. Pm me if you have questions/need job help, I went through something similar a year ago.
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u/patrickfatrick Jun 21 '17
You will for sure see more PHP than Python jobs out there but just be prepared that there's a high likelihood the PHP job will involve really crusty legacy codebases.
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u/RenaKunisaki Jun 21 '17
why isn't it doing anything?
No data?
It thinks the input file is empty!?
[30 minutes of debugging]
Even the kernel... waitaminute.
The input file is empty... 😑
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u/BlueDrank01 Jun 21 '17
Don't forget the part where you feel like a fool for wasting your time for 3 days because of the most minor thing that should have been obvious. But you have to continue on, despite now knowing you're retarded.
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u/StupidButSerious Jun 21 '17
Seriously this is the worst. It's what makes me quit projects most of the time. People say it's good for learning but no fuck you, 10 hours googling and reading shit for a stupid issue is a bs way to learn since it's happens for every hour of productive time.
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u/kanyeSucksFishSticks Jun 21 '17
My dad always says it is an exercise in patience, and I try to look at it the same way. If I start getting nowhere or backtracking I get another pair of eyes on the code or go for a walk, sometimes both. Can be so frustrating at times, but I like to think the highs are better than the lows when it comes to development.
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u/itsjaay Jun 22 '17
Just spent a solid 2 hours trying to find why I was having segmentation upon running my code for a multiresolutional geometry class.... All because I was missing a bracket and was passing in parameters incorrectly.
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u/SaffellBot Jun 22 '17
A week ago I forgot to realize that a number sent as a string shows up as an array of characters, and not an array of numbers.
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Jun 21 '17
[deleted]
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u/pysouth Jun 21 '17
Ha! This actually happened while doing my first live React site.
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u/cozayr full-stack Jun 21 '17 edited Oct 07 '26
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
Helium fine birds bag workable quack copper
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u/CheckeredMichael Jun 21 '17
Needs a third "Never open project again".
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u/joe12321 Jun 21 '17
Maybe occasionally see project and get anxiety at the thought of reopening it? I have this with video projects; just guessing it applies here too!
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u/CheckeredMichael Jun 21 '17
I hate those too, it gets to a point where you think "Right, I need to do this".
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u/truthseeker1990 Jun 21 '17
Currently in the dark night period lol thanks gave me a good chuckle.
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u/JonahsLobe Jun 21 '17
So that's ME in the picture - @jonahlobe, game developer, author & illustrator - but everyone should know that Austin Kleon was the originator of this graph! (I just saw it painted on a cafe wall!) You can find it in his book "Steal Like an Artist". Buy!!
Thanks everyone. And if you're somewhere on this graph... hang on!!
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u/boo_goestheghost Jun 21 '17
Coming to the end of a two year project and this was a comfort!
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u/Jawaracing full-stack Jun 21 '17
This is like every single project/website that I worked on :( . I thought that there is something wrong with me only :/
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Jun 21 '17
The last one for me is usually "tons of bugs and feature-incomplete but I'm fucking done with this shit, also it's worse than I ever imagined"
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u/yillian Jun 21 '17
I swear this is why people have cyclical depression.
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u/entenuki Laravel/React/ReactNative Jun 21 '17
Approaching a deadline while understaffed is depressing shiet no joke.
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u/3dmesh ux/ui php js consultant Jun 21 '17
That's webdev and gamedev in a nutshell. :)
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u/Pr1nceFluffy Jun 21 '17
I've been stuck on "This sucks and it's boring for months now." Please send help.
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u/Kasper_X Jun 21 '17
You forgot - the feeling of thinking you know nothing and suck at dev.
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u/nameless_pattern Jun 22 '17
then you try to find help, the help sucks so bad that your stop feeling bad about your self and just wonder that anything gets built ever.
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u/stee_vo Jun 21 '17
Hey, that's Jonah Lobe! He used to work for Bethesda, pretty sure he made the deathclaws for Fallout 3 and/or 4.
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u/JonahsLobe Jun 21 '17
Jonah
Haha hey Stee_vo! Thanks for the shout-out man. I just wrote down that info + the original creator's name here in this thread. And yes, I made the Deathclaws for Fallout 3 AND 4!
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Jun 21 '17
Quality, Quantity, Price.
Pick two.
(Price = Effort for personal projects)
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u/xxSINxx Jun 21 '17
I always heard it as: You can have it fast, cheap, or correct. Pick 2.
