marko-djuric

When browsing GitHub issues and discussions of large libraries and frameworks, it’s often easy to spot topics that attract a lot of attention and go on for months or even years. These are usually complex bugs, missing features, or controversial design decisions and limitations that frustrate a large number of users. Also, there are the obvious problems that every user encounters right after they start using the library.

It’s clear that among such topics there’s some potential, if you can offer a solid solution to one of those shortcomings in any form, the market has already been "researched" to some extent. That solution can take many forms: a patch, a fork, or an entirely new library or project. It’s also great material for quality blog posts and YouTube tutorials.

This is just one example of thinking in that direction, but there are certainly many more. When someone decides to invest time and energy into side projects, they definitely shouldn’t do it blindly, without any indication of potential demand for the solution they’re building, the market needs to be tested.

So how can this be researched systematically and empirically, in order to have a fairly reliable idea of how popular the finished project might become? Is there some kind of routine checklist for that?

Have you had the opportunity to carefully analyze code from such projects, whether open-source or within companies? What have you seen "in the wild"?

How would you rate the quality of that code: high, low, or average? How would you compare those projects to conventional, "hand-made by humans" ones? What makes them stand out or gives them away?

What’s your overall conclusion, does this represent a significant improvement and acceleration, or is it more of a "meh"? Because even these tools, once you start configuring them and trying to make them work properly, tend to take up a lot of time, energy, and learning.

If your motivation is to build something functional but also to learn something new - to get the most out of the whole endeavor - you probably don’t want to be doing the same thing for decades, but rather to keep learning and experimenting with new ideas and technologies.

What does your process of digging through the internet, searching for and analyzing similar existing projects and solutions, gathering information, considering alternatives, and making reasonable trade-offs look like?

This process begins long before a single line of code is written, continues throughout the development phase, and doesn’t stop even after you have a working version. Skipping serious analysis of existing solutions regularly leads to reinventing the wheel.

This is actually the hardest and most important part of the work — bringing order to chaos, separating the signal from the noise, to ultimately produce something concrete and useful. When the research phase is done well, implementation becomes a quick and straightforward task.

What are your go-to research and planning routines and strategies for success, and also what are the common mistakes and pitfalls in this process that you or others often repeat?

I experimented a lot with this, it can be pretty challenging especially in artificial light conditions which is often necessary because of time zones. Both laptop builtin camera and Logitech C920 are awful in artificial light conditions.

Also moderately expensive equipment, bellow $150 usd, so no $1k usd mirrorless cameras.

Also I only use Linux, because sometimes I have to demo and run code I work with.

Here is my list so far:

Camera: Iphone 8 with DroidCam OBS for additional $15 usd, superior video compared to C920. Android phones produce lot more blur and color inaccuracy, maybe some cheap older Pixel is better.

Microphone:

1. Apple EarPods USB-C $20 usd headset, excellent microphone and A/D convertor.

2. FIFINE Lavalier Microphone With USB, excellent microphone for $15 usd.

What budget equipment do you use and recommend?

If you compare threads within a year you can notice lot of developers re-posting their offers from month to month, some of them have pretty strong profiles and still it happens. I don't believe that all of them are that much picky, and especially incapable for work or to pass a reasonable interview.

Similar for companies, some of them have pretty small teams and very common tech stack but still can't fill position for months or even a year, makes me want to ask myself "How is their project even progressing in meantime... do they even have a real project and urge for developer or its completely optional".

I know it's market crisis atm but still it doesn't explain it completely, do you have a proper explanation?

Whether related to your name or online pseudonym, you have been working for years to make it known and recognizable, either by creating content, writing a blog, a YouTube channel, creating notable projects, speaking at conferences, etc. any constant public work behind a recognizable name.

Do you think this is good and important or not? Will this eventually lead to people coming to you to offer you jobs and better jobs than you would otherwise have access to as an anonymous person?

Does anyone of you have practical experience of coding something and selling it once or many times? Software can be anything and everything, from custom or CMS websites, browser extensions, plugins for existing software, specialized software for specific niches, embedded, cloud... practically anything.

To describe any of the aspects of the process, what is made to be sold once, what can be sold many times, what can be sold by subscription, which licenses are suitable, etc. Something that one or two programmers can build, we are not talking about large undertakings for which companies and teams are necessary.

It's nice to build, sell and earn something yourself, rather than working for someone else and selling your time. Lot more freedom and space for growth, and risk too.

Do you think that investing time in personal side projects is a good way to advance your career faster, or could that time and energy be spent in a better way? Did you have a project that significantly pushed your career forward and in what ways did it contribute to you? You can describe what the project was about, how much time it took, and a link if it is public.

If one were to invest 3-6 months into improving a CV and applying new knowledge and experience into a demonstrable form which perspectives can be used to determine which path to take to maximize the outcome? For a full stack web developer.

A few examples:

- search ads for the ideal job and study their requirements closely and try to cover them all as much as possible

- build a small Saas, think of original idea, and try to get a few real world customers, so you can say "I build real things"

- add one algorithms, system design feature, they are very favorable in interview process of big tech companies, like in this example:

https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/an-educational-side-project/

- try to make something reusable for other developers, library, starter project...

- build something visually impressive, rich UI and CSS, 3D graphics (WebGL)

- try to go wide and cover all parts of the stack

I know there is no universal answer but you can start from yourself, what thinking is closest to you if you were to build it, or what would you like to see and what would impress you?