[HN Gopher] Questions to ask when you think need to finish somet...
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Questions to ask when you think need to finish something
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 99 points
Date : 2025-09-24 14:41 UTC (4 days ago)
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| bsder wrote:
| Questions missing from this list are:
|
| "Can I spend some amount of money and be _done_? "
|
| "Is this _worth_ spending some amount of money to be _done_? "
|
| I have had innumerable projects where they just languished and
| languished and languished ... until I got annoyed enough to spend
| some money and then they were done and gone.
|
| Sure, some projects are a "hobby". My hobbies are continuous and
| I like doing them so spending money to finish them is not
| relevant.
|
| However, quite often a task languishing is either because I don't
| really like the task or don't feel like putting in the effort to
| learn the required knowledge. For those tasks, spending money
| often works.
|
| (For example, my latest task along these lines was "sharpen my
| kitchen knives". After farting with far too many whetstones, I
| finally spent the money to buy a fixed-angle sharpening system. I
| took it out of the box, set it up, and in two evenings my dozen
| kitchen knives were sharp and pleasant to use again. I then put
| the system back in the box and put it in my closet for the next
| time I need it. I spent way less on that fixed-angle system than
| I have on the whetstones I tried up to this point.)
| xandrius wrote:
| Happy it worked for you but a whetstone with an angle guide and
| you'd be done in a similar time.
|
| I think I can refresh a lightly dull blade in 10min or so, and
| speaking as a non-pro.
|
| The long-term benefits of a whetstone is that you can get much
| more feedback on what's happening, while most "systems" work
| for a bit and then it's hard to see what part is over-worked or
| not performing as well as it used to.
|
| Just putting it out here because I think people might either
| not be using an angle guide or just be somewhat misguided,
| since using a whetstone is really not much slower.
| Jolter wrote:
| That's exactly the point: you have knowledge. GP spent money
| so as not to have to learn that knowledge.
| bsder wrote:
| > I think I can refresh a lightly dull blade in 10min or so,
| and speaking as a non-pro.
|
| This is the same assumption (and problem) that every YouTube
| knife sharpening video makes.
|
| The people who need those videos, by definition, have knives
| that are _absurdly_ out of whack for some reason--super dull,
| badly sharpened by someone who "knew better", chipped
| because used like a cleaver, etc.
|
| Those kinds of knives require a _very coarse_ (150 grit or
| below) stone and quite a bit of time and attention on the
| first pass to fix. You will _not_ fix it easily. You will
| _not_ fix it in 10 minutes. You will _not_ fix it with a 300
| grit stone. You will _not_ get any feedback from angle bite
| or a burr for a very long time. etc.
|
| Most of the feedback mechanisms you rely on when sharpening
| with a whetstone _do not exist_ when your knife is
| sufficiently out of whack. Learning to sharpen on a whetstone
| with such a knife is extremely difficult.
| ljlolel wrote:
| From a spend money not time perspective better to take them to
| a local sharpener!
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| I have never sharpened a knife in my entire life so that's an
| option too.
| jaredhallen wrote:
| Not necessarily. Not everyone has easy access to that kind of
| service. The nearest one to me that I'm aware of is about
| half an hour drive away. The sharpening system that I have
| just takes a few minutes. It's definitely easier for me to do
| it myself than take them somewhere.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Quality varies. I was disappointed to see Sur La Table's
| sharpening service is little better than an angle grinder.
| bsder wrote:
| I would amend that to "Pay a local knife nerd that you
| _trust_ ". Most "sharpening services" use some kind of
| grinder and they can damage the edge temper as well as do
| other stupid things.
|
| Funny story time ... my problem with learning to sharpen with
| whetstones was due to taking my knives to a local sharpener.
|
| I could sharpen two of my knives with a whetstone just fine
| but could never figure out why. But they were my two smallest
| knives, so I assumed that it was skill issue when I was
| handling the bigger knives.
|
| It turns out the local sharpener that I used ground an
| absolutely _absurd_ angle into the cutting edge on my big
| kitchen knives--something like 30+ degrees. Given that they
| did cut for a while, I presume that they also had something
| like a "microbevel" on them. Of course, the problem is that
| I am _never_ going to be able to put a "microbevel" back on
| them with a whetstone.
