Introduction: The Hidden Teachers of My Own Projects
Side projects, undertaken on my own initiative, have become the greatest learning grounds in my career. These are the moments when I can step away from the processes required by large corporate projects and engage directly with technology. However, this freedom comes with its own set of challenges. One of the most significant is the ability to systematically manage retries, especially in error situations. Over the past decade, I've developed numerous side projects, from my personal financial calculator to a mobile spam blocker. Through the experiences gained, I've tried to establish four fundamental strategies for learning from mistakes and moving forward. In this post, I'll explain these strategies and how I apply them with real-life examples.
These side projects are not just pieces of code for me; they are also a platform for continuous development. While I gain corporate experience working on production ERP systems or internal banking platforms, these personal projects allow me to gain different perspectives and adopt experimental approaches. For instance, the optimizations I make in my personal financial calculators running on my own VPS can sometimes shed light on database performance issues in main projects. In this article, I will share my thoughts on how to manage retries more intelligently, as taught to me by these "hidden teachers."
