Slumps

Everyone gets demotivated at times. Everyone falls into an apathetic slump. Especially with personal hobby projects. Sometimes it's because life gets busy and other things take priority. Sometimes it's because you hit a wall or a block and can't figure out what to do next.

I've hit a little bit of a slump with this ProcGen Tabletop project recently. Things were going well and progress was being made. The grammar system is working (will have to explain that later) and walls were generating. I had hacked together a small rectangular building generation too! It was all looking good, so why the slump?

Well, I thought it would be a good idea to make a graphical user interface so I could start turning this little toy project into a usable application. And that led straight to a giant roadblock. Implementing a gui is a large undertaking, and it's not something that excites me. It's more a necessary evil. And the scope of the task is very large and vague. Not knowing how to proceed and not being excited about tackling the problem, means I am in a slump.

So how do we get out of this slump? If the scope is too big, break the problem down into smaller bits that are not as intimidating. And the other thing that helps, is to only do the least amount of work to address one small, specific problem and then build on that afterwards. In my case, I want an interface where I can:

A) Clear the currently generated building and start fresh (ie New Document)

B) Export the current model to a STL file that can be sliced and printed

C) Exit the application.

This sounds simple, and it is. It's meant to be simple and non-threatening and easily tackled, so I can get started. Once I have this functioning, I can then look at what the next small step will be. And after many small steps, this project will slowly start to take shape. 

Wish me luck!