|
| However, an amateur with a whetstone like me is going to have
| difficulty figuring all this out because they are always
| going to suspect their own skill.
|
| Of course, as soon as I put them on the fixed angle
| sharpener, the fact that the edges had an absurd angle was
| immediately obvious. And the fact that, yes, it is going to
| take a while to correct this also became obvious. So, I sat
| down and stoned the edge with a 100 grit(!) diamond stone for
| 45 minutes until I got the angle back to something
| reasonable. And then went up the grits to sharpen it.
|
| Just for giggles, on my last kitchen knife, I used the system
| to fix the angle, and then I used whetstones. Funnily enough,
| it sharpened just fine. I'll still use the fixed angle system
| in the future though.
| amelius wrote:
| I have a similar story about a clogged kitchen sink.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44521693
| rorylaitila wrote:
| I've accepted that all the progress for me happens in tight
| bursts. I simply cannot do 'thought work' when I'm disinterested.
| I sometimes envy people who are interested in one particular
| project for years or decades at a time and make plodding,
| continual progress. However that's not me. I make inspired,
| unbelievable progress, and then nothing. I try to constrain the
| scope so that it at least remains useful, in between the bursts.
| robinsonb5 wrote:
| I can definitely relate - but I have noticed that the bursts
| have got longer and less intense as I've got older.
| jstanley wrote:
| It could be worse. I've noticed that the bursts have got
| shorter and less intense as I've got older!
| rorylaitila wrote:
| Haha, yeah I was going to reply with the same. I used to
| work 12+ hours/day for a few months at a time. Now I
| struggle for anything more than a few hours a day for a few
| weeks at a time. AI has helped me recover some ground but
| it's still less output overall.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Claude Code has been a boon for my software projects,
| specifically for this reason. I might lose a full night's
| sleep, but I'm able to stay productive far longer and do what
| would have otherwise taken me weeks in any given project.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| In what way does it help you?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I feel similarly. When I'm bored by a task I tend to
| entertain myself by getting creative with it, its a way of
| tricking myself into getting it done, but its a terrible
| habit if what you wanted was reliable software.
|
| Typically, models excel at tasks that are that boring, so I
| end up applying creativity where it's warranted instead of
| getting distracted by reinventing a tool that isn't quite
| perfect or some other diversion.
| coldtea wrote:
| It can handle the boilerplate that is so uninspiring, it
| can help move the needle when you don't feel like diving
| in.
|
| But you have to be intentful to keep the interesting parts
| and the high level choices for yourself - why by default
| doesn't happen, and many don't.
| fmbb wrote:
| Can you share some things you finished using Claude?
| rorylaitila wrote:
| Yeah, I agree. AI helps me bust through quickly on a tedious
| task, where before that might have used up a lot of my
| motivation. The ground covered in any particular session is a
| lot further.
| cedws wrote:
| I'm very much the same, I wish I had the ability to chip away
| at projects over a long time span, usually the most I can
| muster is a few weeks. I continually wonder if I have ADHD.
| It's too much of a pain to find out, so I guess I'll never know
| and just have to deal with it.
| fn-mote wrote:
| You can be at peace with your approach to life, and also
| understand that others do things differently, with or without
| a diagnosis.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've made the decision to "brownfield" many projects. My GH[0] is
| full of archived, and even private, repos that I no longer
| maintain. I have retired most of the apps that I've written. I
| only have a few left on the App Store[1].
|
| I do make sure to explicitly "freeze" a project that I'm no
| longer maintaining, and indicate such, in the README. I hate
| encountering abandonware that is only obvious, because of the
| last modified date.
|
| But the projects that I do want to finish, I make sure to do a
| "full-fat" job. If I consider it "done," then it gets the Full
| Monty. I also continue to maintain. If I can't do that, it gets
| archived; even if I had completed and shipped it.
|
| Those are valid questions, but I don't usually get that exacting.
| The projects that I walk away from, are usually because they were
| just for learning, I got into a "death spiral," or that were
| eclipsed by something else.
