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Comment by cosmicgadget | Hacker News Reader

That sounds a lot like work. For me, a big benefit of personal projects is seeing how much I can accomplish when there isn't process.

And so either the output is something that only helps me or it's something that's generally useful to others and maybe needs last mile tweaks to be ready for prime time.

If I did agile poker and code commenting and stuff it would take all the fun (momentum) out of sitting down at my home desk after hours at my work desk.

I should say, your answer is completely correct - particularly for motivated people - and not incongruous with my perspective. I just wanted to spare a thought for the things that make personal projects fun. I just would only do requirements gathering over a beer.

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> That sounds a lot like work.

Correct. This is why the Product Manager role exists - to define "what problem are we solving, why, and for whom?" by engaging with the market. But if you already know what problem you want to solve (for yourself, or for fun), don't bother. But also don't expect others to pay for a solution to a problem they don't have.

> agile poker and code commenting and stuff

These are tools for team collaboration and business planning, i.e. when there is more than one person involved in a project. You don't _need_ them for solo projects (although I do think code commenting is still a good practice even for solo projects).

That sounds a lot like work

Because like all forms of success it is.

Good things that come without work are called luck.

There’s nothing wrong with not undertaking work. Indeed it is a useful way of recognizing what actually is worth doing.

I meant work like "being at a job" rather rather than work like "effort". Although I should say that some personal coding sessions feel like zero effort and produce great code.

To the difference is doing things you don’t want to do to feed your belly versus doing things you don’t want to do to feed your soul (theres also ding things you want to do for both reasons).

An analogy would be training for an amateur athletic event. Marketing a personal project and running at 5am in winter are showing up at the office in pursuit of a passion.

Not that there’s anything wrong with not wanting to do it.

I'm in the same boat exactly, I build things for myself and then hope other people will use them. I struggle to market things, it seems like so much legwork and I've too many irons in the fire. I almost wish I could just hire a marketer who would take a 50% cut.

> If I did agile poker and code commenting and stuff it would take all the fun (momentum) out of sitting down at my home desk after hours at my work desk.

I hope you're not sitting for hours at work and then continuing to sit for hours in the evening. That's not healthy. It might just be a figure of speech but if not, I'd recommend a standing desk either at work or at home.

I know someone will probably argue with me about standing desks because internet people love arguing, but there's ample evidence that sitting all day is bad for us

Haha well rest assured I was being hyperbolic. The desk job requires a decent amount of walking around and other after hours obligations mean I only have limited personal dev time.

> a marketer

Maybe get chummy with a product manager who likes it enough to do it after hours?

There are two sorts, projects and products. The former is made for learning and fun, the latter, to sell to others. Don't make the mistake of trying to combine both because oftentimes you will get to neither of their goals (or more likely, a product becomes a project when no one buys what you're making).

personal projects are fantastic and don't require making anyone happy except yourself.

if however your goal is to make other people happy (which I'd argue is no longer a personal project)...the iterative "work" described above is the fastest, straightest path.

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