IonicaBizau
commented
6 years ago Books? Yes! Blogs? Yes!
Sometimes I get ideas when I'm working on something and I realize that I could extend something making it more generic.
For example, scrape-it was something I had in mind for a long time before building it. When I finally decided to build it, I thought: Alright, maybe I will build it step by step and write a tutorial as well!
So, while writing How to write a web scraper in Node.js, I created cheerio-req and wrote some small snippets (used in the post) which after few minutes were the core part of scrape-it.
I remember I published that module on a Thursday or Friday, and on Friday afternoon I left a link on ProductHunt about it. Saturday evening, after the resting, I checked my emails and I was surprised to find lots of emails from Twitter, ProductHunt, and GitHub about scrape-it! It was my first project who went kinda viral on ProductHunt.
Truth is I didn't make a lot of research of existing scrapers in the Node.js community, so I just built one following the JSON syntax ideas I had in my head. 😁
Also, ideas come when I'm resting or relaxing. Sometimes, just being in nature or doing rock balancing—in fact taking few moments for me, to not get distracted by phone notifications, emails etc—helps me too!
I heard about a programmer who before solving a difficult problem, goes to take a few minutes of rest in their hammock and just sits there not thinking about that difficult problem that needs to be solved.
Because I believe we were designed to have Saturday as a day of rest, I end my work few hours before Friday's sunset and coming back after the Saturday's sunset. During this time I put my phone on Airplane mode (unless I'm traveling and have to send pings to my brothers/parents that everything is fine :grin:) and I try to not think of any business/work/coding related things.
Daily I get two newsletters:
I read quickly the titles and open those who seem very interesting.
The Changelog twitter's feed is quite interesting (they share interesting projects) and sometimes I listen to their podcasts.
Along with programming I do other random stuff such as playing piano, experiments including chemistry, high voltage, DIY projects etc. Probably, those help too! 😁
What I noticed is that smaller ideas build greater ideas: like the npm modularization. 😂 It doesn't matter if an idea is a tiny one (e.g. a small project). Just build it. Share it. Maybe after one week, you will get another small one. And maybe after four weeks, a bigger one will come just because previously you put an effort in appreciating the small things. 🚀
Putting love in whatever you do matters. Scripture says that Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might (Ecclesiastes 9:10) and I found that to be correct!
Finally, I just leave another link to a previous interview where you can read my answers to some related questions. 📝
I was reading your answer on your daily routine and can't help but notice you mentioning about
ideas.I see so many repos and wondering
where is your source of idea?Books? Blogs?, etc.Would you recommend some (all preferrably :smile: )
resourcesof your ideas, as well?Thank you~