I Almost Re-invented the wheel
Nine months ago I launched a site called Commute Kit, with 120+ resources for making commutes suck less.
I left it alone for a long time, but about a month ago, with the slow leisure of summer, I decided I wanted to make it better.
For the next few weeks I went about completely re-architecting the site.
I loaded all of the site’s content into a database, and wrote a script to turn that into a fast-loading static website every 24 hours. I spent a whole bunch of other hours honing the design.
Then it occured to me. I was re-inventing the wheel. I had a well-performing website that needed more content, not a poorly performing website with too much content. I was focussing on the wrong things.
One day Commute Kit will definitely need an update, but that day isn’t here. Most of the features I wanted to add, I realized, I could easily put onto the existing site.
It wasn’t time 100% wasted. Rebuilding the site from scratch taught me a lot about what made the site successful, and where it could be better. I also learned a lot about shell scripts, JS, and CSS.
Still, I feel like I fell into the all-too-common trap of putting the cart before the horse, honing the platform at the expense of my real goals — sharing great commuting tools with as many people as possible. Just a thought.
