Prototyping

1. “This will be amazing”
[disappointment, 1w break]

2. “This time I’ll get it right”
[disappointment, 2w break]

3. “I feel really good about this”
[more disappointment, 5mo break]

Today: “I hope a few parts from this will be useful in future attempts”

I realized talking to my therapist today that I have a pattern where I get energized by a vision that’s probably achievable — but distant and hazy — and then get disappointed with myself if I can’t bruteforce my way through it in a few short bursts of effort.

When I was in high school, I signed up for a sort of a programming competition. It was completely freeform and you could hand in any kind of project, with a deadline of three months. I signed up to fully reimplement “.NET Terrarium” ( https://github.com/terrariumapp/terrarium) on my own.

But I had no idea how to do it! I started tinkering with logic for the insects, but I didn’t know anything about network or graphics. I was way out of my depth and didn’t think to ask for help. I also thought looking at the actual Terrarium source would be cheating.

I started avoiding this teacher and only felt relief a few months later I lied to him that I was just too busy with the finals and that was why I wanted to drop the project. In retrospect it was rather naïve to take on a project of such scope *and* not reach out for help.

But more than anything, I remember that massive feeling of shame I was carrying until I officially dropped it, like I was letting everyone down. Even though nobody cared whether I did this or not, and I could always change the scope and break it up into more achievable projects.

I should know better today — that if I take on a large scope, I might not have a direct path there, and might need to break it down. That prototypes are usually not one-shot. That there are other people working on similar problems who I could talk to. That it takes many attempts.

That each prototype is a probe sent into the problem space. It comes back with a result. But you only really have a predictable path to a solution *after* you’ve explored enough of the problem space. Not before.

The goal is still there. It’s okay to keep exploring.

Anyway, the best things often happen when you lower your expectations and allow yourself to have some fun

I don’t know if I need to say this, but I should probably clarify that this thread is unrelated to my job. It’s about a hobby project.

I have to give a shoutout to React though cause I have no idea how I would be doing this without it.