The satisfaction from one may help you with the next. If not, there is a good place to start next time.

Effort without progress surely demoralizes.

Very monkishly put. Almost haiku sounding, the way the rhythm works. ++ to you.

kelan

---

Yak it up withFullscreen ChatBox

Hi Joshua,

I suffer greatly from this problem, although at the moment I shouldn't really, given that I'm unemployed with nothing to do and going out of mind mind from boredom. (On the plus side, I've recently caught up with my reading and got through The Castle, If This is a Man, The Truce and The Great Gatsby.)

Sometimes I find that my motivation just goes away - look at my Texas Hold'ems program for example: I've still not got around to rewriting it in a sensible fashion. On occasion, I certainly find it best to just go with my instinct and leave the code alone otherwise I find my attention wandering and I either make boneheaded mistakes or get nothing done. The worst thing I have done is spot an elegant and hence highly correct way of doing something but not done it because it would take too long in the short term. Take a break occasionally.

I reckon that the best way to remotivate yourself is not to code yourself to death: If you're finding it tough, take a break. If your attention is waning, read a book for half an hour or go make yourself a coffee. Remind yourself that coding is not only like mental jogging (sweaty, tiring and dull), it can also be like mental pillowfighting (messy, great fun and exhilarating.)

Update: Link fixed. D'oh.

"Rule #17 of Travel: Never try and score dope off Hassidic Jews while under the impression that they are Rastafarians."
       - Pete McCarthy, McCarthy's Bar

I've yet to find a motivation outside of myself that was more effective (for my own projects). And, learning the skill of overcoming 'myself' has been important to me in a wide variety of ways.

I find it that when lacking motivation at times, thinking about the incredible abount of XP and feedback that can be gained from publishing something on perlmonks is motivation enough. I mean, what XP whore wouldn't enjoy that satisfaction? ;D

The other thing to do is tell people about all the cool $h*t you're doing, and thus getting them interested. There is nothing like getting a "userbase" before you even finish the product. After I got at least an alpha version, I may relax a little bit (like you do), and revisit the project some time later, but at least I got a working prototype. Now others can help me improve it, tell me how much they like/use it, and ++ my a*$.

And think about it, any free software you develop, is an endorsment for yourself. The more and more other people use/appreciate it, the better. Any time you need a reference, you can point to something you developed, and say: "Hey, all these people like this software i've made, so that's gotta mean something, right?".

And most importantly of all, publishing your open source software, allows others to review your code, so it doesn't $$bite$$ you down the line when it really counts.

How cool would you think merlyn was if he didn't share so much?

Like WyClef says:

I got fifty Bentley's in the West Indies
(It doesn't matter)
...
Cause if you ain't sharing, people ain't caring
Come up in the hood and take everything you're wearing

____________________________________________________
** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

XPwhoring your projects is a plan. After all, there's always the possibility that someone will come and pick it up for you... (unlikely, but...)
I have the very same problem. Thing is though, my perl hacking is sort of a work avoidance tactic, so I know I'll be back when I next get something I don't want to do ;p
--
It's not pessimism if there is a worse option, it's not paranoia when they are and it's not cynicism when you're right.

I think everyone runs into that every now and then, and I think that the best solution (for me at least) is to split the project into smaller tasks:

I am very exited about it at first: this is about the time where you can lay out the plan of the project at hand, see how you will be developing it and trim it down to very small tasks (i.e. have a user/group application much like the monastery trimmed to it's basic components: nodes/users/groups/privileges . and start by developing an engine that does only that.)

when you're tired, I will safely assume that you would have laid out a basic framework. then, each time you get motivated to work again, just work on the next "small task" in the queue and focus only at the task at hand, not worrying about the whole lotta work ahead; (i.e. group->Editors can edit nodes.)

my examples are stupid I know, but I think this can generalize to just about anything. The only difficult part is seeing ahead the structure that will keep things tied together as you develop more and more on the project.

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

I'd have to agree with tjh: Just Do It. It can be deeply rewarding to stick with a module over a period of time and work at adding features, commit a number of refactorings that come more easily with time because you're so familiar with the code, and be surprised when a sneaky way of doing things that never occurred to you when you originally wrote the module pops into your head when you're taking a shower thinking of something entirely different. (Whew!)

After you've invested some time, don't be afraid to set it aside for a while and work on something else. I'm always surprised by the new perspectives I gain by doing this.

Chris
M-x auto-bs-mode

One other thing I find useful when I'm feeling burnt out on coding is to work on other aspects of the project, particularly documentation and test cases. It may not be as exciting as coding itself, but it needs to get done, and I find that sometimes thinking about the project at that level actually does inspire me to get back into coding.

You could also try a change of scenery. Oddly enough, I sometimes find that the bustle of the local coffeehouses can induce me to be really productive, despite what would seem like a lot of distractions. Hiking in the mountains also does great things for clearing out the cobwebs. I've written about sources of inspiration previously in this node.

Take Text::FIGlet, it sat for s/o like 14 months before I did a marathon run (long weekend)in February, and then sat until August where I did another marathon (essentially a full work-week); which has not left it in a distributable state :-/. The first was spurred by guilt of neglect, the second because the module was on my mind. Uri, a fellow Boston perlmonger, has coopted Dominus' lightning talk idea, and I gave the first one at the August meeting. Simply reviewing the code to

• find something interesting to talk about
• understand how the interesting thing works, and the best way to explain it

Incidentally, I think this is related to one of the reasons I have settled on something other than being a professional programmer (at least, not without something else attached); not receiving any end-user feedback.

--
perl -pew "s/\b;([mnst])/'$1/g"