It's OK to abandon your side-project
This introspective piece argues that abandoning side-projects isn't a failure, but often a profound success in personal learning and skill development. The author recounts building a language learning app only to realize the real benefit was in the process of creation itself, not the finished product. It's popular on HN because it offers a comforting counter-narrative to developer hustle culture, validating the effort in projects that never ship.
The Lowdown
Robb Owen challenges the prevailing 'always be shipping' mantra in developer culture, positing that abandoning side-projects can be a successful and valuable experience. He argues against viewing unfinished projects as failures, highlighting the often-overlooked benefits of the development process itself.
- The author notes the common pressure on developers to ship side-projects and the anxiety this causes for beginners.
- He recounts building a Svelte quiz app to learn complex Latvian grammatical cases (7 cases, 2 genders, 84 potential endings).
- His chosen tech stack was simple: Svelte for UI, serverless functions for the backend, and Regex for answer validation.
- Upon deploying the app, he had an epiphany: the act of building the logic to test noun endings had already taught him the rules, rendering the app itself unnecessary for his learning.
- This led to a realization that a side-project's success isn't solely defined by a shippable product, but by the skills learned and experience gained during its creation.
- He now views abandoned projects as valuable 'scratch pads' for experimentation, where past 'failures' reveal lessons in Go APIs or GIS data handling.
Owen concludes by advising developers, particularly beginners, to pursue side-projects for personal learning and exploration rather than solely for external validation or commercial success. He emphasizes that if a project becomes a source of stress, it's perfectly acceptable to abandon it, as it likely has already provided significant intrinsic value.