For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been upgrading my repos on Github, one by one, spending more time on some while not touching others. And you know what I’ve learned? People are so eager to jump into a new project and use new tech that they usually let their old projects rot to death.

Just look back, think about it, how many repos (if any!) do you have that are a year or older? Or several years?

How about all those projects that you have written out on paper but never got to? We;, abandon those. Yeah, you heard me. Or stash them away, make an Evernote notebook for ideas and focus this weekend, instead, on your orphaned children.

What to do with them?

You might be thinking, wtf am I going to do with my tired-old projects? Here’s what comes to mind:

update your libraries and hope to god they work. If they don’t, work out the bugs. Anyone that forked or may fork you will DEFINITELY appreciate this.

update your Readme file and add “to do”s so that in the future, you don’t have to reference this article ;), because, you will bookmark this page, right? Right? Okay.

refactor your code. You’ve learned new tricks, now’s the time to show off. With those updated libraries, you should have more options to dig into.

Add some UX to your front-facing apps, add some OOP to your back-end, create an API if you’re up for it. Basically, take everything one step further

If you created a library, fork it and implement it for a new system/language. For example, if you created some LESS-based buttons, convert them to SASS, create a Bootstrap implementation etc. If you made a Symfony bundle, get rid of the dependencies and push it up to packagist, etc.

implement Git Flow for easier development in the future. Got a feature you’ve an idea for? Make a branch so that you can work on it whenever and leave your production branch clean. Create as many branches as you have features! This is also a great substitute for a to-do list.

running a full-scale app? Implement Vagrant so that you can develop features uniformly across platforms.

create a landing page or a demo page demonstrating how your app works.

I spent some time doing exactly this, updating the look of a theme updating my CSS framework on my WP theme (creating an unofficial fork of that framework), adding animations to an app, adding local storage etc. It was a great experience, especially seeing my own style evolve through time.

What do I get out of it?

Right right, your own interests are the most important. So what do you get out of supporting/updating your old crummy projects that you probably won’t use or were just a “one time thing”? Well, leave the “one night stand” mentality when it comes to your projects behind. Projects are here so that you can continuously improve them. But let’s put it in a neat bullet form:

You learn how to upgrade code. Creating from scratch is one thing, but having to take a full project and upgrading it, bit by bit, can be difficult.

You learn a lot about yourself. Looking back will help you learn about yourself. Did you format your code right? Did you use too little/too much commenting?

You will reorganize your code projects and this is definitely great. You have more up-to-date pieces to work on and dive into whenever you feel like it.

You will have an upgraded portfolio for future employers or as “street cred” on various dev-oriented social sites.

Your own apps will be upgraded and you will have your own code to use in your future projects.

Twist: Develop one app fully

Pick one app and develop it fully. Instead of just making a “workable prototype”, create a redistributable product. Did you make a CMS? Why not make a sweet back-end and make a landing page for it?

It does take extra time but hobby projects, when finished, bring about a great value to who you are and how you code. Having a long-term project that you can continuously improve and release is a great thing.

Second Twist: Comment posting your update repo

And I’ll link to that Repo if it’s an interesting project. Exposure is always a good idea, right?

Repos

Mine

My To-Do App – added localstorage saving and animation

Minimalist Stacey Theme – added Foundation and re-did 90% of the look

Readers