I absolutely agree. I went to clown school recently (thats a whole story) and I realised I've been focusing way too much on trying to get projects "right" or "do them well". This is really silly. Life is for living, and I squeeze the fun out of software when I try too hard to do it "right".
So instead, I'm trying to have a lot more fun with the code I write and I'm finding I've been writing way more code. Its flowing more easily. I've recently written my own protobuf-style library for binary serialization (to try out some fun ideas around schema evolution). And at the moment I'm writing a simple CRDT based local first database. I got the first data syncing yesterday! Its really exciting.
Its funny - over the years I've written a lot of code to solve Serious Problems and I've written a lot of code on a whim, to scratch my own itch. Ironically, the code I'm most proud of has often ended up being the stuff I did for fun. I find I keep coming back to maintain and improve the fun projects, but the serious projects languish and die once I move on.
So instead, I'm trying to have a lot more fun with the code I write and I'm finding I've been writing way more code. Its flowing more easily. I've recently written my own protobuf-style library for binary serialization (to try out some fun ideas around schema evolution). And at the moment I'm writing a simple CRDT based local first database. I got the first data syncing yesterday! Its really exciting.
Its funny - over the years I've written a lot of code to solve Serious Problems and I've written a lot of code on a whim, to scratch my own itch. Ironically, the code I'm most proud of has often ended up being the stuff I did for fun. I find I keep coming back to maintain and improve the fun projects, but the serious projects languish and die once I move on.