I’ll try to find a video I saw on the matter that is interesting about our projects.
Most of us learn engineering through school and through work, where the is a product owner and a project manager that gives us work in chunks and manage the project week to week.
When you do personal projects that you can’t finish in a day, you have to be product owner, project manager and engineer at the same time. And it is hard, especially if we hope to produce the same quality of work.
So either it takes a lot more time to get there, or you need to “downgrade” the quality of the work to finish the project in a timely manner.
And in the end, projects in your free time should bring you joy, not dread.
I hope it helps you, or someone reading this, cope with a pile of unfinished projects, that will never be finished. And that’s fine.
Thankfully as a software engineer, Claude Code is helping me catch up on a lot of my unfinished projects, especially ones with tedious amounts of integration.
I don’t understand the sentiment here. Is it wrong to use a code automation tool to build out side projects that I’ve been sitting on for years? All the unfinished plans and half baked projects that provide no value?
Whereas now I can flesh out my ideas and build what I truly envision at a rapid pace without making it another full time job?
Ditto, so many projects never made it off the ground because my brain overcomplicates everything I do. Now I can plan the project instead, plan out how I want everything, and then sit back and let Codex do its thing. I liked ClaudeCode, but man… the usage limits were killing me.
Nice though! I’ve been using AI to help learn code, from literally explain this thing to me and trace its path and sometimes just “go nuts here’s a big thing” and watch it implode and then I can try to figure out why/how its broken. It’s been fun, and I know I’m absolutely abysmal at starting projects from scratch, but if I have something to work off of/with I have a much better time.
Yeah that was literally my blocker the entire time. I’d start a project bc the idea feels good, but quickly get bogged down by implementation details and lose interest bc it’d be such a monumental lift to bring the project to completion. Been in the field and dealt with ADHD long enough to understand side projects that take months of consistent work don’t ever come to fruition.
Now my flow is to come up with concrete ideas -> flesh it out with AI -> button down details -> execute
I’m loving the idea -> execution speed particularly. And my side projects are getting the love they deserved.
As an engineer with ADHD and an affinity to design and build stuff for fun halfway… I feel seen.
Edit: i found the video
A rant on personal engineering projects by BPS.shorts
I’ll try to find a video I saw on the matter that is interesting about our projects.
Most of us learn engineering through school and through work, where the is a product owner and a project manager that gives us work in chunks and manage the project week to week.
When you do personal projects that you can’t finish in a day, you have to be product owner, project manager and engineer at the same time. And it is hard, especially if we hope to produce the same quality of work.
So either it takes a lot more time to get there, or you need to “downgrade” the quality of the work to finish the project in a timely manner.
And in the end, projects in your free time should bring you joy, not dread.
I hope it helps you, or someone reading this, cope with a pile of unfinished projects, that will never be finished. And that’s fine.
I store the projects next to my collection of hobbies that are too numerous to be able to dedicate the time which they deserve.
Ugghh, I just want to finish one project! Is that too much to ask for brain!?
Brain: “Yes, yes it is…ohhh, shiny new thing”
Yeah same. I have a box full of filament just sitting unopened by my printer.
My printer works non-stop for 2 months then is completely abandoned for 3 more months, then the cycle repeats.
Unless I really need something printed, then the periods get messed up.
I feel this, and I swear half of what I print are just mods for my printers.
Yeah and of course when someone asks for a print, the printer is down for maintenance/modding
I don’t remember posting this comment… But there it is, describing my life.
Thankfully as a software engineer, Claude Code is helping me catch up on a lot of my unfinished projects, especially ones with tedious amounts of integration.
I’m sorry for your loss
I don’t understand the sentiment here. Is it wrong to use a code automation tool to build out side projects that I’ve been sitting on for years? All the unfinished plans and half baked projects that provide no value?
Whereas now I can flesh out my ideas and build what I truly envision at a rapid pace without making it another full time job?
Ditto, so many projects never made it off the ground because my brain overcomplicates everything I do. Now I can plan the project instead, plan out how I want everything, and then sit back and let Codex do its thing. I liked ClaudeCode, but man… the usage limits were killing me.
People just hate AI on lemmy
Nice though! I’ve been using AI to help learn code, from literally explain this thing to me and trace its path and sometimes just “go nuts here’s a big thing” and watch it implode and then I can try to figure out why/how its broken. It’s been fun, and I know I’m absolutely abysmal at starting projects from scratch, but if I have something to work off of/with I have a much better time.
Yeah that was literally my blocker the entire time. I’d start a project bc the idea feels good, but quickly get bogged down by implementation details and lose interest bc it’d be such a monumental lift to bring the project to completion. Been in the field and dealt with ADHD long enough to understand side projects that take months of consistent work don’t ever come to fruition.
Now my flow is to come up with concrete ideas -> flesh it out with AI -> button down details -> execute
I’m loving the idea -> execution speed particularly. And my side projects are getting the love they deserved.