Introducing: Labs

Like most people, I spend a lot of time trying out a new idea, hitting a wall with the idea, and then throwing the idea out. The large gaps in posts here are a symptom of that, but it's not necessarily a problem. Trying things out is good, it's a healthy part of creating things: and throwing things away or iterating on them is an important part of that process.

However, keeping these things locked away from the public eye doesn't benefit anyone. Sure it feels safer - away from criticisms, away from critique, away from prying eyes and away from people who want to tell you something is a waste of time when you toss it aside to explore something new.

So in an extraordinary example of the creative process, I've come up with a groundbreaking, never-before-thought-of way to share more things more often, and set expectations accordingly: Labs.

Why Now?

Honestly, the presence of AI in the software development space means it's much faster to iterate through projects, and run into that wall faster. While there's still a minimum level of "completeness" I'll always strive for before sharing what I'm working on, it's now much easier to iterate through the early validations quickly, confirm that something works, make it shareable (at which points it's "labs ready"), and then return to polish/expand/whatever on it after spending some time away from the project.

The first 4 projects aren't necessarily anything special and weren't chosen for any particular reason, they're just the first of the ongoing projects to hit that minimum level of functionality and quality to be shared. At the time of writing there's 36 different projects in various states I'm tracking, and I'm sure that number will grow at an alarming rate over a number of weeks.

What's in Labs?

To start with, 4 projects: some AI code golf, wordle solving algorithms, a Discord alert bot for OpenRouter model changes, and the design system tying most of these things together.

I do hope yet to write at least a single article for each labs project, but for now they're up and open for viewing.

What's Next?

This post itself is a return after some time away from writing, as it turns out setting up this type of project-of-projects takes a bit more effort than I was first expecting. However, now we're live and hopefully, thankfully, it's smoother sailing from here.

I'm still looking for other ways to commit to shorter form content on a more regular basis, and there's half a dozen draft articles I need to commit time to finishing up.

There's also upcoming labs projects related to emulation, software update management, content generation/management, game prototypes, AI-related content, MacOS apps, mobile apps, productivity tools, you name it. The only real connection between them is that they started as an idea, turned into an experiment, and hopefully they'll yet turn into something to share.