Pangea - Alternative Gui To Gmenu

[efegea]

I'm being depressed I wanted to make a great, great OS interface for this great, great device, and one? two? years after what I have? nothing! I even have less than what I had one year ago. At least one year ago I had that icon interface that could be seen on youtube. But my obsession with improving it made me start it again from scratch, and again and again. That, and a weird problem I'm suffering, related to the impossibility of finishing all the projects I start, but I haven't found the reason, perhaps a combination of lack of motivation, constancy, too many projects at same time, or whatever it could be (it's more complex that it seems..)
Perhaps my problem have originated by my lack of "obligations"...I couldn't start this year at school because lack of vacancies (if this is the word that means that I got out because there was too much people wanting to study the same as me) and neither could get a job. So I stay all day at my home at pc doing practically nothing, I only get out of my house when my friends call me. I think this is affecting me too much but is hard for me to solve it..(seems easy but it isn't..) I'm sorry for telling you all this sad story that nobody cares..but I have to explain the situation of Pangea development and it involves me..

And what about all that secretism? I wanted it to be a surprise, to show it when it were finished and impress everyone, but also was a way to hide the little work I had done because of the constant from-scratch rewrites and the little time I was spending on it (because of that problem I was talking about, that problem that is getting worse day by day) But that's not the open-community way of doing things. I think I've done too many things wrong..

I really, really want to finish this project, and it has to be an incredible interface, but seems I'm starting to surrender to it. I have a lot of ideas on paper but I never get them finished. And then I get a new better idea and the cycle starts again. But it always stays as the idea and the research for the way of how I will implement that idea, I start planning the design, the code, but I stay at that, I never get far from that. At least, that's how things have been lately, not one year or two ago when things were better. And what will you think if I say now that I'm starting to think that my latest idea (that was cool) isn't good enough and I need to, at least not discard it completely but rethink it :unsure:

I didn't want to tell all this, but I felt that I had to, although this will change your concept of me and it will be worse for me..but still I had to tell this. I've tried to write this post a few times but I have always deleted it before posting..

Perhaps I need more motivation? perhaps when the Pandora is released? I've thought that perhaps with the Pandora on my hands my motivation would be enought but that won't happen. No Pangea no Pandora.

One option could be starting to share all my ideas with the community. Perhaps the constant talk helps me to work on it. But what if after all the promises I still don't work on it? aarrrggghh why I have always to find a problem for all the possible solutions? :blink:


Note to myself: please stop writing and press "add reply" now!!....... ....... . ..... NOW!! GO AND POST IT!! stop thinking about what you have writen, and post it! h34r:

 

[kingoddball]

It's a great project and idea. I hope to use it soon enough!

 

[bzar]

I've been there. My advice? Just do it. Nail down what you do and write all your ideas after that point to a backlog. Start coding what you have nailed down and only after releasing that allow yourself to take some more from the backlog. Start simple. Sharing is good, because you get feedback. Don't ffeel obligated because others know about your project. Sometimes projects just end with whatever reason. Chin up and have a go! What's there to lose? B)

 

[gruso]

Perhaps my problem have originated by my lack of "obligations"...I couldn't start this year at school because lack of vacancies (if this is the word that means that I got out because there was too much people wanting to study the same as me) and neither could get a job. So I stay all day at my home at pc doing practically nothing, I only get out of my house when my friends call me. I think this is affecting me too much but is hard for me to solve it..(seems easy but it isn't..) I'm sorry for telling you all this sad story that nobody cares..but I have to explain the situation of Pangea development and it involves me..

This resonates with me. Some people have boundless energy and drive. No matter how much they have going on in their lives (work, family, school) they manage to achieve great things in their free time, whether they be coding projects, artisitic creations, whatever. Give these people even more free time and the sky is the limit. I know there are quite a few of those in this community. But, not everyone is like that. I'm not, and I guess you're not either. It's not necessarily a failing, it's just a different personality type.

I was unemployed for much of 2006 & 2007, after being employed full time for my entire adult life (I'm now 33). The effect of this on me, in hindsight, was terrible. I was going through exactly what you describe. I could be in front a computer all day but achieve absolutely nothing. I stopped wanting to go anywhere, or do anything. Friends had to badger me to come out, and evenutally most of them stopped bothering. It was depression. Not as in sadness, or anything dramatic or suicidal, just a complete lack of motivation or interest in anything. Everyone is susceptible to it, some more than others.

One day towards the end of 07, a good friend woke me up to the problem. I don't function without structure. I put my mind to getting back into work, I made it happen, and things changed almost overnight. Having to get out of bed every morning, no matter how much I grumble, go to work, meet expectations, get home in time for dinner & some valuable hours on the internets - all this is what keeps me ticking. It made me look forward to weekends again, made me social again. On the whole it made me more productive outside work hours than when I had all that free time to myself.

