Derek Sivers:
We got two ciders and she patiently waited while I spent 20 minutes reading through it. Pages filled with words about processing family drama, formulating goals, plans for life changes, romantic details, lists of regrets, contemplations, etc.
I was surprised it was all meaningless to me. These pages meant the world to her, but to me they meant no more than any non-secret conversation we’d ever had. It was the same stuff that we all think.
Later, I thought about the stuff I keep secret.
After I read that post, I also wondered the same thing.
My D:\Dev folder on my home PC is filled to the brim with stuff. Little utility projects, half-baked ideas, whole-baked ideas that went nowhere, and so on. A good number of those have respositories on github, and all but very few are public.
Why? Because I don't want anyone to see my half-baked ideas? Because I don't anyone to realize that I start a million things a year and ship damn near none of it? Because I think my code is crap, and don't want anyone to see it or — god forbid — think it's the proper way to do something? Maybe some of these things, probably all of these things.
After I thought about it for a little while, I came to a realization. I can just add a note at the top of my readme.md...
"STOP! This is half-baked. It may never be done. It may never come close. Cloner beware."
Mark the repo public, and be done with it. There's no client stuff up there, nothing NDA'd, no real good reason to not do this. So. I'm gonna do it. Can't do it now, at work; I'll have to remember to do it when I get home.
The funny thing is, as Derek's post from the opening brought to a point, none of this will matter at the end of the day. Maybe, someday, I'll finish something, or maybe someone will finish something for me. Until then, I'll keep working — out in the sun now — only this time, I'll be hidden in the crowd.
And I'm OK with that.