Development musings

Happy, hopeful new year, everyone!

Life is just barely settling down after the holidays, and I’ve been meaning to work on Enthusiast for a while now, but kind of endlessly putting it off. I want that to change, but to change that, I’ll have to do a bit of reassessment, and to pinpoint why I have lost the thrill and joy of working on Enthusiast.

It won’t mean it will be gone, as even if I feel rather unmotivated to work on Enth, I still love it and want to bring it to the next level. I’ll just have to figure out what the next level is.

Just in case it helps others out there, here’s something I’ve started reading that I feel is helping me a lot: Getting Real. A lot of things won’t be applicable to Enth (I don’t think suddenly scaling down features is an option) but I’m trying to figure out what to do with the stuff I’m reading and taking in.

This Geek chick post was published on Monday January 7, 2008, and tagged under , , , , , , .

About the author

Me

Hello, I'm Angela. I cycle through a bunch of obsessions: web, reading, writing, gaming, and traveling. I've been making websites since 1997 before turning it into a profession in 2004. You might know me from Scripts.Indisguise.Org where I used to dabble a little with linkware toys, or Yahoo! Southeast Asia, but nowadays I'm the technical lead for HungryGoWhere where I am always hungry, since I end up looking at food all day. I love meeting interesting people and have excellent conversation, so leave me a comment or find me on any of the places below:

9 comments

  • Susanna said:
    February 19, 2008 05:52

    If I were you I might be offering the script for purchaseware. With that I mean not that you should have the current versions taken down, but perhaps if you make new contents (updates script – like news or something special) that are only available if you purchase the upcoming versions. I wouldn’t mind at all to pay for your awesome script and perhaps then you would feel that it was worth continue to work on.

  • Angela said:
    January 24, 2008 00:00

    Thanks, Calitoe! As for your suggestions, I did indeed just recently add a Paypal Donate button on the sidebar :) I didn’t actually go out and “advertise” it, but a lot of people were asking about means to do so, and now it’s there :)

    As for multilingual support and localization, I can’t promise anything for sure, but that HAS been weighing heavily on my mind, and is one of the things I really want to add into Enthusiast for some time now — only the engine is lacking. :)

  • Calítoe.:. said:
    January 23, 2008 19:42

    Hi Angela,
    Well, I guess we’ve all have been through such a phase at least once in life, and for some of us it happens so often. :p I guess it’s just fair that you take your time and approach Enthusiast later on, with renovated strength, as it has already been suggested.

    I admire the effort you’ve put into Enth and how generous it is from you to share it with the whole Fanlisting community; I really think that if you just accept donations (is there already an easy method for you? I’ve always wanted to give you some cash in exchange of your effort) and put a big button round there, a lot of people that use your script will react and you may even get more than if you were asking for money directly, and you may still feel rather “free” of too much commitment. Just a thought.

    As for new features and ideas, well, I’ve got one :p As you may remember, I am a great fan of localisation and of building multilingual sites, so if after you’ve solved the “making it work better” matter you have the time for an easier to translate method, that would be great. ;) But as I’ve said, I guess it is just fair if you put your “enthusiasm” on something else before coming back to Enthusiast.

    Best wishes!

  • Angela said:
    January 20, 2008 12:48

    @Kitty: Exactly, I feel kind of like that. I feel like, I love them the same way, but due to a lot of things at the moment, they’re competing with other things I also like doing and other responsibilities (which aren’t necessarily evil). If only one can have more than 24 hours a day!

    @Rachel: Cancer isn’t fun at all :( I hope things get better.

    The whole thing about Enth is, I want to make it better. I’m not entirely happy with how it is currently, I feel that there’s so much more that it can be improved upon. Maybe not in terms of featureset but in terms of how it works. :) Make it more extensible, that sort of thing. :)

  • Rachel said:
    January 14, 2008 03:28

    Angela, I’m so sorry to hear that. :( I feel the same way about one of my fansites…Although I’m still a dire fan, with everything in my life that’s been going on since OCTOBER (two family members with cancer…not so fun :() I just haven’t had the motivation, energy or (seemingly) time.

    What if, instead of working on Enth as a whole, you concentrated on smaller things like plugins or tutorials? Enth on a whole doesn’t really demand anything, right? Other than keeping it safe, but you do that already.

    I dunno, sometimes doing little things helps me. :) Anyway, I hope you get out of the “funk” and get some motivation! I know it can be hard. :S

  • Kitty said:
    January 9, 2008 23:29

    Hi Angela,

    I completely understand what you are going through. It tough when you have things that you absolutely love to do, but you suddenly find that you neither have the time or you no longer feel the same way you do about them. I am going through that now since I have started a full time job (plus I am a mom of 4, so you can imagine how much free time I have). Stuff that I loved to do online and off have doesn’t seem to interest me or motivate me to want do them, and that bothers me.

    So I wish you luck in whatever you decided to, and I appreciate all the work that you have put into the script (It has made my FL life a little easier to maintain :))

  • Angela said:
    January 9, 2008 09:54

    Thanks, Hikoto, Kya! Support and good wishes at this time comes a long way. :) Actually, I feel calmer about admitting the loss of the thrill/joy now than I was before — I think I was half in denial for most of last year, for example, and I was genuinely trying to fight it instead of sit down and work it out with myself on where to go from there. At least now I’m able to really admit it (to myself, most importantly) and work things out and make decisions.

    About making the script have certain features “unlocked” on the basis of payment, I’m hesitant about doing that because once something is “paid for”, to me there’s a certain level of commitment needed at that point. Commitment that I can’t give (at this point in the least), as I have work and a life aside from my online responsibilities — how I wish I was in school again :P life had much more “space” then :P

    And in any case, the script HAS brought me a bit of a return, directly or indirectly, in terms of donations and freelance work, so it’s not a financial loss or anything. :)

    But thanks for the suggestion, Kya! I’ll not be completely writing it off my book, but I’ll have to give the idea some time to fester around and stuff before I do anything about it. :)

    Yes, big changes coming this year! :D

  • Kya said:
    January 8, 2008 13:41

    I am really sorry to hear you are feeling that way Angela. I think your script is just fantastic and the fact you have put so much work into it and made it available for everyone in your own time is amazing. But, I know you can’t do this forever we all have the real dreams and realities of life we have to follow and being classed as ‘the one who made this or that script’ wouldn’t be exactly at the top.

    Maybe if you do take a little break from it, you might feel refreshed about the whole idea and be able to work on it in the moments you want to and can and if it also became an issue of ‘I should be working instead of doing this’ maybe you could have a paid option. People could buy a beefed up version or special add-ons. But I guess it might take some of the fun out of it? It’s hard to say, but I would always be happy to support you. *hugs*

    Whatever happens in the future, I just wish you the best of luck in any direction you may be heading. And a Happy New year! It’s strange how different this year is feeling for some reason, maybe it has big changes for everyone. :O

  • Hikoto said:
    January 7, 2008 21:25

    Aw…Angela. I don’t write scripts myself but I think I can understand some of the pressure a script writer will go through. Sometimes when people request or rather demand for xxx feature, I actually cringe for script author.

    I’m not sure how much advice I can give you, but I think…hey it’s your script. Listening to suggestions are good, but at the end of the day, I don’t think you have to meet anyone elses’ expectation except your own. Personally, I’m really satisfied with the curent vers and if anything, I’m upgrading to reduce security vulnerability – most likely not because some xxx feature was included (or maybe not haha!).

    Afterall, the script works best when the script author had fun coding it! (: Take it at your own pace as you see fit!

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