So, perhaps worrying about how to get Pangea rolling again is not your top priority. See if you can look at the bigger picture, find out what's going to make you function more effectively. Chances are it's nothing to do with coding or computers. Life is made of many pieces, and what you do on a computer is just one of them. If you want that one piece to work, you need all the other pieces to be working too. As you mentioned, obligations are a good motivator. Part time work, community volunteering, more drinks with friends, whatever - sign yourself up for stuff like this in those moments when you're feeling good, and even if you're feeling slack when the time comes around, you'll have to force yourself to honour the promises you made. All this will help give you back energy that you can use on your coding projects.

 

[efegea]

I didn't want to reply until tomorrow, have been 7 hours since I should have gone to bed, but I can't sleep and so I'm still here.

I have to say a big thank you, "don't worry be happy", "just do it", and your post Gruso..wow, thanks! The good thing is that I've already realized about that and the next step is to do it. It's what I meant when I said "its hard to solve it (seems easy but it isnt)" but hard or easy, I have to do it. I say it's not easy because I can't find things to stay obligated (how hard is to speak a non-native language!!) but I've found one!! a course of English! :lol: I had thought about this before christmas but sometimes seems easier to stay as usual (in my case at home doing nothing), people are reluctant to changes. But not!! I will not be that kind of people. I will go to the academy tomorrow.

 

[gruso]

Nice one. Good luck.

ps. I think everyone in the world needs to own this DVD: One Giant Leap: What About Me

It's music & spoken word from around the world, and one of the most amazing productions I have ever seen. It's kind of hard to put it into words without sounding corny, but it's something that is relevant to anyone who is human - especially those who have felt disconnected. It's not religious or anything like that, just music, people, and inspiration.

 

[davidgro]

...
I say it's not easy because I can't find things to stay obligated (how hard is to speak a non-native language!!) but I've found one!! a course of English! :lol: I had thought about this before christmas but sometimes seems easier to stay as usual (in my case at home doing nothing), people are reluctant to changes. But not!! I will not be that kind of people. I will go to the academy tomorrow.

You certainly have found a challenge! I once tried to learn another language (Japanese) and as hard as it was for me (I failed the class) it really made me realize how hard it must be to learn English with all our complex rules that each have exceptions. You do have a very good head start though: You write more clearly than many people I know here in the USA. In fact I didn't look at where you were from and see you were non-native until you said so in that post.

I do hope this works out for you - and not just because I selfishly want to see Pangea released (which I do). Good luck!

 

[Trip]

One day towards the end of 07, a good friend woke me up to the problem. I don't function without structure.

Got the same problem, need to keep myself busy but I've been out of work for over 5 years now

Good luck efegea. I hope you do well in your English course and it helps you to get out of this rut your stuck in. Nothing worse than being stuck and feeling lost.

 

[God Ginrai]

Efegea, I have the same problem on certain projects, I plan to do something, and then I just can't seem to get it done. I'm glad to see that you are taking the initiative by signing up for an English class. Classes are a unique thing, they can help you set goals. (Even if it is just to finish the homework) This will help outside of class, because you'll be more used to doing these things. I hope everything goes well, and I hope you enjoy your class. ^_^

-God Ginrai

 

[PokeParadox]

Yes motivation is hard to maintain at times. Which can lead to the vcircle where you end up being able to do less and less because... just because.

Setting goals and trying to schedule certain things is a good way to keep going.
And yes I have also been stuck in this particular rut! So you are not alone!

 

[efegea]

I have gone to the academy and to a computer store where they impart English classes. Both with English native teachers. But first is only two hours/day, one day per week (!!). And second is also 2h/day but 2days/week. And both are at the evening. I'd prefer five days, mondays to fridays, more hours and at morning, but well.... I think I'll go for the one that is two days per week but I'll have to find another occupation for the mornings...And that's what have been stopping me for doing things: I've always been unable to find any occupation..!

On the academy they say they are waiting for courses for unemployed people, these courses meet my needs of monday to friday on mornings, but it depends of the educational institutions and they are taking ages...

 

[mindlord]

God, I know what a rut is... I've been trying to build up the motivation to work on my latest game for like 4 months now. I haven't gotten 1 line of code written yet. I have read a few programming books though, so I guess that's good.

 

[dflemstr]

God, I know what a rut is... I've been trying to build up the motivation to work on my latest game for like 4 months now. I haven't gotten 1 line of code written yet. I have read a few programming books though, so I guess that's good.

Dudes, I'm in the exact same situation as you are. I've only managed to release small projects that you can work on periodically and don't have to put a lot of effort into, like Panorama which I worked on only on days when I could be bothered to and at times when I was feeling like I could accomplish something. If I had worked on it 24/7 it would've been finished in 2 days, but nobody can stay that focused.