|
| [0] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#browse-away
|
| [1] https://littlegreenviper.com/AppDocs/
| latexr wrote:
| > I hate encountering abandonware that is only obvious, because
| of the last modified date.
|
| The date plus hundreds of issues, of which the last dozen are
| unaddressed variations of "is this project still alive". And
| then you check the creator's account and they've been active on
| other things. Just archive the repo. Please. It's fine if you
| don't want to work on the project anymore, that's 100% your
| decision and your right, and no one should be able to criticise
| you for it. But please just do the tiny courtesy of letting
| other people know so an alternative can crop up and flourish.
| Archiving a repo takes less than a minute and is reversible if
| you ever change your mind.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Even when I know that I _should_ not finish something, there is
| still a surprisingly robust mental barrier that holds me back
| from it. The solution that works for me is the making a 'Low
| priority' folder to put those projects I know I don't need to
| finish. Moving them out of my active workspace feels great, and
| the 'low priority' means its non-committal to completely
| abandoning them (although in practice 99.9% of the time, that
| exactly what the result is).
|
| This is a mental trick I play on myself that I know that I am
| doing, but somehow its works anyway.
| OisinMoran wrote:
| I really need to do this!
|
| You reminded me of the early days at inscribe.ai where we just
| had an Asana board with red, orange, and yellow tags meaning
| high, mid, and low importance, and after completing an
| important one I'd treat myself to a few unimportant ones. I'm
| not sure I ever did anything in the middle!
| itchyjunk wrote:
| Questions to ask when you think you need to finish something?
| Sorry for the nitpick, typically my brain completes missing words
| easily. Must be the lack of coffee here.
| chistev wrote:
| I didn't notice the absence until your comment
| kgwxd wrote:
| I probably wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been directly
| below the Detective Listeria post. HN titles look like
| TikToks this morning.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Funny. I didn't notice the missing word. I did have trouble
| reading the title. I didn't realize why until now.
| sirmike_ wrote:
| this is the same drack which appears endlessly on Linkedin and
| bluesky and lil blogs. Guess whatelse is pushed? the same drack
| in a Newsletter! Not interested and Hacker news is for so much
| better content than this horseshit.
| analog8374 wrote:
| Thank you for your considered words. I need something like this.
| It helps.
|
| I have a thing. I solved a riddle after much labor. Having solved
| it the fire is gone AND much new possibilities have opened. So
| that's the dilemma.
|
| I'd love to read something longer about this.
| ctrlp wrote:
| Didn't feel the need to check the grammar of the title as the
| essay no longer aligned with goals and interests.
| m3047 wrote:
| I've been consulting since 1984, and before there was a notion of
| "open source" I (and others) had a notion of "tools of the trade"
| that we wrote into contracts. These had to be finished enough in
| a conceptual and artifactual sense sufficiently so as to be
| distinguishable from what was delivered to the customer as the
| customer's property. How public these tools would be was
| negotiable. There wasn't necessarily support, but there was often
| an expectation that bug fixes or functional enhancements would be
| shared with prior recipients / licensees.
|
| So that's kind of my grounded understanding of "finished": that
| something is "finished" given the context it operates in. Meets
| some contractual specifications.
|
| I give away the core components of an (mildly SIEM-like)
| observability platform on GitHub. I publish demo clients, but I
| don't publish the actual clients which I utilize in production. I
| will give them to you if you make friends, demonstrate that you
| can steer the core components, and demonstrate that you're
| capable of providing useful, cogent feedback.
|
| This is a support issue. I don't have the time, patience, or
| interest to provide support theater. I'm not that interested in
| the clients, per se; I'm more interested in what they accomplish
| for me. Let me put it plainly: I'm interested in what they do for
| you if you pay me money to be interested, or I find your
| particular application of personal interest. I don't want to hear
| that the clients are crap because they don't solve your personal
| problem pretzel. I don't want to hear that the client doesn't
| work when the server components aren't set up properly.
|
| I'm pretty comfortable with stuff being finished for a given
| context. That functionality in that context is a kind of oasis or
| petri dish, and if stuff manages to transplant to a different
| context or different inhabitants come to the oasis then I'm
| generally interested in looking at that and reexamining
| "finished"; and that's why I put it out there, in public.
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