[HN Gopher] Archive your old projects
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Archive your old projects
Author : abahlo
Score : 190 points
Date : 2023-11-12 11:40 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arne.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (arne.me)
| andershaig wrote:
| I've started tracking an index of projects and their status in
| Notion. Then I create an extra page based on a template to put
| things on hold but make them resumable in the future.
|
| In my index, I track: name, status (active, paused, inactive),
| description, goal and a link to the archive doc if it exist.
|
| My archive doc looks like this (I generally delete any sections
| that aren't relevant to keep these easy to create):
| # <TITLE> ### *Handoff to Future Me: <project name>*
| ### *Snapshot Date*: <date> --- ### *Project Summary*
| - *Objective*: Briefly state what you're trying to achieve.
| - *Motivation*: What drove you to start this project? -
| *Current State*: Is it in the ideation phase, research phase, or
| have you already built something? --- ### *Essential
| Context* - *Related Projects or Dependencies*: Are there
| any other projects or tasks that are connected to this one?
| - *Technical Specs*: For example, in your lamp project, what type
| of metal, what voltage for the lamp, etc. - *Non-Standard
| Tools & Environment*: Any unique or specific tools you're using.
| For example, a specific code IDE or a special type of
| screwdriver. --- ### *Progress and Milestones*
| - *Last Completed Milestone*: What was the last significant thing
| you accomplished? - *Next Steps*: Like you said, for your
| lamp: research, clean metal, buff, etc. - *Stumbling
| Blocks*: Any challenges you foresee or have encountered? -
| *Any Experiments/Tests Conducted*: Brief on what you've tried and
| the outcomes. --- ### *Resources* - *Important
| Files & Locations*: Where are the project assets or codebase
| stored? - *Reference Material*: Links to guides, tutorials,
| or papers that are crucial. - *Key Contacts*: Who can you
| consult about this? Even if it's an online community. ---
| ### *Handoff Summary* - *Why Stopping*: Why are you pausing
| this project? --- ### *Notes to Future Me* -
| Personal notes, reminders, or advice to your future self about
| the project.
| dewey wrote:
| A closed source app like that seems like the worst choice for
| an "archive". Better to use a format that you can easily backup
| and that will still be readable in many years like a simple
| text file.
| skydhash wrote:
| Not really if you can code. Even apple notes is not that bad
| because the database is readable (and there are already
| script to export). What I fear is when companies lock you
| data on their servers and you have to keep paying or be a
| good citizen to access it.
| dewey wrote:
| The nice thing about plain text, easy to find archives is
| that they can even be useful (maybe not for yourself any
| more) if you for some reason can't use your computer any
| more.
| donatj wrote:
| > compiled .exe files
|
| > Not sure what to do with these besides deleting
|
| I was recently digging through some old backups for fun, and have
| so many little exe's I built in highschool and college just
| laying around.
|
| I moved to Mac shortly after college and made the questionable
| decision to back up my old hard drives as Mac .dmg files before
| getting rid of the computers, so getting the exe's into a running
| version of Windows to even test is a pain.
|
| A lot of the older ones are pretty neat little games and graphics
| demos made for DOS. Be neat to get a little VM up on my site
| running some of these but I suspect it might be a pretty large
| undertaking.
| ta988 wrote:
| Not that hard with dosbox look at what Archive.org has done.
| aninteger wrote:
| > Be neat to get a little VM up on my site running some of
| these but I suspect it might be a pretty large undertaking.
|
| It might not be too bad. I feel like there are a lot of little
| web assembly projects running on various sites that you could
| easily use. For a retro project I am working on I needed the
| MASM 5.00 reference manual and the site had PCjs running on it.
| Archive.org has there own web assembly emulator as well.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| A few months ago I went through my repos on GitHub and marked
| everything I built with Vue as "archived" which is nice as it
| prevents any new issues being opened and very clearly indicates
| the project is no longer maintained.
|
| I think it would have been a bad idea to simply outright delete
| them, though I did delete a few.
| JCharante wrote:
| May I ask what you switched to? I used Vue everyday for 3-4
| years and then went all in on React when I joined a former
| employer. Looking at my Vue projects gives me a sense of
| nostalgia.
| raybb wrote:
| If not putting them online publicly how do you store / organize
| them?
|
| I just recently bought a NAS for 20 euros and have been thinking
| about setting it up but am skeptical of relying on it for
| anything too important. But then again don't feel I can really
| trust anything too important to be in google drive either.
|
| I also even have a hetzner nextcloud instance that I use for most
| low/medium importance stuff but I've found it a bit unreliable
| with the connection failing, mountainduck causing finder to
| crash, and the website getting quite sluggish when I upload a
| bunch of photos.
