I spent three months building what I thought was a masterpiece. Clean architecture. Proper separation of concerns. Full test coverage. Everything I learned in my career, poured into this side project.
Then I stopped working on it. Not because I got busy. Not because I lost interest. I stopped because it was too damn hard to change anything.
The Trap of Over-Engineering
Here’s what happened. I built this personal dashboard with:
- A complex state management system
- Eight different abstraction layers
- Configuration files for everything
- Three different ways to handle the same type of data
When I wanted to add a simple feature – show today’s weather – I had to touch six files. Six! For weather data.
What I Learned
For side projects, speed beats structure. I’d rather ship something messy that works than something perfect that never gets finished.
Now I ask myself one question before adding any abstraction: Am I solving a problem I actually have, or a problem I think I’ll have?
Most of the time, it’s the second one.
The best code for a side project is the code that lets you ship today.
I’m not saying throw away best practices. But there’s a difference between clean code and over-engineered code. I learned that the hard way.