I've got a game planned for 7 months that I haven't managed to put down in code. I've made prototypes in Java, Scala, Haskell, C, C++, Python, using 5 different physics engines, 4 different scene graph managers, 7 different concepts, etc, etc. No dice, the motivation hasn't been there.

That's the curse of being an open source developer I guess; you'll only do something when you feel like doing it, no sooner. A pay acts like a good carrot sometimes.

My advice (I'm not really in a state to give advice on this myself but yeah) would be to simply set a very narrow goal that motivates and pushes you forward. If you can make yourself think that "This is gonna be awesome, nothing can stand in my way on the road of success" (even though it might not be awesome to others, you mustn't think that yourself) it will drive you to continue. Most of the time. If Jupiter and Saturn are aligned.

Find something that can make Pangea unique. A gimmick or a completely new idea, than nobody has ever heard of before, or a combination of cutting edge technologies that no one thought of. Should it be physics-based? Should it use CouchDB for data storage? Should the whole UI be rendered using HTML5 canvas elements? Should it be a compositing window manager? Should it be written in some new and exciting language? These are of course bad ideas I mentioned but there are endless possibilities.

 

[efegea]

Find something that can make Pangea unique. A gimmick or a completely new idea, than nobody has ever heard of before, or a combination of cutting edge technologies that no one thought of. Should it be physics-based? Should it use CouchDB for data storage? Should the whole UI be rendered using HTML5 canvas elements? Should it be a compositing window manager? Should it be written in some new and exciting language? These are of course bad ideas I mentioned but there are endless possibilities.

That's what caused the constants rewrites. One day I have a new original idea that can make Pangea unique. The next day I've forgotten it and the motivation has gone. Same story repeating again and again.

But, do you remember what I said on my first "sad post"? something about the latest idea I've had and that I was thinking that I had to rethink it? Well, I've been working on it a bit and if the latest interface I had in mind for Pangea was cool, now the new one is COOOOL. It's pretty for the eyes (we all like eyecandy) and should work very well with game controls, keyboard and touch screen. It (what I have in mind) is very very nice, but it's still that, an idea and a pretty mockup made with gimp and inkscape. But in my head I can see how the interface will be interacted and how the elements will move with smooth and carefully done animations (that's the Qt+QML magic ) Sadly, it's too late and I must go to bed, and even if I don't, I'm too tired to start working on Pangea. Perhaps tomorrow..


Now, I have to decide if I'll share all my ideas and mockups, concepts.. for discussion and even improvement of those ideas, but with the risk of someone stealing my ideas before it gets released (yeah, I should not think that way but I have fear for all my work to be stealed, and the people not giving credit or finishing their projects before me.. making my work a waste of time and effort). Anyway, I'll ask for free to use or at least, creative commons, pictures, which I'll need for some elements of the interface. At this moment I have some creative commons photos from flickr but I haven't asked the autors for permission (although they are CC..) and some of them are not the most suitable for the nice interface Pangea must be. I'll ask for that, the pictures, and for more suitable "words" for the menu items..so I will need help anyway..why not share my ideas then?

EDIT: Forgive that. Tomorrow I will open a new thread. Period.

 

[laurencevde]

Seems to me like you should get a job in UI-design. Seems like that's what you're good at, and like doing...

 

[laurencevde]

[grr stupid IP.board. mod, remove this post please]

 

[laurencevde]

[grr stupid IP.board. mod, remove this post please]

 

[darionapole]

efegea, just
1) set a goal, finish it even if you don't like how it goes, once finished realease it
2) then take a piece of paper, annotate what you dont like and stuff and what people think about your release
3) rework JUST those areas, bug, etc, finish them and realease the new version
4) goto 2;


that how i do things, maybe it helps you

oh, btw, your situation happened to me some time ago, you spend all the day doing nothing (u want to do something but just dont feel like it) and then regret of not having done something and having wasted the time. The solution is "Force yourself to start something and finish it", to do this you must ignore your "tiredness" and do it like a machine that doesn't have feelings, as when u have to do something that u don't like but are obligated because of work or some compromise. This works must of the times for me

 

[BackAssward]

...
I was unemployed for much of 2006 & 2007, after being employed full time for my entire adult life (I'm now 33). The effect of this on me, in hindsight, was terrible. I was going through exactly what you describe. I could be in front a computer all day but achieve absolutely nothing. I stopped wanting to go anywhere, or do anything. Friends had to badger me to come out, and evenutally most of them stopped bothering. It was depression. Not as in sadness, or anything dramatic or suicidal, just a complete lack of motivation or interest in anything. Everyone is susceptible to it, some more than others.

One day towards the end of 07, a good friend woke me up to the problem. I don't function without structure.

Interesting... I've taken the last year 'off' and pretty much feel like doing nothing. I absolutely hate the thought of work, but you might be on to something.

Edit: The problem is, I usually don't care much for other people's structure. It's often created by short sighted, dim witted people... kinda suffocating.