| bombcar wrote:
| The key is multiple copies everywhere. Storage is cheap these
| days, so you can keep more than one copy - and digital hoarding
| doesn't take up much space at all.
| bxparks wrote:
| The problem with multiple copies everywhere that is:
|
| 1) You can never remember which copy is the master or the
| most recent. And a backup is not a backup unless you test the
| restore regularly. But with multiple copies, we don't have
| the time to test the restores of all the backups.
|
| 2) If any of the syncing scripts stop working, you will not
| know for ages. Unless you have another layer of monitoring
| scripts that watch your backup scripts. But almost no one has
| the patience to do that.
|
| I have at least 3 copies of my important files, in 3
| different locations. But I fail on both of my points above.
| bluehatbrit wrote:
| I don't store much stuff, so I mostly backup to AWS S3 and
| Backblaze (duplicated). I use Arq on windows and mac machines,
| and restic on linux. Job done! I'm looking at getting a NAS
| soon myself and then I'll backup or save to that as needed.
|
| If you're not storing much then it's pretty cheap. For me it's
| mostly just photos and important documents, it comes to no more
| than a few 100GB total and costs me maybe 5 USD per month if
| that.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Where did you buy a NAS for 20 Euros?
|
| My old DNS-320 was ~100 euro new. And it kind of sucked.
| raybb wrote:
| An ancient Synology Disk Station DS112j with a 1TB hdd from
| fb marketplace.
|
| I've never had a NAS before so wanted to play around with it
| before deciding to invest in a nicer one that can do more
| like handle Plex.
| RajT88 wrote:
| After my DNS-320 I concluded to make it do everything I
| wanted, I need to really have a full OS I have control
| over.
|
| So I built a box from one of those 4 bay Mini ITX chassis'.
| More expensive but I am loving the FOSS options like
| JellyFin.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Kind of jealous of your 20 Euro NAS. But generally the key to
| longevity is having data in many independent locations. Since
| you're already using Hetzner, backing up your NAS to a Hetzner
| StorageBox is easy and cheap. The StorageBoxes are occasionally
| down for maintenance and don't have top performance, but for
| backup they are fine. Then you can just use the NAS as primary
| storage.
| calamari4065 wrote:
| As everyone else said, redundancy equals reliability. You can
| automatically sync to AWS or backblaze for offsite backups.
| Locally you'll want a second and/or third backup. My proxmox
| server syncs to a USB hard drive locally, then I manually take
| that to the office now and then to sync to a different drive I
| store in my desk. Critical stuff is also stored in a third
| drive I keep in a firebox at home.
|
| You can automate as much or as little as you want, but you have
| to keep multiple copies around. You can't trust any single
| source. Individual drives fail, tapes go bad, cloud storage can
| disappear or become corrupt.
|
| The 3-2-1 rule is a good place to start. Three copies on two
| different media, and at least one copy off-site
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| My corollary axiom: "always be documentin'", or, "document or it
| didn't happen".
|
| I'd say easily 3/4 of the best stuff I've ever done was never
| bounced from the DAW/NLE, turned into a non-realtime/static
| artifact from code, or otherwise made archival, and far fewer
| projects / prototypes / physical experiments got the respect of
| any capture of any kind.
|
| On a certain level I like the wabi-sabi nature of that. On
| another I wonder how many opportunities to converse or
| collaborate about mutual interests or future opportunities went
| by the wayside because I 'labored in obscurity' for so much of my
| life.
|
| I've been doing some coaching for folks coming up in my industry
| recently and this has been an idea I've tried to convey early and
| often - "always be documentin'".
| bxparks wrote:
| I read this like 3-4 times and I cannot parse or understand
| this comment. What does "DAW/NLE" mean? (DDG search says
| Digital Audio Workstation, and a whole bunch of links to
| something NLE Choppa). What does "non-realtime/static artifact
| from code" mean? What does "got the respect of any capture"
| mean? What does "wabi-sabi" mean? How does all this relate to
| "always documenting"?
| dc96 wrote:
| DAW/NLE = digital audio workstation/non-linear editing (you'd
| have to search both terms in order to get the correct
| context, especially if used right next to each other).
|
| The author is probably talking about video editing of some
| kind, whereby he either regrets not saving more source code
| or taking more screenshots of his work if I had to wager a
| guess. Not sure what the "non-realtime/static artifact from
| code" refers to when it comes to video editing -- perhaps
| much of it was rendered from code? 3D software, programmatic
| editing, etc.?
|
| Wabi-sabi being used a bit weirdly in this context, but I
| think they mean the temporality of it all has innate beauty.
