Ask HN: Is This Worth Building?

[uma08]

I'm building a side project, about 10% in and I'm just wondering if it's even a useful oss project and if it'll help at all.

The idea is to streamline the process of setting up meetings related to code reviews or issue discussions directly within the GitHub interface via a chrome extension. So users can setup meetings(via zoom/calendly, etc) directly from the github's interface.

Would it help OSS contributors and developers?

[gus_massa]

One rule of thumb is: Will you use it? (Since it's a project for a team) With whom?

Dogfooding [1] is a good way to make something that is good. You can also build a project for other people, but it's more difficult to get it right.

[1] Old posts by Joel Spolsky https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/05/05/what-is-the-work-o... and by Jeff Atwood https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-difficulty-of-dogfooding/

[uma08]

this was helpful, thank you.

[brudgers]

Work is the hard part of working on ideas. Work is hard. That's what makes it work. Talking about ideas is easier.

It is ok to make things for the sake of making things. It is ok to make things that turn out to be useless just for the sake of making things.

The difference between finishing a project that turns out to be useless and quitting a project because it might be useless is that quitting guarantees uselessness. Quitting gives you certainty.

There's nothing wrong with quitting. It makes sense if you have something better to do with your time. That might be making something else. It might be walking your dog. You don't owe the world something useful. You can make art. You can make something for fun. Good luck.

[uma08]

thank you