[Exuma]

The multi-year project that never sees usage is... almost a bit of a badge of honor. I feel and know the deep pain. It's definitely not a WISE badge of honor, but I feel it's an almost much-needed lesson for the type of developer, like myself, who just becomes hyper focused and consumed... in a good way.

When I speak about some of my past experiences, and the pain they bring, I feel like people's eyes glaze over.

I dont think until you've spent upwards of a year on something at 10+ hours a day.... you could ever really relate.... thousands of hours, almost HALF the time they say it takes to master something, and then nothing comes of it...

I can just say I look back on those times of my life with appreciation but also, damn does it hurt. The pain never really fades too much either. Despite all my successful projects, all my fingers in many pies, all my current success... I can't get back those multi-year projects. They were certainly required for learning, but I just feel sad and melancholy when I think back.

[bonney_io]

I did this back in 2016, with an iOS app I built/hacked away at while learning/self-teaching Swift and UIKit.

Easily over 1,000 hours (~2 hours ~5x day per week for ~2 years) invested in to the app. I learned so, so much, and fell in love with the Swift language, but that app never saw the light of day.

Instead, I developed skills that have made me a much better programmer. And, fast-forward to the current day, I could effectively re-write the entire app - from scratch - in a weekend, due to the evolution of Apple's platform dev tools and APIs over the last ~7 years + the mountains of Swift code and packages I've hacked and honed away at over the years.

This type of project should be celebrated. Programming is (can be) art. Art can be made just for you, as a creative outlet.

[felipefar]

The more commitments you have in life, the more pressure there is to align your learning projects with money earning activities.

You can't justify to your family, kids and other "stakeholders" that you spent thousands of hours developing apps just for learning new subjects. In the least, you need some kind of successful activity to grow out of it.

Besides, some parts of a software development project do involve learning, but a huge portion is drudgery. Solving edge cases, doing customer support for repetitive issues, solving that last pixel that is not quite right.

Making apps is great, and it's a sign of maturity to have a concern for how well received it will be.

[mcny]

> You can't justify to your family, kids and other "stakeholders" that you spent thousands of hours developing apps just for learning new subjects. In the least, you need some kind of successful activity to grow out of it.

Congratulations, you have explained why we have declining fertility rates. Maybe it is a good thing. Who knows. All I know is I can't afford to have children. Having children who want to go to college / medical school should be a cause for celebration, not a scary thought for parents for one. I will tell anyone and everyone who will listen, don't have kids. It is not worth it. There is no law that requires people to have children. Let the idiots who don't understand this do all the child bearing and child rearing. After all, they lash out at the simplest idea that it takes a village to raise a child.

> solving that last pixel that is not quite right.

The great thing about a personal project like this is you can spend as much or as little time as you want to. This is the ultimate agile team where you are wearing all hats -- a true cross functional team which I believe the word agile prescribes.

> Making apps is great, and it's a sign of maturity to have a concern for how well received it will be.

As someone who puts the "pro" in procastination, I know a sure sign of procastination when I see one. This is not a sign of maturity at all. This is just laziness.

[automatic6131]

>I will tell anyone and everyone who will listen, don't have kids. It is not worth it. There is no law that requires people to have children. Let the idiots who don't understand this do all the child bearing and child rearing

You know you need those kids so you can retire, right? Idk, maybe you want to tap out code forever, but you're going to need farmers and cooks and doctors and plumbers and people to make your iPhone. I guess, everyone else can raise those people though right? Fuck them, they can pay and you can enjoy their children's labour, right?

[klausa]

If you think "we will need more laborers in the future" is a good reason for someone to have kids, please don't have any.

[velcrovan]

You’re right it’s not a good reason for an individual to have kids. but it is a good reason why even childless people should be motivated to be part of a society that invests in people who do raise children.

[mcny]

You left out the last sentence in the paragraph. I don't have children of my own. I get that we are all supposed to be "rugged individualism" in this country but that is just a myth just like the "self-made man".

I think we need fewer people to have children so that we actually begin to value our children not just my children, but also my neighbor's children. Your children are your ward, not your property.

