Anatomy of a Weekend Project

Tips and tricks for successful Weekend Projects from a serial weekend hacker

Transcript

1. Weekend Project Matt Swanson @_swanson // swanson.github.com Anatomy @AskedRelic of a
2. It’s Friday night, what am I doing? Hacking.
3. Hacking on... ‣ Script to email me when a movie is on Netflix Instant ‣ Fantasy sports for Twitter app ‣ WYSIWYG editor for Jekyll blog
4. Taxonomy
5. Scratch an Itch ‣ Why doesn’t this exist? ‣ I’m lazy, let’s go scripting! e.g. indyhackers-api
6. github.com/swanson/indyhackers-api indyhackersapi.herokuapp.com/events
7. Try Out New Tech ‣ Throw-away prototype ‣ Exploratory dev e.g. Android TDD
8. github.com/sep/planning-poker-android
9. Make Something Fun ‣ Sometimes we just need to build something really pointless e.g. abe.heroku.com
10. github.com/swanson/abe abe.heroku.com
11. Tips & Tricks
12. Manage Scope ‣ Weekend => 48 hours ‣ Realistic => 4-8 hours ‣ Expectations? ‣ One-off or side-project ‣ Go for Easy Wins
13. Fail and Throw It Out ‣ Pickup tips/shortcuts ‣ Fear of failing => never start ‣ My GitHub is a graveyard of failed projects (and I’m okay with that)
14. Get stoked! You built something cool. It’s not pretty or polished. But you’ve actually CREATED SOMETHING (and that’s more than most people can say)
15. So what now?
16. “Neo, sooner or later you’re going to realize just as I did that there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” — Morpheus, The Matrix
17. Carve out a weekend on your calendar to: Scratch an Itch Try Out New Tech Make Something Fun Questions? Comments? Let’s talk more? Hit me up: @_swanson