Project Stack Push/Pop

I have an amazing ability to get distracted from my goals when programming. Sometimes it feels like each project I work on is just the latest distraction from what I was working on. Usually this happens because I’m happily hacking away on project A until I hit a roadblock. That roadblock might be a missing feature in a module I’m using, or maybe a module I need that doesn’t exist. Sometimes the roadblock is a gap in my understanding. I don’t know how to do what I want in a satisfactory way, so I need to learn more about a tool, or just experiment with ways to approach the problem.

I push a new project onto the stack and off I go. I don’t know how deep the stack is now. There’s probably items that were on ther elong ago that have already been forgotten.

Here’s an example of where I am in my stack right now:

• Working on VegGuide and other things, I’ve become thoroughly sick of Alzabo …
  • so I play with DBIx::Class but it doesn’t grab me …
  • I write Fey::ORM …
• and back to VegGuide, but I really don’t like a lot of things about it, I need to explore new ways of writing webapps …
  • I start working on a new webapp, a donor/volunteer management app for nonprofits. By building an app from scratch I can get a better understanding of how I want to write modern webapps. But this type of app is rather complicated so …
    • having been unhappy with MojoMojo, I start working on a wiki designed for non-geeks (target audience, my animal rights group). I’m using Markdown as the wikitext language, but the existing Markdown tools in Perl don’t do what I want so …
      • I write Markdent.
    • now I’m running into major issues with HTML::WikiConverter, which I use to turn GUI-generated HTML back to Markdown. The temptation to fix/rewrite is strong …
      • sigh

Of course, it’s not really quite as simple as this might imply. It’s not like the only reason for working on a donor management application is to explore webapps. It’s useful all on its own.

Even scarier is the fact that there are other unrelated projects that keep trying to intrude, like making ACT run on mod_perl2 so I can upgrade my server from Dapper to Hardy. I’ve managed to put that one off for a while, at least, but it keeps nagging at me.

My capacity for adding projects to my stack is simultaneously impressive and disturbing. There’s no problem so compelling that it can’t be superceded by a new problem uncovered in the course of solving the original.

Comments

Ron Savage, on 2009-12-02 17:55, said:
Hi Dave

I’m close to releasing a contacts manager, CGI::Office::Contacts, which will have an importer, CGI::Office::Contacts::Import::vCards, and a donation-addon, CGI::Office::Contacts::Donations.

I wonder if we’re working on parallel paths :-)?

Cheers
Ron

Randal L. Schwartz, on 2009-12-02 22:28, said:
Welcome to Yak Shaving. :)

Dave Rolsky, on 2009-12-02 22:37, said:
So many yaks, so little time.

Eric Larson, on 2010-01-04 10:38, said:
Geez, this sounds familiar… And yes, it is pretty scary :)