Why do people keep saying my week-end project?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2500779

by yyll • 15 years ago

13 11 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What value does that add? Who cares if it's a two hours project? Since there is no possibility people would sacrifice a project's performance to just brag about how quick the implementation was, I see a trend where people might start to lie about the actual hours of work.

manish_chhabra• 15 years ago

I guess it does not necessarily means 1 weekend project. A week-end project could be the one I have been working on for past 3 weekends :).

Week days are usually busy with normal work, so weekend is for leisure development anyway :)

HedgeMage• 15 years ago

I've always seen it as a way to key people in to the fact that this is something one did just to try it out, and not something one is emotionally invested in. Communicating that may, in theory, get people to be more honest/brutal in their opinions rather than trying to "be nice" about it.

It doesn't necessarily mean "look, I did it in a weekend!" but "hey, I was messing around with this in my spare time..."

pepsi_can• 15 years ago

It is a way to convey that the project is somewhat unfinished. Because it is mostly a personal project, the project may not be entirely accessible, it might not be the most scalable, it might not be locale sensitive or otherwise reminds the projects user's that it's not a finished production product.

ignifero• 15 years ago

when i post weekend projects it usually is 1.5-2 weeks. It's not supposed to mean something for the time it took to develop, it's more of a generic term to describe something that is not finished. It's a warning to readers that they shouldn't be too harsh on details and also that it's not meant to be a business (but if it does i would be all too happy).

I would gladly use another term if there was one

nametoremember• 15 years ago

WIP (Work In Progress) is usually used for design work, I think. That seems suitable.

rycs• 15 years ago

I don't think most people refer as a "weekend project" to brag about performance and how much they did with little time, for me it's a general term that refers to something you do on your "free" time or time outside your normal work schedule.

benmichael• 15 years ago

Yep exactly! Something thats perhaps a little different to your 9-5 grind.

systemtrigger• 15 years ago

This adjective clarifies nothing. We don't know how many weekends it was or if you're telling the truth. Besides it's irrelevant what days of the week you pushed the keys. Call it "a project" or MVP, IMHO.

veb• 15 years ago

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story"

Honestly, it doesn't really matter if people lie about how long they took, it'll just make the rest of us rage, and try do better - which in my books, is good for programmers.

latch• 15 years ago

You either believe what people say or you don't. There are plenty of comments on HN along the lines of "when I was at google..." or "our site does 500 req/sec". Not sure why weekend project claims would, somehow, be less trustworthy.

The reason I say it's a weekend project is to let people know that a relatively small amount of time was spent on it..so it might not have the polish of a more exhaustive system.

MattBearman• 15 years ago

My understanding of weekend project is not that it was developped in one weekend, but that it has been developped in evenings/weekends by someone who has a day job.

So it's not really saying it was developped in less than 48 hours, just that it's not their full-time gig.

Why do people keep saying my week-end project?

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