For new projects, both at work or on the side, I like to imagine I have a “new stuff budget.” That forces me to spend it wisely.
If I over-spend my new stuff budget, I take on debt, much like tech debt, that I’ll have to pay down later. I’ll make slower progress because I’m trying to learn too many things at once, and I’ll have to go back and fix suboptimal tradeoffs where I didn’t have enough experience to make the right tradeoff at the time.
Conversely, if I don’t spend the new stuff budget at all, then I won’t learn anything new and might miss out on a tool that would have made the problem easier.
For side projects where the whole point is learning, sometimes I’ll spend my new stuff budget by e.g. learning a new frontend framework first, writing the backend in something I know. Then once I’m familiar with everything and have built back up the new stuff budget, I’ll go back and reimplement the backend in the new language I wanted to use, leaving the rest of the stack unchanged.
If I over-spend my new stuff budget, I take on debt, much like tech debt, that I’ll have to pay down later. I’ll make slower progress because I’m trying to learn too many things at once, and I’ll have to go back and fix suboptimal tradeoffs where I didn’t have enough experience to make the right tradeoff at the time.
Conversely, if I don’t spend the new stuff budget at all, then I won’t learn anything new and might miss out on a tool that would have made the problem easier.
For side projects where the whole point is learning, sometimes I’ll spend my new stuff budget by e.g. learning a new frontend framework first, writing the backend in something I know. Then once I’m familiar with everything and have built back up the new stuff budget, I’ll go back and reimplement the backend in the new language I wanted to use, leaving the rest of the stack unchanged.