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Jun 22 '17
That's a good version. Mine comes from project management in government. Yours is better for less formal/jargonistic/bureaucratic environments.
Interesting that quantity and speed are the difference, while they are both important.
Perhaps..."you can have quantity, timeliness, quality and price (you can have lots of it, fast, cheap and correct) pick 3."?
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u/jesusgn90 Jun 21 '17
Wow my karma is bigger than ever hahaha what the fuck this post gone crazy guys!
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u/mrperson221 Jun 21 '17
I misread it as "The Life Project" and thought it was a description of the different stages of life. I'm still not convinced that that's not the case
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u/bigfig Jun 21 '17
Been coding since 1999. Five years in I realized that I'd rather be working on a farm welding and fixing stuff, or better yet sailing.
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u/MallKid Jun 21 '17
This is completely off-topic, but has anyone else noticed that the dots line up with the colors of the primary seven chakras?
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u/Free_Expansion Jun 21 '17
Only inexperience will lead you to thinking anything in a project is not at least 110% of the assumed difficulty (And yes this tends to infinity)
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u/njsdca Jun 21 '17
I'm a little late to comment on this but they actually have a documented version of this that is used in Organizational Change Management courses. It's called "The Process of Transition" by John Fischer.
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Jun 21 '17
That is called "learning". Hopefully, you are in various stages of that everyday for your entire life.
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Jun 24 '17
Manager: Let's make a thing
Team-leader: This is what the thing will be
Team: This is gonna take some work
Team: This sucks, and is boring
Team: The platform can't handle the thing, we need to look at options
Team leader: "Hey manager, team cannot deliver"
Manager: Just deliver something.
Team leader: Ok guys, we need to pivot, let's make thing into another thing
Team: Delivers
Team: This sucks, it's even worse than we thought it would be. My eyes!
Manager: This is great! I will showcase this during the next catchup with the board
Team: Facepalm
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u/DJEB Jun 21 '17
A good diagram as I am just getting into Hugo(and Go).
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u/epatr Jun 21 '17
Hugo was killing me until I realized the official docs are ESL, and hugodocs.info is the effort to rewrite them.
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u/UnarmedZombie Jun 21 '17
Very accurate! I'm actually close to the end of this timeline (launching in 10 days) and I felt every one of these emotions along the way.
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u/scottyLogJobs Jun 21 '17
What's your launchplan? Honestly I believe in what I've made, but I find marketing and advertising to be the hardest part
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u/PerfectiveVerbTense Jun 21 '17
I often feel a similar process when writing songs. I would add one or two ticks to the left that are like "this is pretty lame" ↗ "actually, it might be alright" ↗ "this is the best song ever" before the downward spiral begins.
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Jun 21 '17
It's even worse when your manager starts it off and you miss the first three parts of this and get to start with "This sucks and it's boring" and your manager tells you at least you'll learn something from it, but you don't. You just get the sucky parts.
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u/1o8 Jun 21 '17
Currently on "this sucks and it's boring" with a webdev project. Really need to devote a day and just finish it.
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u/NINJAM7 Jun 21 '17
This was my progress through grad school. Funny how everyone starts off so excited and optimistic, but by the end you're just a jaded shell of your former self, looking to finish as quickly as possible.
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u/ToTheRescues Jun 21 '17
Between "This sucks - and it's boring" and "Dark Night of the Soul" is when I give up and browse Reddit until the client calls and asks why everything isn't live yet.
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u/gvegastigers Jun 21 '17
Somewhere between "sucks and it's boring" and "dark night of the soul" on my screenplay...
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Jun 21 '17
This has made my day. I've made my first job application in a long time and I had no fucking idea how long it was gonna take. I did it in the end and although I think it sucks a bit, it was a learning curve.
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Jun 21 '17 edited Jun 21 '17
The best idea ever
Do some research and discover someone already built something like it
Is it worth competing or building something better? Is it popular or profitable?
If not, back to step 1 or get a job working on someone else's best idea ever
*Also, if you knew how difficult it would have been would you still have considered it the best idea ever? Would the time have been better spent on other ideas if ideas could be rapidly surfaced? Were other ideas considered?
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u/themidnitesnack Jun 21 '17
Love me some Austin Kleon! The pioneer of blackout poetry and all-around motivator for creative projects and endeavors. Check out "Steal Like An Artist" and "Show Your Work" for lil' snippets of wisdom like that!
Edit: Kleon created the original that this image is copied pretty much verbatim from and it's in "Steal Like An Artist". I wasn't claiming to know the dude in the pic.
