Resisting the lure of feature creep
I have so many ideas for the app that I'm constantly in danger of sleepwalking into the embrace of feature creep. I love development, I love seeing an idea grow into a tangible item, that something I built can take on a life of its own (not literally, I haven't started Skynet yet), but the flip side to that is it's sometimes hard to actually "finish" something before moving onto something new that has piqued my interest.
Today I've started pulling out half finished bits that aren't essential to getting the first version of the app live. In the back of my mind I keep saying "Hey, I need that!", but from a practical standpoint I'm leaning towards trying to keep it as lean as possible so I can just get something shipped!
I started working on some plugin code so that the bit's that I'm removing now can be transitioned to plugins, while this will allow me to keep the code cleaner and compartmentalized, I also feel like I'm going back down the feature creep route. I think I should concentrate on polishing the bits I have and re-introduce the plugin side in a future update, but worry I might end up shipping something so bare that people wont perceive any value to it.
How does everyone else deal with feature creep and do you think it's better to just ship or wait a bit longer to have something a bit more polished?
It all depends.(1) Is product to market fit validated yet (no)? Go lean on the first product releases. (2) Is product to market fit validated yet (yes)? You need a full-featured product in the first release
Thanks, I'm not 100% sure I know what you mean but I think I get the gist.
I think it's not uncommon nowadays to have 'early release' of both games and software. Whether that be early access to a small interested group to help kick the tires and provide feedback or open completely to the public. I would say that if it would help keep up motivation and development by knowing people are interested in and using the app, and core features are there to make it functional and allow people to use it, then I'd release it.
Thanks, that's what I'm leaning towards, there are just so many moving parts to get finished that it can be hard to get any of it ready. I think if I concentrate on getting the core done then at least I can get a feeling of accomplishment, it's quite hard to stay motivated at the moment.