honor-your-projects: new

Author: ariadnavigo

content/posts/honor-your-projects.md

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+title = "Honor Your Projects"
+date = "2025-07-25T11:43:33+02:00"
+author = "Ariadna"
+tags = ["programming", "projects", "my stories"]
+keywords = ["programming", "projects"]
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+
+I'm writing this while I'm pondering whether [a project of mine][lc] is ready
+for its first release, 0.1. I don't like to rush things out, even though I do
+believe in _Release early, release often,_ so I've been thinking about whether
+it is time or not... and that led me to a different train of thought I wanted to
+share with you, especially people out there who, like me, are amateurs with
+little experience and who only write small projects.
+
+There are _impressive_ projects out there. Not just the famous ones. There are
+amazing programmers out there doing stuff you (and I) watch in awe, thinking
+we're never going to pull something like that out. There are developers out
+there who code in unexpected languages, others who have contributed huge
+platforms for others to use, others who have deep knowledge about low level
+quirks or algorithms... and at least to me, I've felt disheartened more than
+once, feeling like a fraud and feeling that your projects don't deserve any
+attention or shouldn't be published. I've felt ridiculous after comparing myself
+to programmers whose work I've admired.
+
+I wanted to tell you that the feeling is understandable, but remember your path
+is yours. Your motivations for programming are yours as well. I'm not a
+professional programmer and probably won't ever be, so I'm just trying to have
+fun and coding has a meditative property to it for me that calms me down and
+helps me focus. Your reasons and what you feel when programming is entirely
+yours and probably different. Maybe you do want a career, maybe circumstances
+threw you into it, who knows.
+
+However, _honor your projects,_ no matter how big or small. They're a part of
+you. If you publish them on a public repo, do it with pride: you wrote that. It
+might not be the next Linux for the rest of the world, but please look at it as
+an important part of _your_ journey. Keep those projects tidy, though. Even if 
+it's a simple shell script, please fix the bugs, keep the documentation updated,
+or archive the project if you don't feel maintaining it anymore. Treat your
+projects with care, love, and seriousness: you never know if someday someone
+might approach you to package that simple project because they liked it.
+
+Every line of code you write, every commit, every stupid bug you introduced and
+later fixed, everything makes up your story. We are not static creatures, we're
+made of our journeys. You are a programmer if you write programs and have
+respect for the craft.
+
+Remember: that little program you wrote 5 years ago paved the way to what you
+are, do, and know today. Don't make the mistake I made some time ago of deleting
+everything I coded, in shame, because of a very bad case of internalized
+mysogyny and imposter syndrome. I regret it a lot. Every repository you've
+worked on is a child of your creativity, which ultimately is our strongest power
+as humans.
+
+[lc]: https://github.com/ariadnavigo/lc