Oh, the delight of having so many programming side projects!
When I got out of the programming-as-a-job game -- and became a full time "whatever the heck I do now" -- I told myself that I would now have time to finish all of those fun little side projects that I'd been wanting to program for so many years.
And, to a certain extent, that happened. Sorta. Almost.
While I definitely got some good programming time in, over the last few years, I kept getting distracted by different projects. So I only finished a couple projects. The perennial problem of the software developer, am I right? As soon as you get heads-down on a projects... OH LOOK OVER THERE A SHINY NEW IDEA... and off you go on that new project.
Over the last year or so -- give or take -- the number of projects that distract me has rapidly dwindled. Down to just two projects that I now tend to hop between in my spare time
Not sure if that narrowed field of projects that excite me is because of age... or maybe just a focusing of my interests. But, regardless, it's nice to be able to not be distracted by TOO many programming projects at this point.
Like earlier this week: I did a podcast episode where I fantasized about a theoretical Linux distribution. It was fun to dream about... but it wasn't really a project that grabbed me and pulled me away from the two core projects that seem to hold my attention nowadays. In my younger years... such a dream of a Linux distro would totally have distracted me from just about any other programming project.
But not at this point.
Nowadays I have two projects that get at least 90% of my "hobby programming" time:
- My Lunduke OS project (which is basically just a whole smattering of TUI tools built on top of FreeDOS).
- And a (very) small little office suite. (I spent so many years working on MS Office that I ended up with some STRONG opinions about how such apps should be designed.)
Both are long term projects. Shoot. Think I started the office suite... 5 years ago? Maybe more? And Lunduke OS is a few years old now too.
I'm trying to convince myself to ignore one of the projects so I can focus on just one. Hopefully, if I can keep from getting distracted, I can get to a "release-worthy" point for one of them.
Sometimes I think I'll focus on the office suite. Then Lunduke OS distracts me.
Then the opposite happens. š¤£
Neither are being built to be a big commercial success. Both are just passion projects. Just for fun. Nothing big and professional. š Which makes it 10x harder to focus on just one.
I know so many of you have similar projects you bounce between. I just felt like rambling about mine a bit this evening. When I probably should be working on finishing writing the things that are my actual "job". š¤£
