Motivations and choices - a response to "The creative agency of small projects"
In The creative agency of small projects, Herman Martinus (creator of Bear) describes an approach to software development that emphasizes joy in the building process and the satisfaction of sticking to self-imposed constraints.
Reading Herman's post, I reflected on how & why I've been building Frogtab - and I realized that creating a product that feels loved (if only by myself) has probably been my biggest motivator.
In other words, if it hadn't have been Frogtab, it would have been something else. Yes, I was in search of a new task management tool, so in that sense I did have a "need" to build. But my real driving force was a hunger to create; to express a point of view; to play.
There's also the challenge of picking constraints/values and trying to follow them as closely as possible. As Herman notes, this isn't necessarily going to be the optimal way to develop software, but it sure is fun!
To round out this quick post, here's what guides the development of Frogtab:
- Store everything in-browser unless absolutely necessary
- Aggressively minimize third-party dependencies (basically only allow encryption related libs)
- Prioritize desktop
- Optimize for long-term stability
- Don't skimp on user docs. Once a technical writer, always a technical writer 🙂