| Sometimes not capturing every single moment/line of code is
| OK, and there is beauty in a moment not strictly captured, to
| be appreciated more since you'll never see it again.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| Yeah sorry to be oblique .. you are correct in regard to
| the intended meaning of DAW, NLE, and wabi-sabi. As for
| static artifacts, in my case I work with generative systems
| quite a lot, often durational systems that make image /
| sound / lighting / movement stochastically or non-
| deterministically over long periods, and are generally a
| living thing that has behavior. While a picture or other
| recording of those things represents a shadow image of what
| the real thing is, it beats nothing.
|
| In this case, I mention wabi-sabi as the zen acceptance,
| even beauty, of the transience of all things, because it
| makes the creative act primary, rather than a very un-zen
| attempt to hold on to something fleeting, which some would
| say is the source of all unhappiness.
| hypertexthero wrote:
| Create a folder on your computer or get a sturdy box made of good
| cardboard with a lid. Name the folder "Process". Write the word
| "Process" on the box.
|
| While working, occasionally take photos or screenshots of what
| you are doing showing your workspace, the computer desktop, the
| desk with pencils and papers and cables everywhere, the wall or
| piece of string with notes. Show the messy process of creating
| something.
|
| Type notes on text files and save them with a name like yyyy-mm-
| dd-note-title.txt. Write notes on bits of paper and notebooks and
| journals with pencils and pens that you keep all around the
| places you spend most of your time in, including within arms-
| reach of where you sleep.
|
| Practice writing down notes on a piece of paper in the dark, so
| you can do so when waking up in the night, before daybreak, to
| jot down thoughts and ideas from dreams.
|
| Record messages and melodies using your pocket computer and
| remember to save these in your Process folder, too. You are
| looking for your voice.
|
| Put these digital and physical notes in the Process folder and in
| the Process box.
|
| Thank yourself later, in years to come.
|
| You are what you observed. Experiences, memories, stories to be
| told. Put your marker on the map in time, that others may find
| and learn from.
| logifail wrote:
| > Practice writing down notes on a piece of paper in the dark >
| Thank yourself later, in years to come
|
| I only found out about this many decades after it happened, but
| on the occasion of my grandfather's 60th birthday, way back in
| 1980-ish, my mother presented with him a large bound empty
| notebook labelled with his name, and explained that the purpose
| of the gift was that he was to start making notes about his
| life.
|
| It sounds incredible, but he started writing.
|
| All kinds of (what must have seemed) completely inconsequential
| stuff, what he remembered about the home he grew up in, the
| schools he went to, the friends he'd had, the whole nine yards.
|
| He died not that many years later.
|
| Note to everyone who's read this far: grab the chance to do
| this - either as the one writing, or the one who gifts the
| notebook! - while you have the chance.
|
| "Tempus fugit" and all that.
| hypertexthero wrote:
| Thank you for this idea.
|
| I've given notebooks to my mom to encourage her to write, but
| don't think I ever wrote her name on the cover. The next one
| will have it.
|
| Also, consider recording a conversation between you and your
| loved one with the voice recorder on your phone. I have one
| brief recording of my dad's voice in an old VHS tape that I
| burned to DVD and copied to the computer, and that's it.
|
| Memories.
|
| Often the most powerful objects in films, to me, are
| photographs. Like the polaroids in Thelma and Louise and both
| Blade Runners.
|
| Also old school VHS footage, like in Bassackwards by Kurt
| Vile -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOFWHty4XFQ -- and
| What About That Day by Jenny O.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxCBnKu5jyk
| scarface_74 wrote:
| My dad is 80 years old and he loves playing the piano and
| now the keyboard. He never learned how to read music and he
| plays by ear. He mostly plays and sings Motown classics.
| I've captured a few video clips of his playing and singing
| when I go back home.
|
| I back up all of my videos and pictures to iCloud,
| OneDrive, Google Photos and Amazon Drive (pictures only).
|
| As far as my own writing, my wife and I are what I call
| "hybrid digital nomads and snowbirders". I have a blog over
| at micro.blog where I write about our journey.
| brnt wrote:
| Tried it with my parents, not unexpectedly did they not want
| to partake in such overly personal tomfoolery.
|
| Not all people, perhaps not even most, enjoy creating.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| What have you found to be most valuable / meaningful years
| later?
| LVB wrote:
| My main, albeit simple, local organizational pattern is: 1.
| everything under ~/dev 2. all projects are their own folder under
| a year folder. And if I ever restart work on something older, I
| move it to the current year.
|
| I have hundreds of project folders and it's helpful day-to-day to
| just be able to look in ~/dev/2023 for current stuff. But it is
| also relatively easy to find older things since I have a sense of
| roughly how far back they are. Making a new year folder right
| around Jan 1 and rolling forward active work is always a treat.
| andai wrote:
| >it is also relatively easy to find older things since I have a
| sense of roughly how far back they are
|
| I have a ~/dev/file_list.txt, generated by
| find . > file_list.txt
|
| (I think I might have added a flag to exclude node_modules...)
|
| I drag the output file into Sublime Text, so I can search the
| entire directory instantly. (It also works for entire hard
| drives!)
