Recently looking at my hg repo, I noticed I have no less than five unlaunched websites developed over the past year and a half. It would probably take take three to five weeks of polishing to push any given one of them live.

What's there?
We've got a quick posting job site, two lifestyle sites for people to connect with each other, two subscription based sites targeted at businesses, an online store, the venerable startupmatcher (launched then mothballed and never recovered), and this blag site which works but could always be better.

On the non-web side there is a complete 4k line Objective-C/Cocoa app for managing Basecamp on your desktop (and exporting time to quickbooks records) which was released to nil acclaim. After a few months it was withdrawn because I lost my free Basecamp account with API access (I couldn't diagnose problems potential customers were having anymore). I haven't made any kick-ass-yet-perpetually-unreleased iPhone apps yet.

On the non-software side, I formulated a great Erlang training curriculum using EC2 for over a dozen hands on labs (people learn by doing, damn it). Abandoned due to lack of availability to perform in-person training. It could be automated though. Perchance I'll revisit it in an automated fashion.

What happened? Why aren't they live?
For me, it comes down to lack of expectations. Nobody is expecting them, so nobody is missing them. It's easy to put off something for a day or two if nobody is expecting a result. Then, out of nowhere, you look back and two months have gone by with nary a 'hg commit' in your shell history.

Overall metal energy comes into play too. After a ten hour day at work, zoning out in front of Heroes, Scrubs reruns, Evangelion, or going to the gym for an hour sure feels good. Doing the math: ten hours at work means getting home around 6pm on a good day. Add food time and zoning-out for an hour or two brings us to about 9pm.

Three to four hours of private time per day seems about normal (assuming no family responsibilities). Knowing you have three hours of free time, what can you do? It isn't nearly long enough to load your code into your head to start working. If you haven't looked at your code for a while, it could take an hour or two just to re-create your mindset of what should be happening.

What are possible solutions?
One, find a better people. Find friends who are doing great things. Then proceed to show them up. My iMac isn't a worthy adversary. He's too subservient. [ insert professor hand-waving about how to actually meet and attach to great people in a reciprocal relationship ].

Two, find more free time. This is difficult if you have a "real job." Good luck.

Three, change a mindset. Stop going for the shiny. Sit down and work through completion of past projects one at a time. Make sure everything is broken up into manageable sub-components so you can get them brain-loaded in less than 20 minutes. Work a FIFO queue. Don't you dare start a new project until you've pushed the site you're working on live. No priority preemption allowed.

Four, it's the code, stupid. Have old code you meant to open source? Throw it up at bitbucket.org or github (sorry, Doug, code.google.com is dying). If it's useful, someone will find it and you'll get a little motivation boost.

Five, get involved, damn it. Inject your opinions in mailing lists and online forum doohickeys. Stop letting the only thing google turns up for your name be awkward postings from 1995 when you were in 7th grade and didn't realize the Internet never forgets.


cliches
just do it? get real?

"Entrepreneurs are not supposed to be Clark Kent. in other words... WAKE. the FUCK. UP." -Dave

"the true Silicon Valley entrepreneur will find a way around these obstacles. the true Silicon Valley entrepreneur is not frightened by a 'down market'. they are not daunted by VCs who now have massive leverage. and they are not going to back down." -Dave, same article

Stop worrying. Don't stop caring, but stop caring so much. Dare to look foolish. If you need more help, go buy any fluffy and meaningless self help book or listen to that song.

just for you
Recently, a new round of Perl bashing has been going around the tubes. Line noise. Squiggles. Made by old people. Not new. Too easy to create bot-nets. Here's a different take one group took with Perl. I'd love to see other accounts of people moving this way.

background
Sun's new Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems are unique in the "enterprise storage" market. They are the spirit of a Linux homebrew NAS except with planning and backing by a real company. Sun doesn't make you buy per-feature licenses like another company (which we shall not dignify by mentioning their name. want to use NFS, CIFS, a web interface, iSCSI, and fiber channel? They make you buy six licenses. I think you need a license for the power button too.). Sun even gives away a free vmware image so you can try the system at your lesiure (the "Download Simulator" button isn't a simulator of downloads).

The people on the project abandoned Perl opting to use JavaScript and C instead. Eerily, some components are starting to take on a life of their own.

how i imagine it happened
On a lazy Sunday a little over two years ago, some guys at Sun got the idea to make a new storage appliance.
"Let's write the management system in Perl," Bryan mused while trying to brush off his recurring camel nightmares.

Eric, upset but not knowing why, interjected, "Fine, Bryan, but we're going to make tests for every goddamn feature you write."

Weeks pass as Bryan's frustrate-o-meter nears overload. The management interface is coming along nicely, but Bryan keeps hitting the same dromedary inspired annoyances he has been fighting for years.

Suddenly, enough is enough. "I need to break up with Perl, Eric," Bryan confessed over lunch while hoping the accidental flying spittle wasn't noticeable to Eric.

"But you're six weeks into it. Let's not waste time rewriting," Eric prodded.

Completely ignoring Eric, Bryan kept on, "How is your work with embedded JavaScript in C progressing?"

Bryan proceeded to layout his plan for converting six weeks worth of inspired Perl into a bastardized (in the loveliest sense) JavaScript/C system.

[ time passes ]

Bryan returns from isolation with the letters 'var' burned into his retinas. Bryan rubs his eyes at seeing new surroundings. After a pause, Bryan victoriously yells, "YATTA!"

Bryan quickly realized he was too diaper-esque and took a break to find clothes recognized by civilized peoples.

"So, what's the count?" Eric grilled, without even the courtesy of a hello after not seeing Bryan for six months.

Befuddled, Bryan slapped the Frappuccino from Eric's grip-less, carpal tunnel syndrome afflicted hand.

"You told me the count yesterday!" barked Bryan while quivering and trying to refrain from shouting "OHIO."

The kLOC counts ended up as:
C: 226
JS: 146
Shell: 22
Python: 34
XML: 17
CSS: 6

While basking at their own greatness, in an office two bulidings over, Mohinder Suresh grabs the Sun campus PA system: "A child is born to innocence. A child is drawn towards good. Why then do so many among us go so horribly wrong? What makes some walk the path of darkness while others choose the light? Is it will? Is it destiny? Can we ever hope to understand the force that shapes the soul? To fight evil, one must know evil; one must journey back through time and find that fork in the road, where heroes turn one way and villains turn another."


fin.

references
Perl to JavaScript/C
Lines of code


please
Sun: It is in your best interest to provide me with one 7410 review unit. You will not be getting it back.

disclaimer
I have no connection to Sun Microsystems other than not hating Solaris 10, loving ZFS, and visiting their campus for SHDH25.

me reporting on observations of other people from work they actually did.

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