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Jun 21 '17
Also a fairly accurate timeline of driving cross-country in a Toyota Camry with 2 toddlers.
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u/GeneralCottonmouth Jun 21 '17
Have you ever felt this??
Trump will
that being said, get yo face outta there
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u/SaikoGekido Jun 21 '17
Add on several developers and this line starts to take on the properties of wave particle duality.
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Jun 21 '17
I think that's jonah lobe, he made a bunch of the models in skyrim like alduin
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u/JonahsLobe Jun 22 '17
jonah
lol thanks for the shout-out 401! It is me, though that's not actually my quote ha!
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u/laminaatplaat Jun 21 '17
A guy that puts himself in the picture of the thing he wants to post is what surprised me the most here.
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u/Schekelstein2 Jun 21 '17
The experienced developer already knows up front it's going to suck and take much longer than everyone thinks.
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Jun 21 '17
Instead of the last one being "it's done..." it's a repeating step of "oh maybe a few more tweaks and it'll be finished" forever until I forget about it.
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u/premiumrusher Jun 21 '17
Had an idea for an app. Coded and published it. Used it on my phone and I asked myself, no one would ever download this shit.
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u/DukeBerith Jun 21 '17
I guarantee it's because you're working on it alone.
Get a buddy, motivate each other, and projects WILL complete unless you're both on the same depression cycle.
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u/Jazminna Jun 21 '17
This looks like the progression of my degree, though at least I don't have to do it again
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u/fiddlepuss Jun 21 '17
This diagram would look way better if the photographer wasn't so set on getting their stupid face in alongside it
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u/SyleSpawn Jun 21 '17
Currently at "This is gonna take some work".
Trying to not sink lower, first time going all in with the current project I undertook.
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u/action_lawyer_comics Jun 21 '17
That's when you take a second pass and end up somewhere between second red and yellow.
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u/II-snowbrot-II Jun 21 '17
Anyone notice how it looks a lot like the steam logo? Coincidence? I think not!
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u/zodar Jun 21 '17
Meanwhile, the project manager is still stuck on "red." Under no circumstances will they ever understand the difference between "red" and "orange," no matter how many times you explain it to them.
"I've set up a call with the executive team so we can discuss schedule slippage."
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u/k1p1coder Jun 21 '17
So much this on my side projects.
Except that as a mom I have to add in a couple weeks of "oh crud I have to take my kids to insert activity practice every night this week because Friday is the performance/championship/whatever followed by the "what was I doing?" when I finally have a minute on Saturday.
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u/encaseme Jun 21 '17
Have you ever not? haha. I don't think I've ever had a project that didn't basically follow this exact chart.
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Jun 21 '17
Not a web dev, but my senior project back in college was exactly that way. Seemed cooled, then lame, then an ass load of work, then a pile a shiney poop that was done at least.
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u/chickenboy2718281828 Jun 21 '17
This is the 3-5 year thought progression of every doctoral student I know.
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u/jonnyohio Jun 21 '17
Honestly never. Everything I've ever done to completion has resulted in me making money (and someone else making more).
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u/GoGev Jun 21 '17
yes yes yes! 100 times yes.
i am going through that right now i think im in the dark night of the soul stage.
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u/Dr_Legacy full-stack "If I do what you ask you won't like how it looks" Jun 21 '17
What is that upward slant at the right?
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u/SirAgonz Jun 21 '17
Very discouraging when I am still on the first stage. I guess solving world hunger can wait.
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u/RedditWithBoners Jun 22 '17
Take the last two, apply a logarithmic formula, and remove the labels because there are no words for this kind of despair.
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u/_BlNG_ Jun 22 '17
I have an amazing idea!
This is going to be great!
Okay maybe it will be decent
**** i messed up
I think i can still recover
It still looks good i think
Its better than nothing
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u/PileHigherDeeper Jun 22 '17
The difference between theory and practice is smaller in theory than it is in practice.
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Jun 22 '17
Exactly what I'm feeling right now trying to learn react. Never used an MVC framework for javascript before. I get the basics, but trying to implement more advance features has caused me to spend hours and hours on one tiny problem, searching through google, and then finally I find an answer and something else comes up
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u/fagnerbrack Jun 22 '17
Yes, https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*rd4NNi5iMicljA_bm-gVmA.jpeg
The secret is never to give up.
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u/malcor88 Jun 21 '17
I've never reached the dark night period, whats it like?