78 lines
4.3 KiB
Org Mode
78 lines
4.3 KiB
Org Mode
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#+TITLE: Realizing You Need To Start Over
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#+DATE: <2023-07-28 Fri>
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#+DESCRIPTION: Sometimes, it's better to start fresh, than to continue forward.
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Recently, I've been trying to work up the effort to work on one of my side
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projects. This side project, SilverMUD, is something I've been wanting to make
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for ages, and think about often. Yet when I try to work on it, I find myself
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unmotivated and unproductive. Why would I not /want/ to work on the thing I /want/
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to work on?
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* Figuring Out /Why/ I Don't Want To Work On It.
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I decided to sit down and really think about why I couldn't find the motivation
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to work on it. I sat staring at the codebase, and wondering why all of the ideas
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that were bouncing in my head just didn't seem to want to become lines of C and
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Scheme. I eventually began thinking about what my original goals were when I
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started it. To put it simply, they were:
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- Learn a load of new concepts like network programming, multi-threaded
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programming, and more.
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- Use them to build a programmable multi-player role-playing game.
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Very vague, I know. I've simplified them here, but that is the essence of
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it. So how did it go? It went well, really well... for the first goal. The
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second, however, went somewhat poorly. I had a general idea of what I wanted to
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build, a setting-agnostic role-playing system that is enjoyable over a
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text-based interface, inspired by text-adventures and multi-user-dungeons of the
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early days of computer entertainment. I never took steps towards building it
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until much later in the project's design. Therein lies the crux of the issue.
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I spent my entire time focusing on the one design goal, which was to learn. I
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was excited by the new concepts, and I got right down into it. A perfectly fine
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approach for a learning project. However, I structured the program in a way that
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wasn't really easy to add a game on top of. To get straight down to the point; I
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took a wrong turn with the design. While the goal of learning the concepts was
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going excellently, I wasn't considering game design or programming at any point
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during it, with the assumption that I can do it later.
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The weird part is that assumption is true. I could continue with the current
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state of the codebase. However, it's going to require essentially restructring
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the program entirely to do it well. At that point, I may as well consider what
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I've learned since starting, and start again!
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That's what I think is best to do in this scenario. Start again. The reason I
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felt like I wasn't able to work on it was because I was trying to avoid
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"throwing away my progress". But that progress was built on a mistake, a misstep
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in terms of design. I had thought about how I would like to build the gameplay
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systems, but I had made no attempt to implement those plans during the design,
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and considering that is the whole point of the program that was a /big/ mistake.
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Then, after considering it further, I realized I'm not throwing it away. I'm
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merely doing the same task I'd have to do if I soldiered on, but this time I can
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start from a clean slate and make better decisions.
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* What I Have Learned.
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Sometimes, you have to take a step backwards to try a different route. It feels
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annoying, and can feel like you're not making progress, but that isn't the
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case. The really annoying part is that I normally iterate in this way, and leave
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my programs open to that iteration. But this time I just happened to build
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things in such a way that that iteration became difficult and awkward, not
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taking full advantage of the concepts I was learning. I had a gut feeling about
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that when I was writing it, but I found myself having too much fun playing
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around with whizzing bits and bytes up and down wires to stop and do the work
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when it would have been best.
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So to sum it up, if you have the gut feeling that something needs to be changed
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as you're writing it, and you have all the time in the world, do it. Otherwise,
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do it soon as. Otherwise you'll have something built and have to tear it all
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down and start again.
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Starting again isn't the same as starting for the first time. You can take what
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you have learned, and build better, build faster. But this time, I have to start
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again. Which is really annoying, because usually I make great effort in making
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the exact opposite happen. Oh, well, can't win 'em all.
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And I've basically gotten a chat program out of it, too. A little rebranding,
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and bish bash bosh, poor man's encrypted IRC.
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