> Fuck them, they can pay and you can enjoy their children's labour, right?

Ah, labour. OK sorry, I guess you are from England or something? I am saying the opposite. We have religious nutjobs in the United States who think that if you cut off all government safety nets and people have nowhere to go to but to the church they will be doing "God's work". They have joined forces with grifters and capitalists who want to remove all government entitlements. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to have a baby.

You already have NHS. I understand it is not perfect but we are still fighting for medicare for all here and realistically, I will never see it in my lifetime.

I understand my conviction is controversial. Given that the social safety net is crumbling in my country, I cannot in good conscience have children or recommend anyone to have children. Precisely because a lot of (loud) people think "Fuck them, they can pay" for their own children.

[imetatroll]

Declining populations == a crumbling society.

I guess it is up to you whether or not you want to have the joy of a child in your life.

[jll29]

Great project, sorry about the unavailability of cheap price data for the consumer segment.

Professional data is expensive, and one-person companies are not on the radar of data vendors and exchanges, who try to make big contracts e.g. with national banks abd brokerages, who then make that data available to their customers via Web portals. The quality of financial data isn't very good even if you pay a lot.

If your project had been a startup, you would have had to check whether your assumptions apply ahead of building out your front-end and incorporating, ideally: "Can you build it for an acceptable price?" (factoring in the data licensing cost) & "Will they buy it for the price (+ your margin) that you can build it?"

[bonney_io]

Hi -- just want to clarify -- I am NOT the OP, not trying to claim this as my project, simply relating a similar example from my personal life.

[Barrin92]

At the end of the day regret for stuff like this only makes sense if you could have known at the time that it wouldn't pan out and you did it against your better judgement. If you made the best decision with the information you had that's all you can do, everything else is up to the gods.

This sort of outcome based thinking where you fret over past projects in hindsight with knowledge you didn't have when you had to make a choice just isn't worth bothering with. Most projects fail, most businesses do, that's just how it goes. I remember reading a blog from an ex finance guy where he pointed out that nobody was ever fired for accidentally making money from a bad trade. In our results based culture it's pretty easy to forget that we really only control the process.

[Exuma]

I have no regret, only a slight loss at the sense of self. All of that energy does not come for "free." You must pay the piper so to speak. You only have a few surges like that in your lifetime, so far I'm on like #7 or something and I feel I don't have it in me to do too many more, at least at that intensity. Kind of like a cat that gets 9 lives. In my 20s I was a bit foolish on what I chose to invest those 9 lives in. Luckily, as I've gotten older I'm much smarter and I have chosen wisely.

[GordonS]

I spent ten years on a software project, and 6 months after finishing it still hasn't made a single penny :(

10 years.

I learned valuable lessons (like knowing when to stop!), but they were long, loooong lessons.

I still haven't really let myself think about it too much...

[jmkni]

There's nothing worse than spending years on a project, then when you try and show somebody, they instantly have wave it away and dismiss it as 'crap' or suggest you do X instead.

[RagnarD]

It's a grave mistake to take any single individual's assessment too seriously.

[rjh29]

I guess that's because you were specifically aiming for success (app usage / income) rather than for the primary reasons of enjoyment or learning?

Would you recommend that people don't take up a year+ long project unless they are sure they won't regret it even if nobody uses it?

[webprofusion]

I would say if you are building something with the aim to make it a business, make it a business already.

If you're building "for fun" go ahead, with the 100% conviction that you don't need/want it to make money.

[Exuma]

Your statement contains a lot of nuance that would have to be unpacked which at this moment I don't have time for, but I would say...

For starters, nothing I ever do is JUST for "enjoyment" or "learning", explicitly, by itself, as some kind of standalone pursuit.

Everything I do has to have some kind of meaning behind it, even if the meaning is small, such as "I wonder if I'm smart enough to do ___?"

So to answer your question, the projects I did were not for the primary reason of enjoyment and learning, but not because I was focused on some monetary end goal, and moreso because that's not how I approach anything in life.

