I used to leave half finished projects , but my reason was I was never satisfied with the quality.Playing God aint easy . I found a solution however . I give myself deadlines and I keep them. As soon as I reach the deadline , I delete the project files. Back up the source code and declare the project finished . I always cry when I finish a project.

If I had my way , life would be just fine , but the world is too much and it makes be cry .Sometimes I feel like grieving , but I must be wise , because Time is not on my side.

I used to leave half finished projects , but my reason was I was never satisfied with the quality.Playing God aint easy . I found a solution however . I give myself deadlines and I keep them. As soon as I reach the deadline , I delete the project files. Back up the source code and declare the project finished . I always cry when I finish a project.

If I had my way , life would be just fine , but the world is too much and it makes be cry .Sometimes I feel like grieving , but I must be wise , because Time is not on my side.

Same here. Finishing a project is still one of the skills I need to master.
Going OOP helped me a lot lately! It''s now much easier to re-use older stuff, and even if I dont finish a program, I''ve got some more classes that help me with my next...

I''ve finished 1 project, and i''m almost done with another... Would you beleive the reason I finished my first project was because I did not design the whole thing in the first place?

Basically I set up a system where I made a skeleton and shell
program, and then designed each function as i went... design, and then coded it, and when it worked, went on to something else... What this did for me is it gave me small goals to work for, and i don''t mean the kind of goals that you have to write down and remember, i mean little milestones or, little points of advancement. You know in a game to make the player feel he or she is progressing through the game, you usually have some sort of scoring system, and little things to complete along the way to make you feel like you accomplished something. Well the same thing is for programming... I would suggest for one project you do it this way, finish it, and then later you can do the designing because once you''ve completed something you feel you can complete something else...

Anyways my 0010b cents
-Uhfgood

I''ve finished about 8 Projects (Games, Apps, AI-Simulators). That''s about the half of my projects (besides 1000 little experiments).
As you get more experienced, you get more realistic about your possibilities. The main problem for the experienced game programmer is not, that he couldn''t do a special thing, but to keep up motivation. Having solved the main problems, I get bored about details. That''s the point my projects tend to be given up

Wunibald

I''ve only ditched maybe 2 projects, and those were because I was such an inexperienced coder trying to make stuff that was way way out of my league. After them I scaled my goals to something more reasonable, and then in my diary I schedule time to work on code and what should be done in that time.

Usually I give myself about 2x-3x the time I think it will take me to complete the code. I can usually complete it in about 1.5x the time I think it will take me (debugged everything...) and then I just work on making the code readable or rearranging the class to make it more usable and the like.

Set small goals like:
"get a drink from the fridge"
before going really hard core to
"cook a gourmet dinner"

A few good tips:

1. Try not to rush debugging... ABUSE your code!

2. Set time goals for every function you aim on writing for your project... include time for debugging and increasing readability.

3. If you get bored easily with projects then try to run 2 projects side by side... if you get bored with one skip to the other . Also keep a log of ideas, in a text file or whatever and write whatever new ideas you get into that. If when you get a project finished (and as bug-free as possible), skip through your idea text file and find a idea that STILL strikes you as something you want to develop.

4. Remember: A crashing game demo does NOT make you look good at a interview...





Regards,
Nekosion

I have 3 major finished projects. But I''ve left behind dozens, which I mainly used as stepping stones to learn from, then I ditched them, heh.

I''m working on one major project that I hope will end up being finished though .

---

http://www.gdarchive.net/druidgames/

It''s good to know those hundreds of hours didn''t go waste.
Sometimes is good to get rid of those old projects, which were made with bad code.

My new years resolution is to actually finish a project for once No matter how boring it gets... at least it will give me something to show off

I think a part of finishing projects that alot of programmers DONT do, is.. gathering proper requirements. If you say: "I''m going to make a 3d version of space invaders" and that''s your requirements, then you are shooting yourself in the foot. Say a programmer gets the game working then says "Let''s add missles, let''s add special ships, etc." I think the key is to define EXACTLY what we want to make up front, and not deviate from that.
If we want to make a Version 2 of the project, then fine and dandy. That''s great. I think as programmers, we miss the requirements gathering session sometimes, or we dont define it well enough to define finality for a project. I dont think that''s every case, but at the same time, I bet alot of cases are that way. If I''m wrong, tell me.

Besides that, if a programmer has more than 2 projects going at the same time, he''ll never finish a project. It''s just a fact of life except in extraordinary circumstances.


Dave