I’d like to talk about side projects. If you’re a strict nine to fiver then this blog post probably isn’t for you.

A lot of the side projects that I created when I first started programming were fairly ambitious in their functionality and complexity, this led to the average project I started taking at least a week to get to the point of releasable. Recently I started what I call “The One Hour Side Project”.

One of the things I love about javascript and web in general is the lack of effort required to get started. The popularity of PHP regardless of your opinion of the language is further proof of that. This idea of making things consumable in bite sized pieces is an extremely powerful concept and attracts people to it.

“The One Hour Side Project” takes this idea to the area of side projects.

The first thing I would recommend would be to create a RandomProjects folder or something of that nature in your home/projects directory. When you think of something small or see a novel way to extend another library go ahead and create a folder/fork a repo and start hacking. The goal is to have something workable before you get up.

Ever create a browserify transform? Make a toUppercase transform
Curious about testing frameworks? Make a micro clone
Don’t really “get” promises? Create your own take on it
Want it include jQuery on any page? Create a bookmarklet
Don’t like the exact functionality of an extension? Fork it and modify

Screw around with some async stuff. Write a 10 line quicksort. Try to break babel. Start a blog.

Now get out there any make something!