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| Just wanna say, thank you to the people in this thread sharing
| your archive strategies. Gave me a fuzzy feeling reading them
| all, idk why.
|
| Have a great day.
| imhoguy wrote:
| Just a hint, which I think works well for some more complicated
| programming project setups: if the project is close to be shelved
| then preserve it in a virtual machine. Make some trivial auth, or
| auto login, put some notes on login/desktop screen, setup some
| IDE inside, check if it builds with no Internet.
|
| Myself I use lightweight Xubuntu destkop for my VMs. I also dump
| hard disks of old Windows machines I am done with and make sure
| they run fine as VMs.
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| Also consider archiving them to the web in a Digital Garden
|
| https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history
|
| The most grounding for me are screenshots and scripts with
| expected output.
| pplonski86 wrote:
| Im doing demo with my projects and record them as videos. They
| are on youtube, so if I want to show it to someone I just send
| link to youtube.
| Rygian wrote:
| Keep a local copy of those. The youtube copies may disappear
| without prior warning.
| alexpotato wrote:
| Reminds of the quote from Adam Savage from Mythbuster:
|
| "The difference between science and screwing around is that in
| science you write things down."
| andai wrote:
| Re: Saving to Web Archive: just a minute ago I found out that one
| of my old projects isn't loading on Wayback Machine because they
| forgot to crawl the JS file. (Odd, not sure how they decide which
| dependencies to crawl...)
|
| I was just beaming about the virtues of shipping web apps as a
| single self-contained HTML file (all CSS and JS in the file,
| rather than linked as external dependencies) for unrelated
| reasons, when I found that my other web app on the Web Archive
| works fine because I had followed this principle!
|
| (So it also works in Wayback's *id_ mode, i.e. shipping the
| original HTML unaltered, because the functionality is independent
| from _where_ the HTML is served.)
| Izkata wrote:
| I copy my entire home directory across to every new computer, so
| I have a lot of random crap laying around in random places that I
| occasionally rediscover by chance. The oldest stuff I have is
| from ~15 years ago, when my hard drive died in the middle of a
| semester in college and I hadn't yet started making backups.
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| I really regret not archiving my projects as a kid. I didn't care
| to save much of anything back then so they got lost to various
| HDD crashes and migrations to other systems.
|
| I started programming at 11 and don't have anything I made before
| I was 19. Mostly video games in C++ and small PHP projects I did
| for money in high school. It's fun looking back at what I have so
| I really wish I had the stuff from way back in the day.
|
| My oldest program of any significance, a console based poker
| game, was lost with Planet Source Code and isn't in any of the
| publicly available archives. I started looking for it maybe 6
| months after the site went down.
| esafak wrote:
| It is ok. Sometimes the memory is better than the reality. How
| good do you think your code really was?
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| Terrible, it's value would be entirely nostalgic.
| thibaut_barrere wrote:
| I did the same as you, and did not manage to keep source code,
| but I kept binaries at least
| (https://github.com/thbar/demomaking) of some demos and games I
| made.
|
| It took a while to find them back on the internet thanks to
| various archiving folks!
| atum47 wrote:
| I once created a simple counter [1]. I used it to remind me of
| eating every two hours. I thought to myself "it's a good counter,
| I'll show it to people" then posted it on HN. People were like
| "that is just a counter, why are you showing us that?" So i kind
| of stop sharing everything, haha.
|
| But my GitHub used to be a replica of my projects folder, i would
| upload everything. I don't do that as much now a days.
|
| 1 - https://github.com/victorqribeiro/simpleCounter
| esafak wrote:
| Or don't. It is so liberating not to have to periodically migrate
| data from one medium and file format to another, and worry about
| corruption. What are you getting out of it? What are you going to
| do with your preserved data once you die; burden the next
| generation with it along with the rest of your junk? Cull data
| every with every migration.
| vinc wrote:
| I start my projects in `~/tmp/<project>` and when I feel like I'm
| getting somewhere with them they graduate to `~/src/<project>`
| and get published on GitHub (and a few mirrors for the most
| important ones). Anything on `~/src` need to be backed up but
| things in `~/tmp` can be lost without missing them.
|
| When I start working on a new feature for a project I create a PR
| on GitHub and document my research and then the implementation
| with screenshots.
|
| I also have a text file on my computer where I write a few lines
| everyday about what I'm doing. From time to time I send it to
| myself by email.
|
| It's relatively simple and low effort but has proven to be very
| helpful many times.
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(page generated 2023-11-12 23:00 UTC)