Release early, dammit!
7. Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.
For some time now I have been working on a project. It originally started out as a little tool I wanted to use for myself, but then decided that it might be worth to publish the project. Ever since the first parts were ready I’ve had several moments where I thought ‘Hey, just a little more and I can publish’. But I never did.
The reason for this is simple: every time you round up a feature there is always one more to add, one more thing to refactor, one more part to clean up. If you are ever going to start a project with the intention of making it public – open source or not – you might as well publish it now, because you’ll always be just one step away.
I am therefore making a promise: I will take two weeks to wrap up the features I am now working on (there are currently two left). I will publish the project by october 31st.
If I don’t, I’m buying you all a beer.