In this particular example, I was working with my business partner, the end goal was monetary, but also was a sort of "magnum opus" style project that was insanely difficult (algorithm wise) as well as an extreme creative pursuit (of which I'm very creative). So my creative energy was what powered me, and my endless pursuit of problem solving puzzles and challenges also motivated me.

I loved every second of it, at the expense of my health, relationships, etc.

The gist of my message I think is for me, there is no other way. I have to have the perfect harmony of meaning + creativity + problem solving + a single person I "vibe" with very very well. If those ingredients are right, I can achieve focus and motivation levels that are just absurd. I mean literally from 5am to 9pm i coded without moving out of bed, including weekends. I gave up all fun, entertainment.

I notice other people are drawn to the pursuit of knowledge simply for the sake of learning, or knowledge acquisition. That's not me though, and if the only purpose is to just pursue information I could have never done that simply due to the massive amount of energy required (and I have done year long projects... maybe 6-7 times now. Luckily some of the other ones were really successful)

I would absolutely encourage anyone take up a year long project if they're able, simply because I don't think many people possess the certain configuration in their mind of how to motivate themselves to have that much energy. It almost doesn't feel like a choice (to me). I dont wake up and go "well I guess I should spend a year on this." It is a hyperfocusing deep powerful energy, like a calling or life purpose, where the only thing that makes sense is to do it. AND....... if a person has this, they should absolutely never ignore it.

So yes, I would say any person who has even a hint of a calling, absolutely do it, and not focus on outcome.

[PyWoody]

Expert Wasted Entire Life Studying Anteaters (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qXD9HnrNrvk)

[fatihpense]

I can relate to your feelings.

Let me tell you my trauma then, with the hopes that it will give you some comfort/consolation...

It is one thing if users don't use your application/project. But, when it is more out of your control, it hits harder.

I was young, I spent all my nights and even my whole summer holiday thinking/coding. I dreamed about the success or career it will bring with my friend.

Then it was a success and we were generating some ad revenue, which was great & much needed for two university students. The money was absorbed by our lives like water dripping onto dry soil. The morale was high, there was an air of optimism for the future!

It was an android app, and one day, I woke up with my friend's call. He was literally crying because the google algorithm deleted and banned our account, without any explanation or recourse. You are right that it never goes away, I can still feel the pain.

After that, I remember walking up and down a popular and long street with my friend, without speaking much and trying to process "end of the adventure" feeling. Not related to google we had other human/life problems in our lives and the simple hope we thought we built for ourselves was also gone. I was heartbroken and lost all my enthusiasm for mobile development.

I still wonder what would happen if I could continue down that path, with initial little success, enough money to survive as a student, and an opportunity to build upon that... It is just a parallel universe now. Google could delete our app, but guide us to the right path. If I could know the rules, I could continue and be a good citizen in google's walled garden. While spammers can always found a way, and find motivation with their low-effort tries... google lost a developer with good intentions. I don't think it had any effect on the algorithm or overall corporate strategy.

On the bright side, this event thought me to never trust a business partnership where I can not shake hands with a human that I trust and who geniunely wants my success/not treat me as some replaceable number. (Also insert some rant about why AI overlords can be harmful and why human history created law-based order with human judgement...)

I think it happened over 10 years ago, I can't even pay money to use a Google service now :) I don't change my email, just so that it reminds me this lesson. But if I was a scammer/spammer I would find many solutions to circumvent google AI. I tried contacting via forms when I couldn't pay for a service and when I felt like doing so. Surprisingly, in some cases I could even reach some people via these official channels. Alas, they are powerless, they had to give template answers. I assume the last word is spoken by the Algorithm, and I'm banned for life :)

Overall, It is the first time I wrote about this online. I hope it helps a little. I should also say that I have no hard feelings for people working at google, they brought us great value over the years. But the brand of the company will always remind me those days, and I will always upvote when someone criticize google :) (What power do I have as a little, disposable developer? ;) ) And, no you can't escape by changing your name to Alphabet or Alphabet soup...

[namanyayg]

What did your app do? What was the reason it got banned?

[boppo1]

I think he’s saying that Google did not tell them. Banned with no reason or recourse.