[joshuaengler]

Absolutely true. You need to finish everything you start (within reason), because starting new projects then quitting becomes akin to an addiction. Don't develop bad habits, start only projects you know you can finish and see them through to the end if you want to be successful.

[snek_case]

When I was a teenager I would hop from project to project and rarely finish anything. I wouldn't necessarily say it was an addiction so much as I didn't know any better, and I would quit whenever I encountered a sufficiently challenging technical problem, because at that point the excitement waned, and the project actually became difficult. Then it was easy to get excited by a new project, which, in my head, would be all fun and no stress, until I encountered the next major technical challenge.

In order to break out of that pattern I had to recognize that I had a problem and that this pattern existed in the first place. Nowadays, I usually stick to smaller project with a well-defined scope, avoid starting too many projects, etc.

That being said, as a hobbyist, you have no duty to finish anything. In my opinion, it's OK to reassess your priorities from time to time. If you started something, and it's really become too stressful, you're not really sure where it's going anymore, it's OK to put it on ice and move to something else for a while. It's one thing to keep pushing because you really believe you'll be creating something that adds value to the world, it's another thing to punish yourself because hey, you really have to finish this thing, otherwise you're a quitter.

If you're working on a startup, you definitely don't want to quit, particularly if other people depend on you, but if you already have a full-time coding job, you don't want to burn yourself out working on side-projects, which is unfortunately possible. So you also have to learn to respect and accept your limits IMO.

[mentos]

I’d say that’s a natural part of learning as a kid. You’re exploring and mapping the contours of your environment. I’d argue 100 half finished projects are better than 2-3 finished at a young age.

[dgan]

That's nonsense. I translate that to "don't ever try to dig into GCC/LLVM/Linux Kernel, because you won't be able to 'finish' it" There are hundreds projects out there that are worth exploring even one will never 'finish' them, whatever that means

[mariodiana]

What's the saying, "the last 20 percent takes 80 percent of the time"? That's why people don't finish. Once the fun part is over, they lose interest. The habit to develop is seeing things through that last bit of polishing.

[zcw100]

Quitting has its place and what I would avoid is absolutist thinking. You don't need to finish everything that you start. Sometimes you don't even want that as a goal like when exploring or developing prototypes. The only reason that, "only start what you're going to finish" sounds good is because people tend to imagine finishing a project the way they imagined it would be when they started. There is also the story of the person that toils away year after year on a project that probably isn't going to have the outcome they intended. Then again there are people that toil for years that seem hopeless only to make a major breakthrough. There's a lot of uncertainty in the world. No one path is certain.

[Emma_Goldman]

I think it depends upon what you mean by 'start'. It can be fruitful to experiment with many projects, developing them to the point at which you can make a reasonable judgement as to their value.

You're right that once you seriously commit to a project, you should generally follow it through. But then perhaps that's the problem: people aren't seriously committing to projects, just playing around with them endlessly in a strategic abyss.

[haswell]

If you’re not careful, this stance is a really good way to never start anything.